The Milwaukee Road Hiawatha fleet stands out among mid-century passenger operators.
Of all the major U.S. railroads that fielded impressive fleets of passenger trains between the end of World War I in 1918 and the arrival of Amtrak in 1971, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific — more commonly known as the Milwaukee Road — stood out in one significant aspect: its home-built passenger cars.
Think about this. The birth of the streamliner era in 1934 prompted nearly all major railroads to modernize their fleets of passenger rolling stock. Pullman-Standard and the fledgling new Budd Co. hit it big time fulfilling huge new orders, a trend these companies enjoyed from the Depression into the early 1950s as railroads jumped on the streamliner bandwagon.
Ah, but there was one major exception: Milwaukee Road Hiawatha fleet. With some minor exceptions noted here, the railroad turned to its famous Milwaukee Shops. The sprawling complex immediately southwest of downtown Milwaukee was famous for being able to produce anything the railroad needed, from its signature chevron switch stands to its thousands of homebuilt freight cars and cabooses to its huge fleet of passenger cars.
Especially impressive was the Milwaukee’s streamliner-era passenger rolling stock built between 1934 and 1948. When the Milwaukee decided to enter the streamliner era, the frugal but industrious carrier called upon its shop forces. The result of its first batch of cars — 40 coaches, 2 tap-cafe cars, 2 parlor cars, and 2 parlor observation cars — yielded the Hiawatha, introduced in 1935 serving Chicago, Milwaukee, and the Twin Cities. The train was wildly successful, and in 1936 a connecting North Woods section was added between New Lisbon and Woodruff, Wis.
At about the same time, Milwaukee Shops built 26 more cars for Hiawatha service to accommodate the growth of the popular new train and expanding frequency, with a second Hiawatha each way between Chicago and the Twin Cities. At this point the trains were renamed Morning Hiawatha and Afternoon Hiawatha. The earlier Hiawatha cars were used to re-equip non-Hiawatha runs such as the Chicago-Upper Michigan Chippewa and the Chicago-Madison Varsity.
The Milwaukee Road Hiawatha fleet grew to include the Midwest Hiawatha (Chicago-Sioux Falls, S.D.-Omaha), the Chippewa-Hiawatha (the use of a hyphen in that name remains elusive), and the Olympian Hiawatha (Chicago-Seattle/Tacoma). Meanwhile, the shops continued to churn out new rolling stock for other trains such as the Pioneer Limited (Chicago-Twin Cities) and the Marquette (Chicago-Madison-Sioux Falls).
By 1949, Milwaukee Shops had constructed nearly 700 cars for passenger service.
Not that the Shops built everything. In 1948 the Milwaukee reached out to Pullman-Standard for a fleet of lightweight sleepers, full-length dome-lounges, and sleeper-lounge Skytop observation cars. The observation cars were signature to the Milwaukee’s passenger fleet, and featured a variety of styles, most notably those Skytop observation cars. Another signature for Shops-built cars between 1937 and 1942 were ribbed sides, which strengthened the cars while reducing weight.
The 1948 Shops-built cars lasted into the Amtrak era until the new passenger railroad could begin re-equipping its trains with its own cars, underscoring the quality of the Milwaukee’s passenger-car fleet.
Examples of some of these cars can be seen in my new book, My Milwaukee Road, published by my own company, White River Junction Productions, P.O. Box 129, Lee, IL 60530.
