The Saturday Evening Post History Minute: The Golden Age of Streamliners

In the 1960’s I worked as a Telegrapher in Northern Idaho for the Milwaukee Railroad (AKA: Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad). The picture of the streamlined class A steam locomotive on your magazine brought back memories. The steam age was gone when I worked there but they had electric locomotive that operated out of Avery, Idaho, where I worked, going East over the Rocky Mountains into Montana. Some of these electrics were called Little Joes because they were originally built by GE for export to Russia during the Stalin years but the order was cancelled when the cold war broke out. So they were sold to the Milwaukee RR. They were also used to cross the Cascades in Washington State. They quit opeerating the electic locomotives in the early 1970s and the Milwaukee no longer operates in this part of the country.