HO Milwaukee Road E 70 Little Joe leading U36C & U33C U Boats on Rocky Mountain Division.

This video is loosely based on Milwaukee Road material and sights. I am not foremost a Milwaukee Road modeler, but I have great admiration for its fleet of electric locomotives and how inventively and uniquely they run them over the Rocky Mountain Division. The layout does not portray that region of country, nor the Milwaukee Road tracks. Therefore there is no cantenary system in place.


So, having said that, rivet counters, don't jump the gun and make very fool of yourself to make an obvious comment.

Moving on.

This is the first test run in the layout for all of this locomotives after digital (DCC) and sound installs. I painted the Little Joe 15 years ago. It ran as DC model for very few times. Then, it was boxed for 13 years. I kept her waiting to be paired w/ Milwaukee short tank SD40/2, but I got side tracked and missed few releases of them. Also, most of SD40/2 releases were in billboard or Hiawatha herald schemes, which are past the Little Joe era. I which model makers would make more material of that era. Finally, I decided to pair it with Atlas U33C & U36C models. Although not usually the assigned motive power for Rocky Mountain Division, they showed up there occasionally. These Atlas models can be purchased very cheap and have very good drive system. The downfall of these models is that they require a lot of detailing and some shell modifications to look like the Milwaukee prototype. During last week I added details to make them "basic" Milwaukee Road looking. I plan to work on later date to make them very prototypical by modifying their shells.

In Atlas U Boats, first I milled some of front chassis weight to make see thru cabins. Once, some minimum of Milwaukee detailing on them, I move to install DCC in all them including the Little Joe. Out of all 4 locomotive, 3 received sound decoders. One of U33C that runs in the middle of U Boat consist got a non sound NEC decoder.

The electric E70 Little Joe received a Loksound V5 with Auscision class 86 sound file. That will be the chosen starting file that later will be heavily modified by Lokprogrammer. Please, do not asked me how. There are videos that explain how to modify files out there. As far as electric hardware for LJ, it also received a TCS KA-1 keep alive and for the time being, 2 iPhone speakers. Initially, I planned to install a 1 1/4 in Superbass Soundtraxx speaker with enclosure, but it proved to not be possible because of space and shape inside the shell. Later, I will custom build a large enclosure that can take 2 large sugar cube speakers. Why, am I going extra length to custom build the speaker system? It is because, the "prime mover" sound slot has a low volume sound of traction motors. And I already max out the volume of this sound slot. The other reason is to overcome the acoustic properties of shell. It has open etched grills on both sides and between the cabs. So, the sound of a speaker inside the shell just dissipates thru them. It does not reverberates thru it. So the volume efficiency is low. That is why the need of a large custom designed speaker enclosure.

The U36C has a 21 pin Loksound Select on TCS Kato like board integrated with KA, too. It has 2 iPhone speakers. And it sounds loud and clear.One of U33C has a Tsunami T1000 with 2 speakers set up. Later I will install a LS V5 in the U36C that allows me to custom modify to E bell and ramp up the sound of prime mover when going up the hill.About train composition. It is loosely based on freight material that Milwaukee used on main line on Rocky Mountain Division. Slowly, I will gather further freight material more specific for that line. Enjoy the video.