On the Electric Boxcabs Continuation Page 1:   ELECTRIC BOXCABS - Part 2, with

On the Electric Boxcabs (Survivors) Continuation Page 2:

On the Electric Boxcabs (Survivors) Continuation Page 3:

Still on Continuation Page 5:
  ODD BOXCABS

FLASH! - Old Number One survives!  GE #1 of 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition fame is intact in her last running condition at the Museum of Transport in St. Louis and, thanks to New Haven buff (and S gauger) Dennis Conway out L. A. way, here she is as she looked in NH service ca. 1900 and as she sits in St. Louis:

Three images courtesy of D. Conway

Now, to the history, provided by Dennis (and edited by me).  It was purchased from GE (sn #1437) by the Manuafacturer's Railroad of New Haven, Connecticut (later an NHRR subsidiary) that same year and almost immediately put to work on River Street in New Haven hauling freight, lettered as MRR #1 (soon re-lettered as NYNH&H No. 1).

In 1901, #1 was returned to GE in Schenectady for rebulding.  It received a nearly-all-new understructure with GE-51A motors and then was rated at 15 tons.  It was given new sn #1607, and listed as type LS-209E.

It is still in its last working physical incarnation as modified by the Joe Cushing RR of Fitchburg, Massachusets, in 1905 (slots in bonnets and changed windows for improved vision, etc.)  It has been repainted approximately as GE decorated it in 1893.  The museum plans to someday restore it to it's original GE appearance specifications.

Having overloaded this page, I am continuing the history of GE #1 on the Electric Boxcabs continuation page 1.

At the Musée Ferroviare Canadien/Canadian RR Museum in St. Constant (Delson), Québec, Canada (along with 1929 CNR #77 and 1937 CP #7000 diesel boxcabs), one of the original five Montréal-Deux-Montagnes (Two Mountains) line electric boxcabs is preserved.  Originally CNoR #601, built by GE in 1914, this electric locomotive pulled the first passenger train through the Mount Royal Tunnel, Montréal on 21 Oct 18 and the last regularly scheduled train at 25Kv AC in Jun 95.  It was renumbered to CN #9101 in Nov 49 and then to CN #101 in Feb 69 {when did she become #6711?}.  #6711 and her five sister locomotives were originally designed to haul long distance and commuter trains through the mile-and-a-half long Mount Royal Tunnel for the Canadian Northern Railway; a rôle that was further expanded during the Second World War with the opening of Central Station in 1943.  #6711 was extensively modified in 1954, 1969, and 1991.&bbsp;   I was up at Montréal on 25 Jul 2002; more will follow!

(photo and information from Musée Ferroviare Canadien site - all rights reserved.).

(08 Jul 2002 - #6711 was recently repainted and is just gorgeous!)

There were (and even are) jillions and zillions of other boxcab electrics; the Pennsy specialized in them and the Great Northern, Milwaukee Road, New Haven, and Virginian weren't far behind.  Nothing will ever top the Pennsy's FF1 "Big Liz" #3931 of 1917, a jack-shaft, side-rodded, 1-C+C-1 (2-6-6-2), single-unit monster weighing in at 516,000 pounds and stretching a full 76½' long!  Coverage of her has been moved to a PRR boxcab page, as has coverage of seven (7) giant Class Y1 2-C+C-2 electric boxcabs (plus a Y-1a) the Pennsy bought from GN's Cascade Mountain service, reclassifying them as FF2.

Speaking of Pennsy boxcab electrics, it all began with three experimental electrics to test out the concept for the electrification of the Main Line from Philadelphia to New York; this coverage has also been moved to the Pennsy Boxcab page.

Oregon had some big B-B+B-B electric freight motors cobbered up from two B-B interurban chassis's each; at least one was a boxcab and ended up with a hood sister in the Chicago area; I just saw pictures of it and fell in love (even if it IS a juice-jack)!

