Steam & Excursion > MILW 4-8-4 #214 ('46)

MILW 4-8-4 #214 on May 22, 1946 @ La Crosse, WI by K. Corn.

---

Great cross low lighting.  Dirty, in service engine. No fan trip look. Love it!

It should have some flags, whitewalls and Spirit of La Crosse.  ;)

Is this engine mostly in freight or passenger service at this point?

Thanks for this photo since I'm a Milwaukee fan.    Since built and delivered in 1938, the engines both have their original boiler fronts.  They do have the replacement larger number board though that came probably in the early forties.   There were a total of forty of these Baldwin S-2 4-8-4s.  Thirty showed up on the railroad in 1938, and another batch of ten, in 1940.  As they needed boiler work, they apparently had their original boiler fronts replaced with ones that matched the one on the currently running Alco S-3 class 4-8-4 # 261.  Maybe It must have been easier to replace flues with the new style fronts.  I was told by a friend that only one S-3 class loco escaped getting the new flat front, #260.  Locomotives used on the fast track from Chicago / Bennsenville, to Minneapolis / St.Paul got the red osillating emergency light .  Those used on the single track main out to Harlotown, Montana seemed to go without the red lights.  One interesting thing about the S-2s.  Later in life, several of them developed boiler leaks that warranted repairs, or replacement.   Baldwin at whatever late date it was, no longer was able to replace the boilers, so the Milwaukee had new ones made by ALCO, and they were all welded like the ones on the ALCO built S-3s. 
    Both S-2 and S-3 class engines hauled passengers when needed, but mostly freight.  The S-2s were apparently too big to fit in Chicago's Union station, but the S-3s fit.

Please keep these photos coming.

Craig Hanson
Vay, Idaho

 

 

Fantastic! My favorite locomotives. Love the S2. Not familiar with that photographer, but he grabbed a beautiful shot of these two.

Thanks for posting!

Mike