The Milwaukee Road Quills, Class EP-3

The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific, commonly known as simply the Milwaukee Road, is best remembered for its Hiawatha passenger trains and electrified main line known as the Pacific Extension. The fact that the great railroad is no longer with us is not as disheartening as knowing how and why its end came about. Its loyal and hardworking employees through the end were sadly cheated by upper management, which made a series of dumbfounding decisions beginning in the 1970s that ultimately ended in the railroad being sold to a rival in 1985.

With its web of branch lines in the Midwest and several other railroads fighting for the same amount of traffic that could no longer support so many railroads, the Milwaukee Road found itself in a hopeless situation on the eastern half of its system (and it was unable, along with the other railroads, to abandon most of these unprofitable lines because government regulations did not allow for such until the 1980 introduction of the Staggers Act which deregulated the entire industry).

However, all was not lost for the Milwaukee. Its savior, for the time being, was its Pacific Extension. Even as the company’s management began to make increasingly idiotic decisions during the 1970s (such as scrapping the electrification just as the oil embargo hit) and defer maintenance across the entire system, their main line to the Pacific Northwest continued to earn the company a healthy profit.

Sadly, the company’s fate was sealed when, in another short lapse of vision, management decided to shutdown its electrification in 1974 just as oil prices skyrocketed (a study done at the time found that if left in place the electrified lines would have saved, in 1970’s dollars, $64 million annually). Then, in the late 1970s to scrap the entire system west of Miles City, Montana, some 1,100 miles of track! While the results of this and other abandonment projects on the eastern side of the system worked in cutting costs the now much smaller railroad, which no longer competed for the lucrative traffic entering the Port of Seattle (which today is booming), made for a prime merger target and in 1985 the Soo Line Railroad purchased the company. With the purchase thus closed the book on one of our country’s most interesting and dynamic railroads.

A disturbing side note in the Milwaukee’s decline is the report that some Burlington Northern officials knew the railroad was going to file for bankruptcy even before its own people did. Was corruption and/or conspiracy involved? That is impossible to verify, of course, but with what transpired to the Milwaukee Road in the 1970s (nothing the railroad did in the 1970s made sense from a basic business standpoint) it certainly makes one wonder.

The Milwaukee’s EP-3 electric locomotives, of which the railroad wound up with 10 of the units, derived their name “Quills” from the type of drives they employed, which reduced the weight sitting directly above the axles. Overall the EP-3 featured a 2-C-1+1-C-2 wheel arrangement and was rated at over 3,300 hp with six 566 hp traction motors mounted over each driving axle (the locomotives were also nearly identical to the successful New Haven motors of similar design). Externally the Quills were similar to the GE/Alco-built boxcabs as they featured a simple boxy carbody design.

Numbered E6 through E15 the EP-3 Quills were well liked by the crews that operated them as they provided fabulous pulling power and starting tractive effort (for one thing they were not prone to slippage like the EP-1 boxcabs). However, aside from these features the EP-3s were a flawed design. Built too lightly and rigidly for the stresses of heavy and circuitous operation in mountainous territory the Quills were constantly breaking or cracking frames, axles, or wheels (not to mention being derailment prone). An attempt to help alleviate the problem by Baldwin/Westinghouse by splitting the locomotives in two providing an articulated setup likewise proved futile (this was only attempted on one locomotive per the Milwaukee’s belief that the idea would probably not work).

In the end the Milwaukee Road gave up on the locomotives and opted not to overhaul the Quills in the late 1940s as it did the rest of its motors. Beginning in 1952, as the reliable and efficient GE Little Joes entered service the EP-3s were slowly retired until all ten were scrapped and off of the roster by 1957.

For more reading on the Milwaukee Road and you might want to consider The Milwaukee Road from Tom Murray. Of course, being that the Milwaukee is a legend in the ranks of fallen flags, hundreds of publications (many quite good) have been written about it over the years detailing various subjects. However, this book is a superb publication and will at least give you a general overview and history of the CMStP&P (and it is filled with many, excellent, historical and colorful photographs) at which point you can decide if you are interested in further books of study on the railroad. Even if you are a historian and/or fan of the Milwaukee and have not seen this book I'm sure you will enjoy it!

And, for more reading about the Milwaukee Road Quills and other electrics the railroad operated consider Electric Locomotives from Brian Solomon. Not only does the book give a nice overview about the Milwaukee Road's electrified operations it also covers American electric locomotive technology in general. If you're interested in perhaps purchasing these books please visit The Railroad Diamond by clicking the tab in the menu to your left marked "TRD Store".