The New Haven EP-2 was a class of

boxcab A boxcab, in railroad terminology, is a locomotive in which the machinery and crew areas are enclosed in a box-like superstructure (from boxcar). It is a term mostly used in North America while in Victoria (Australia), such locomotives have been ...

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or gas ...

s built by Baldwin-Westinghouse for the

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

. The locomotives worked passenger trains on the New Haven's electrified division west of

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. Baldwin-Westinghouse delivered 27 locomotives between 1919–1927. The locomotives were an enlarged version of the EP-1 and EF-1 designs. They remained in service until the arrival of the dual-mode

EMD FL9 The EMD FL9 (New Haven Class EDER-5) is a model of electro-diesel locomotive, capable of operating either as a traditional diesel-electric locomotive or as an electric locomotive powered from a third rail. Sixty units were built between October 1 ...

locomotives in 1958.

Design

The New Haven's electrified district extended west from

, to

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, the northernmost borough of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It electrified its lines using 11 kV overhead AC. From Woodlawn to

Grand Central Terminal Grand Central Terminal (GCT; also referred to as Grand Central Station or simply as Grand Central) is a commuter rail terminal located at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Grand Central is the southern terminus ...

trains ran over the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

's 660 V

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway t ...

DC. At Port Morris trains continued over the

New York Connecting Railroad The New York Connecting Railroad or NYCR is a rail line in the borough of Queens in New York City. It links New York City and Long Island by rail directly to the North American mainland. Amtrak, CSX, Canadian Pacific Railway, Providence a ...

Harold Interlocking Harold Interlocking is a large railroad junction located in New York City. It is the busiest rail junction in the United States. It serves trains on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line and Port Washington Branc ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, just short of

Pennsylvania Station Pennsylvania Station (often abbreviated Penn Station) is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to several of its grand passenger terminals. Several are still in active use by Amtrak and other transportation services; others have been ...

. This route was jointly electrified by the New Haven and the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

at 11 kV overhead AC. New Haven EP-2 quill running gear

To support the multiple electric systems and collection methods between New Haven and New York the EP-2 carried both

pantographs A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

and a

contact shoe Electric current collectors are used by trolleybuses, trams, electric locomotives or EMUs to carry electrical power from overhead lines, electrical third rails, or ground-level power supplies to the electrical equipment of the vehicles. Those for ...

for third rail operation. Six twin Westinghouse 409-C2 AC

traction motor A traction motor is an electric motor used for propulsion of a vehicle, such as locomotives, electric vehicle, electric or hydrogen vehicles, elevators or electric multiple unit. Traction motors are used in electrically powered rail vehicles (ele ...

s drove the locomotive on six axles using a

quill drive A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, the metal-Nib (pen), nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, ...

. Two more unpowered axles were located on each truck, for an unusual 1-C-1+1-C-1

wheel arrangement In rail transport, a wheel arrangement or wheel configuration is a system of classifying the way in which wheels are distributed under a locomotive. Several notations exist to describe the wheel assemblies of a locomotive by type, position, and c ...

. Power output was rated at ; the maximum speed was . The boxcab body was long and weighed .

History

The New Haven needed additional locomotives to handle services into New York City's Pennsylvania Station following the opening of the Hell Gate Bridge Route. After several unsuccessful experimental

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

locomotives, the New Haven returned to Baldwin-Westinghouse for an improved version of the pioneering EP-1. The first five EP-2 locomotives entered service in 1919. The New Haven ordered twenty-two more between 1923–1927, for a total fleet of twenty-seven locomotives. The New Haven supplemented the EP-1s and EP-2s with ten EP-3 boxcabs in 1931. The Pennsylvania Railroad replaced the original 600 V third rail DC with 11 kV overhead AC in 1933, allowing New Haven's electric locomotives to operate into Pennsylvania Station and eliminating the engine change in Queens. Retirement of the EP-1s began in 1936. Six EP-4 locomotives joined the roster in 1938. Even as the New Haven added ten EP-5 locomotives in 1955, change was coming. The company was phasing out electrified freight operations and considered truncating electrification from New Haven to

Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 2020 ...

, a distance of . To that end the company ordered thirty dual-mode

locomotives. These locomotives, capable of either diesel-electric operation or electric operation from third-rail, eliminated the need for an engine change at New Haven. Their arrival in 1958 enabled the retirement of the EP-2 fleet. All were scrapped.

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:New Haven EP2 1-C-1+1-C-1 locomotives 11 kV AC locomotives 600 V DC locomotives Electric locomotives of the United States EP-2 Standard gauge locomotives of the United States Westinghouse locomotives Multi-system locomotives Railway locomotives introduced in 1919 Scrapped locomotives Passenger locomotives