100 years ago: Milwaukee Railroad touts electric locomotives

From our archives, 100 years ago

A gorgeously illustrated ad for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway (The Milwaukee Road) was headlined, “The World’s Mightiest Locomotive Draws ‘The Olympian’ and ‘The Columbian’ Over the Rockies.”

The Milwaukee Road was touting the fact that it was using new, modern electric locomotives to pull their trains over the Rockies.

“World supremacy in locomotives is now held by the mighty electrics of the Milwaukee that draw the superb all-steel trains over the electrified mountain divisions,” said the advertisement.

Besides the fact that they required no coal or water, they had many other advantages.

“Their immense power sends them through heaviest snow drifts,” said the ad. “… Motors when reversed on down grades become generators and return to substations from 25 to 52 percent of power used in climbing — keep the speed of the train under control — (and) insure maximum safety.”

Not only that, but these locomotives were “smokeless, noiseless, dirtless and ‘jerkless.’”