While tripping merrily through the mail, Alec Cameron was overheard
 AC> Yup. There is a lot of misunderstanding about loco performance. The
 AC> diesels are ahead of steamers because-
I love steam as much as the next guy, but........
 AC> * steamers are having to stop to refuel and to be cleaned. No way, can
 AC> these be available for long hours. The availability hence the miles per
 AC> week for a diesel, is probably better than double that for steamers.
This point alone is what sold the "hometown" Milwaukee Road on Diesels.
When they bought "famous 15" (an EMD 4000HP E-6 A-A pair) in 1941, they 
assigned her to the "Morning Hiawatha", the "flagship" of the Milwaukee Road 
fleet, running between Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
The service was regularly handled by 6 streamlined F-7 Hudsons (4-6-4, or 
2-C-2 for our friends across the water).
Normal procedure on the Hudsons (called "Baltics" on the Milwaukee Road)
was to run a locomotive Chicago to the Twin Cities One day, and return
the next.  (i.e., 425 miles every 24 hours)
15 usually left chicago at 9:00 PM every evening with the "fast mail",
arriving in Minneapolis at 6:15 AM.  This was with anywhere from 15 to
30 heavyweight baggage & mail cars, and numerous time consuming stops.
She was then given an hour and a half to "turn around", leaving Minneapolis
with the "Morning Hi", usually around 15 streamlined cars, at 7:45, running 
the 425 miles back to Chicago in 6 hours, 50 minutes, (62mph start to stop 
average, including 7 regular intermediate stops).  This run included a 
stretch 
from Sparta to Portage Wisconsin (78.3 miles) at 81 mph start to stop, 
and the 85 Miles from  Milwaukee to Chicago in 70 minutes.  To achive 
these times, considerable stretches of the run were in excess of 100 mph.
She did this every day, 365 days a year, throughout all of WWII and after,
until she was replaced by E-7's in 1949.  Service on both trains in the
"opposite" direction was handled by No.14, a pair of Alco DL-109's, which
while they performed well, were nowhere near as reliable, hence we were
never afforded the sight of PA-1's in Wisconsin :-(.
Show me a steam locomotive that could do that.
In 1946 the "road" purchased Fairbanks-Morse "Erie-builts" for the new
"Olympian Hiawatha", which ran Chicago to Seattle-Tacoma, over 2000 miles
in 45 hours.  The same locomotive was regularly assigned to the same set 
of cars for every round trip, and ran almost the entire run (they were
based out of Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Chicago the "Oly" was pulled
by E-7's).  Steam locomotives on the predecessor "Pioneer Limited" had
to be changed at every division point.
Don
... My other car is a Pullman
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