Nostalgia & History > Milwaukee Road Steam Rotary

Before I actually went to work for the Milwaukee Road in Aberdeen SD, I had a pass to enter Milwaukee property to take pictures. Got it from the Chief Dispatcher in Aberdeen, a gentleman by the name of Teske (don't remember his first name - might have been Howard).

Sitting out in the weeks in Aberdeen was this steam powered rotary snow plow. Don't have a clue how long it had been since last used, but later this year same year, much of it had been disassembled in place (somewhere, I've got black and whites of some of that).

Anyway, these shots are from January, 1976.

Don Hall
Yreka, CA

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This is the heater car that went along for the ride. Had a steam generator unit installed inside the tender body.

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Here's a shot of the front of the plow. Had to do a little constrast stretching to get it to show up.

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Here's a shot of part pf the backhead in the rotary cab.

If these are too dark, let me know and I'll lighten them up some more. The day I get my scanner to synch up with my monitor will be a happy day and these are brighter in Photoshop then they are when I view them on Trainorders. Curious but confounding.

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odub Wrote:
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> Here's a shot of part pf the backhead in the
> rotary cab.

Interesting that the fireman on this oil burner sat on the right. Perhaps to be better able to see handsignals from the person in the cab at the front.

Or is it possible that this negative got reversed?

No, I don't believe that it's reversed. My memory tells me this was shot from the right side of the rotary. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Here's another MILW Rotary - X900202 - also taken at Aberdeen, but on May 8, 1975. I can't find a photo, but at least one of the steam rotaries scrapped at Aberdeen had a tender from a Hiawatha Class A 4-4-2. It had the distinctive six-wheel leading and four-wheel trailing truck.

Jim Woodward
Cottage Grove, MN
resident of Aberdeen, SD
7/74 - 7/79

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Dont forget, 2 rotarys were converted, to Catenary, then eventually Diesel Electric. Bolth are preserved. UP bought one to, but only kept it for a few years, and was retired and is now in oregon, the other ARR bought, and is now displayed up there.
Ill check my records later to see what the numbers were of the converted ones, and which were scrapped.

The 1977 - 1978 winter was the toughest one I spent at Aberdeen. That was the year the Elm River (conduit for the city water supply) froze and Aberdeen came close to running out of water.

Here's Rotary X900215, which likely worked much of its career somewhere west of Harlowton, resting between jobs at the Aberdeen yard in January 1978.

Jim W.

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