The Hiawatha story - A book review for American Railroad Fans
No, not the poem, or Native American story of 1600 or so, but a book about the group of trains that was named after her. This paperback horizontal A4 format book, available from Amason.co.uk, and is a reprint of the 1970’s book, by Jim Scibbins, who was a Milwaukee Road RR employee.
I have had an interest in this Railroad for a while, and especially the train services; the ‘Hiawatha’ name is still used by Amtrak and that only runs the original route of about 86 miles in 90 minutes. The original schedule was for virtually the same speed as the LNER Coronation service, and the trains were regularly exceeding 100 mph, and there is a record of 125mph.
The Milwaukee Road railroad started in 1935 a series of trains starting with a Chicago to Minneapolis St Paul (the Twin Cities) express that was in competition with two other railroads: this book is about them, and the other services that grew from them.
It is very comprehensive book of 266 pages with plenty of photographs of both the steam and diesel motive power, and the coaches that were virtually all built by the railroad workshops themselves, the exceptions being the virtually all glass round ended observation cars, which were built in two forms.
The steam locomotives were specially built for the service and were streamlined form from the start, with for the ancillary service locos being rebuilt with streamlining by the railroad, and looked superb in their orange and maroon colors that extended down the whole train.
The first steam loco design was a large 4 4 2 Atlantic, class A and final design was the 4 6 4 class F7 which were well known for high speed. The replacement diesels were equally good looking time as well, and carried forward the coluor scheme.
The ‘Hiawatha’ trains extended eventually to the West Coast of America, and these long distance trains needed totally different rolling stock to the shorter distance ones, and these coaches are also described and illustrated. The ’Olympian Hi’ trains were also powered, for part of the distance, with the longest two sections of electric power in the USA. Diesels eventually took over when the electric infrastructure needed renewal.
Alas air travel, and the motor car took most of their traffic, and all that is left is a pale shadow, but this book brings it back; in the USA it is $29.95 here from Amazon is it £16.65 – which is in my opinion is good value. The railroad has disappeared, but books like this tell of some of its history.
Here is a colour print from the web, of the final class of steam locomotives for the ‘Hiawatha’ services. My apologies to not crediting the owner of it but I do not know who they are – Thank you for the print. Alas they has for the time, fancy silicone steel boilers, something was wrong with the mix and they cracked - with such a small class of locomotives (only 6) that spelt the end, with the additional emphasis of diesles they were all scrapped.
Yours Peter.
No, not the poem, or Native American story of 1600 or so, but a book about the group of trains that was named after her. This paperback horizontal A4 format book, available from Amason.co.uk, and is a reprint of the 1970’s book, by Jim Scibbins, who was a Milwaukee Road RR employee.
I have had an interest in this Railroad for a while, and especially the train services; the ‘Hiawatha’ name is still used by Amtrak and that only runs the original route of about 86 miles in 90 minutes. The original schedule was for virtually the same speed as the LNER Coronation service, and the trains were regularly exceeding 100 mph, and there is a record of 125mph.
The Milwaukee Road railroad started in 1935 a series of trains starting with a Chicago to Minneapolis St Paul (the Twin Cities) express that was in competition with two other railroads: this book is about them, and the other services that grew from them.
It is very comprehensive book of 266 pages with plenty of photographs of both the steam and diesel motive power, and the coaches that were virtually all built by the railroad workshops themselves, the exceptions being the virtually all glass round ended observation cars, which were built in two forms.
The steam locomotives were specially built for the service and were streamlined form from the start, with for the ancillary service locos being rebuilt with streamlining by the railroad, and looked superb in their orange and maroon colors that extended down the whole train.
The first steam loco design was a large 4 4 2 Atlantic, class A and final design was the 4 6 4 class F7 which were well known for high speed. The replacement diesels were equally good looking time as well, and carried forward the coluor scheme.
The ‘Hiawatha’ trains extended eventually to the West Coast of America, and these long distance trains needed totally different rolling stock to the shorter distance ones, and these coaches are also described and illustrated. The ’Olympian Hi’ trains were also powered, for part of the distance, with the longest two sections of electric power in the USA. Diesels eventually took over when the electric infrastructure needed renewal.
Alas air travel, and the motor car took most of their traffic, and all that is left is a pale shadow, but this book brings it back; in the USA it is $29.95 here from Amazon is it £16.65 – which is in my opinion is good value. The railroad has disappeared, but books like this tell of some of its history.
Here is a colour print from the web, of the final class of steam locomotives for the ‘Hiawatha’ services. My apologies to not crediting the owner of it but I do not know who they are – Thank you for the print. Alas they has for the time, fancy silicone steel boilers, something was wrong with the mix and they cracked - with such a small class of locomotives (only 6) that spelt the end, with the additional emphasis of diesles they were all scrapped.
Yours Peter.
