It took a lot of mechanical muscle to pull the Milwaukee Road's long, heavy passenger and freight trains over the rugged Rocky Mountains and tough Bitterroot Range. The Milwaukee Road used a great variety of powerful locomotives to do the job. In 1923 the railroad had 2,110 steam engines. Diesel locomotives started replacing the older steam engines in 1941.
Ten years later, the Milwaukee had 232 diesels, 838 steam locomotives and 116 electric engines. The railrod ran its last steam engine in 1957. The last of the electric locomotives ended service in 1974. At the height of Milwaukee diesel ownership in 1975, the railroad had 807 diesel locomotives in service.
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Horsepower & Tractive Effort
Horsepower measures a locomotive's ability to accelerate and to pull a train. Total pulling power, however, is determined by "tractive effort" as well as "horsepower".
"Tractive effort" is a measure of how much pulling force a locomotive can exert. The basis for measuring horsepower for steam engines varies so greatly, railroads seldom use it when comparing locomotives.
As the graph below illustrates, the Milwaukee Road's electric locomotives provided a great boost in tractive effort over its steam engines and easily held their own against the newer diesel engines.
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