If you like electric boxcabs, Clint Chamberlin has a whole page full!  Whoa - them is boxcabs what is boxcabs!  Also, there was a great feature on the twilight of "The King of the Rails", the Milwaukee Road's huge GE E-34, E-50a, and E-74 in the July 1973 TRAINS, pp. 29-38; quite literally the "End of Wire".

NYC S-Motors - the New York Central had what I'd term an "Honorary Boxcab", their classic old S-motor, immortalized by Lionel in tinplate.  Because the info. exceeded the capacity of this page, I've moved it to Electric Boxcab Survivors page 3.

I almost overlooked the early electric box motor #4 that puttered around the Brooklyn waterfront from 1907 to at least 1957 or later on the South Brooklyn Railway (see the BEDT and Rail-Marine pages for more on this and those waterfront operations.  It was built locally by the Brooklyn Heights Railroad Company and appears to have third rail shoes as well as front and rear poles.

Now, just for a teaser, here is the gigantic Virginian 642-ton 3(1-D-1) #100 set:

(photo from TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA #15)
[click on thumbnailed picture for somewhat larger image]

Here be monsters (at work):   (29 Jul 08)

(photo from TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA #15)
[click on thumbnailed picture for somewhat larger image]

The French have restored some really big electric boxcabs (and other locos) down in Savoy (near the Swiss and Italian borders); take a look at APMFS (l'Association pour la Préservation du Matériel Ferroviaire Savoyard - the Association for the Preservation of Railroad Equipment of Savoy - seulement en Français); note also the immense roundhouse at Chambéry!

The National Railway Historical Society's Inland Empire Chapter in Spokane, Washington, has a boxcab electric running (where's the trolley pole and wire, folks?), their #502 (ex-Great Falls, Montana, #L-451), which turns out to be a 45 ton, 500 volt DC third-rail Baldwin-Westinghouse built in 1901{!} for the Great Falls Smelter Railway (Anaconda).

MILW #10200 - Phillip Wellman advised (12 Nov 98) that Duluth, Minnesota, is home to the Lake Superior Railroad Museum*, which houses the big Milwaukee Road 1916 GE boxcab electric E-50 #10200*.  LSMT, by the way, also displays the WILLIAM CROOKS^#, one of the world's most beautifully-proportioned steam locomotives ever, and the little MINNETONKA, as well as monster DM&IR 2-8-8-4 Yellowstone #227 [not as pretty as my favo(u)red B&O EM-1, but what a brute!].

* - I was there on 22 Aug 99 and at nearby Proctor where DM&IR #225 is on display.

# - NOT the B&O's WILLIAM MASON!

Here is a very bad shot of #10200; the lighting and access were impossible!

(Photo by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail image; click on picture for larger image.]

David Morgan, who told me of the broken link, has offered this magnificent view of an E-25 string (I've asked for provenance and details):

(Large thumbnail of a huge picture; click on the picture for a much larger (220Kb) image.]

And here is an old (ca. 1940) picture of the Class EF-3 #E28 2-B-B+B-B+B-B-2 string:

(photo from TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA #15)
[Thumbnail image; click on picture for very much larger image!]

These were originally paired 2-B-B units but were boosted by addition of a B-B unit in the middle.

Westing's "The Locomotives That Baldwin Built" (see Boxcabs Bibliography) has an incredibly tiny 3' gauge boxcab electric motor for the Whitehall Railway Co. on page 155 and an 1895 electric boxcab on page 159 later sold to the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley (Laurel Line).

GN W1 - Of course, no juice-jack will ever match my all-time favorite electric (weeeeell, there's always "Big Liz"), the GN W1, a 1946 GE B-D+D-B (B_o-D_o+D_o-B_o - all axles powered) 720,000#, 5,000-hp, 119,000#TE, monster, but it wasn't a boxcab; in fact, it was fully streamlined at both ends (I have an HO model - see also the "REALLY HEAVY Electrics" write-up on my model railroads page.  One (#5019) was scrapped but other (#5018) went to the UP to be sandwiched between a UP PA-1 (ex-#607) control and shunting unit and a huge coal tender (from Challenger #3990); the unit was gutted and the only UP coal turbine installed.  The engine was unsuccessful (the coal fines eroded the turbine buckets) but what a sight and sound along the North Platte!  Yup, I saw it, probably on one of its last runs (the last was 12 May 64), blasting coal smoke hundreds of feet in the air, pulling over 200 cars (by actual count), the only time I was ever out on the North Platte!

