Well here’s a modular layout running session with one of the layouts set up in Hinton Hotel where the LCCA Convention in Omaha is being held. I was able to bring two locomotives I got for Christmas last year to run from my home in Kentucky. This Engine in the video is the 1997 rendition of the Milwaukee Road F3 Diesel. The Electro Motive Divison’s F3 is one of Lionel’s most beloved diesel locomotives of the postwar era. Lionel first introduced the F3 into their product line in their 1948 catalog with two road names the Santa Fe 2333 in the AT&SF’s iconic red, silver, and yellow warbonnet paint scheme and a F3 in the New York Central’s then new twotone grey and white Light ing Stripe paint scheme. Both engines came with a AA lashup with models of the EMD’s F3 Booster or BUnits appearing in 1950 for Lionel’s 50th anniversary. During that time Lionel had introduced two more F3s in two additional road names Western Pacific in their silver and orange paint scheme used for the California Zephyr passenger train between San Francisco to Chicago and the Southern Railway’s Green and White passenger paint scheme. In the 50s Lionel introduced additional paint schemes for the Frisco and MKT’s jointly operated Texas Special Passenger train, the blue and grey of the Wabash Railroad, the B&O’s blue, yellow, and black paint scheme, the Denver & Rio Grande, Illinois Central, New Haven, Canadian Pacific, and several paint samples for unproduced F3s that never made it into the Postwar era from paint schemes of the Kansas City Southern, the Union Pacific’s paint scheme which is still used today, Southern Pacific’s Black Widow paint scheme, the Cotton Belt’s Southern Pacific’s Daylight paint scheme, and two or three more paint schemes that never saw use on Lionel’s production of F3 A Units and B Units.

Among the official production paint schemes that Lionel produced during the 1950s for the F3 Line up was the Chicago, St.Paul, and Pacific better known as the Milwaukee Road. The F3 that would wear this paint scheme was given number 2378 and came with a powered A Unit and a nonpowered B Unit and was only produced in 1956 alongside the 2368 Baltimore & Ohio F3 with a A and B combination. The paint scheme used for the 2378 was the earlier paint scheme that Milwaukee Road used in the 40s before most of their passenger diesels including the F Units were repainted into the later orange, red, and black paint scheme. This earlier paint scheme introduced in the late 1930s and 1940s to the mid50s was grey with a lightning stripe design with the stripe being two different shades of orange with a winged harold that said The Milwaukee Road used on the front of the noses of the railroad’s new EMD E units with the E6s and the EMD FT diesels produced during WW2 due to wartime restrictions. After the war the railroad bought from EMD newer F units for freight service to replace their aging steam locomotives. The passenger paint scheme and the freight paint scheme used for the railroad’s earlier passenger and freight diesels, but shared the grey lightning stripe design with the stripe being orange.

This paint scheme won’t reappear on a Lionel F3 until the 1970s after General Mills took over and operated Lionel. It did use the postwar colors, body, chassis, and gave added detail to the locomotive to look protypical for the time frame. Then in the 1990s Lionel was back on its game introducing new technology, sounds, remote control, new locomotives, cars, and accessories for their customers. In 1997 the same time the Postwar Celebration was created to revive Postwar Lionel trains with the newest technologies and electronics Lionel brought back the grey and orange Milwaukee Road F3 with not only MagnaTraction, but also the new Railsound 2, Crew talk, added detail similar to the Santa Fe and NYC 2333 F3s, working lights, crew figures in the cab, and additional features. However, Lionel chose not to use the 2378 number instead going for a prototypical number worn by a Milwaukee Road F3. Number 75 A was selected and came with a AB lashup with a additional nonpowered A Unit and to go with the 75A were 15 in aluminum passenger cars in the design of the Milwaukee Road’s Olympian Hiawatha with a sky top observation car in the set.

I’m still looking for the NonPowered A Unit and the Passenger cars and hopefully I can find them. One day.