Harlowton was made a division point of the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, more commonly known as the Milwaukee Road, with switching yards and an engine roundhouse and workshops. Much of that infrastructure, though abandoned by the Milwaukee Road in 1980, survives, with the area surrounding the old depot having been turned into the Milwaukee Depot Museum. On the grounds of the museum are several pieces of rolling stock, a couple of speeders, a truly unique little electric switching engine which ran off an extension cord and a collection of farm machinery where the railway yard once stood.
One of the most interesting items on display is this little electrically driven switching engine, known by the yard men as the
Shop Goat. Above all, what makes this little locomotive unusual is the fact that it receives its 220 volt DC power through an extension cord! Highly unusual, not to mention highly inconvenient. We suspect that the switchmen had come up with an ingenious method of handling the cord in order to make the engine somewhat mobile. The engine, branded X3800, was one of two built by the Milwaukee shops in Deer Lodge and worked in the Deer Lodge yards, not the Harlowton yards.
X3800 is listed in the
Railway Preservation Index.
A plaque at the locomotive reads as follows:
The X3800 "Shop Goat"
There were two shop goats built. The first was an open air [no cab] with traction motors from the 600V DC trolley system that ran from Bozeman, Mt to the Gallatin Gate Way.
This unique "little" engine was one of the two built in about 1952 by Milwaukee personnel at Deer Lodge, Montana . The X3800 was built using trucks from a diesel locomotive, motors from a streetcar and powered by a 220V D.C. extension cord. This one was used for switching in the Deer Lodge Yards.
The X3800 was donated for exhibit by Donald Redmond of Bozeman, Montana.