Draft:Milwaukee Road 1613

The Milwaukee Road 1613, also known as MILW 1613, was an EMD SW1 built in March of 1940. Milwaukee Road only had 25 SW1 units while in operation. MILW 1613 was EMD Serial Number 01039. After 39 Years at Milwaukee the locomotive was sold to Cargill due to Milwaukee downsizing after it's third bankruptcy. It is unknown when Cargill sold the locomotive to the Indiana Transportation Museum but the first record is from 2007. The locomotive sat for many years in the yard being moved around and having parts taken off. In 2015 Thomas Harleman began repainting the locomotive. In July of 2016 the locomotive was done being painted. On July 4, 2018, Milwaukee Road 1613 was scrapped.

Revenue service and retirement (1940-1979)
Built by Electo-Motive Diesel in March of 1940 at the La Grange, IL Plant, MILW 1613 was originally operated by Milwaukee Road. The locomotive, weighing 196,000 lb, is rated at 600 hp and a maximum speed of 65 mph. It operated on the railroad mostly switching passenger and freight cars around the Milwaukee Yards. It is unknown what yards the locomotive worked at. In 1959 Milwaukee went though and renumbered all of their units. They renumbered all their SW1 units from the 1600 number set to the 900 number set and 1613 became 963. And then again in 1973 Milwaukee renumbered their units and the locomotive got the final number of 867 (This is speculation based on the way Milwaukee was renumbering their locomotives). In July of 1975, Milwaukee Road put out a locomotive manual that detailed all the specification of their locomotive fleet. MILW 867 weighed in at 201,800 lbs, and had a tractive effort of 50,450 lbs at 25% adhesion. In January of 1979, MILW 867 was retired. The reason behind the retirement was due to downsizing at Milwaukee road after they had filed their third bankruptcy. The downsize left Milwaukee Road at a third of the size that it was in 1977. The locomotive was then sold to Cargill Incorporated on June 21, 1979 in an Unknown Condition.

Cargill Service (1979-Unknown)
There is no information or records of what the locomotive did after 1979. Speculation is that the unit was still used as a switcher at one of the Cargill Plants on the JK Line. The JK Line was downsized in 2004 removing tracks between Monterey, IN and North Judson, IN.

Storage by Indiana Transportation Museum (Unknown-2018)
It is unknown when ITM acquired MILW 1613 but the first picture of the locomotive was in 2007. It is unknown the condition that ITM received the locomotive in when it was donated. The Locomotive was painted by Cargill in White and Green. The locomotive sat due to mechanical issues with the locomotive and was used for parts for Monon 50.

Restoration by Thomas Harleman
Beginning in May 2015, Thomas Harleman started to restore the paint on MILW 1613. While sanding down the old paint he found the original Milwaukee Road Logo, original number on the cab and the second number on the Hood Cowl. Thomas Harleman used the original Logo and number to make stencils to help make the locomotive look as close to original as possible. It took months of testing paint samples to find the correct combinations to use to make the locomotive look correct. After months of sanding, prep work and painting the locomotive was finished July 2016.

Eviction and Scrap
In February 2017, Noblesville, IN finalized a plan to tear out 9 miles of track to install a greenway. This was followed by an eviction notice to Indiana Transportation Museum giving them 12 months to move out. In May 2018, ITM stated that Noblesville was trying to steal the locomotives in the yard at Forest Park. ITM decided to start scrapping unusable rolling stock and locomotives. On July 4, 2018, ITM scrapped Milwaukee 1613 for the raw materials in the locomotive.