Now, before rattling off to Chile, let's consider the Piedmont & Northern classic electric boxcab #5103 noted on the Survivors page, preserved at the North Carolina Transportation Museum's historic Spencer Shops in Salisbury, North Carolina.  She's a beauty (if you like boxcabs) and appears largely original; she's a sort of southern dual-power loco, sporting both a huge pantagraph AND a trolley pole!  Here is the Museum's postcard view (the card is available from their Gift Station):

CHILEAN BOXCAB ELECTRICS - moved 17 Jan 01 to Electric Boxcabs - Part 2.

30 Aug 00 - in came a flyer for Trains Unlimited Tours (of Portola, CA, no less!), advertising a Northern Chile Railfan Adventure tour 16-24 Jun 01 of "the nitrate mine roads" and "the Atacama Desert, driest place in the world", where there "are areas where it has not rained for over 100 years"!  On the afternoon of Friday, 22 Jun 01, you are to see the station at Bariles "where the nitrate trains are switched from diesel to GE boxcab electrics for the steep 4% grade down the mountains to the Pacific Ocean at Tocopilla".  "The Tocopilla Al {sic} Toco Railroad will provide us with a charter train so that we can experience the spectacular 4% ride down the mountain with 1927 built GE box cabs."  {Emphases mine in preceding quotations.}  There are two color photos of the boxcabs on the flyer.  I will be posting these and more on the TRAINS UNLIMITED, TOURS, PHOTO COLLECTION page.

See Electric Boxcabs Continuation Page 1 for Other Overseas Electric Boxcabs.

Mexican boxcabs were by ALCo-GE and will appear on the Continuation Page 4 (and that's NOT overseas).

I had my grandchildren out to the Long Island Live Steamers on 31 Jul 99 and there was a battery model of a Pacific Electric steeplecab box motor; the ends are minimal and I think it, also, could be an "honorary boxcab":

   
(Images from Andy's Pacific Electric Page;
thumbnails - click on pictures for larger images.)

Now, I am very much into Z-scale (1:220) and while at the Amherst Show in Springfield, Mass., on 05 Feb 00, I picked up a Z boxcab electric all of 1¼" (31.75mm) long:

[06 Feb 00 photo by and © 2000 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved.]
Of course, it's only a fob ornament and slightly undersized even for Z (perhaps ~1:250)
but it was cute and, for a buck, I couldn't resist.

Now, here's an electric loco which, while NOT a boxcab, is so wild I had to put it up here; it's an
electric steamer,
a steam locomotive with a BIG electric heater in the boiler!
(I deeply regret losing provenance on this but I did ask permission first and got it.)
[Thumbnail image; click on picture for larger image.]

In my Boxcab Bibliography, I have Hollingsworth's 2000 book, "The Illustrated Directory of Trains of the World ".  There are a number of boxcab electrics (or what I have dubbed "honorary boxcabs") in the book, but two foreign (to the U.S.) electric boxcabs and one Canadian locomotive REALLY caught my eye (moved 17 Jan 01 to Other Overseas Electric Boxcabs).

Actually, there are endless foreign electrics that, strictly speaking, qualify as boxcabs, but they have vestiges of steamlining or slanted windscreens or something that turns me off and this is MY site, you know!

Another "really weird and wonderful" boxcab is the N&W's #7 electric BOXGON (or whatever they call it?):

Per Clint Chamberlin, "the NW#7 is an electric transfer car at one of N&W's Coal transfer piers in Norfolk VA.  The coal hoppers were dumped into a stock pile and the coal transferred to these cars, which would travel out onto the pier and dump into waiting ships." From John McCluskey (photo by John Testagrose).  

There is a good (if ever-so-slightly erroneous) site about electic boxcabs at ToyTrains1.