The

Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. History ...

's class EL-2B comprised four two-unit

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 with AAR (B+B-B+B)+(B+B-B+B) wheel arrangements. The locomotives were used on the electrified portion of the railroad, from

Roanoke, Virginia Roanoke ( ) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 100,011, making it the 8th most populous city in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the largest city in Virginia west of Richmond. It is lo ...

Mullens, West Virginia Mullens is a city in Wyoming County, West Virginia. The population was 1,475 at the time of the 2020 census. Located in a valley along the Guyandotte River within a mountainous region of southern West Virginia, the town was nearly destroyed by f ...

. These large motor-generator locomotives weighed , were long, and were capable of producing . The EL-2B locomotives were built at

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 ...

's Erie works in 1948. Numbered 125–128, they were the largest two-unit electric locomotives used in North America. The locomotives were retired and sold for scrap shortly after the 1959 merger of the Virginian with the

Norfolk and Western Railway The Norfolk and Western Railway , commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precisio ...

. None of the 4 examples built survived into preservation.

References

* * * {{electric-loco-stub 11 kV AC locomotives Virginian Railway locomotives General Electric locomotives B+B-B+B locomotives Electric locomotives of the United States Scrapped locomotives Freight locomotives Standard gauge locomotives of the United States Railway locomotives introduced in 1948 Streamlined electric locomotives