Milwaukee Road EP-2 Class

This locomotive was one of five Milwaukee Road EP-2 class electric locomotives built by GE-ALCO in 1919 for use on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway transcontinental route through the Cascade Mountains near Snoqualmie Pass. The Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway became the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad by 1928 and became commonly referred to as the Milwaukee Road. The EP-2 class locomotive shown above was originally numbered #10251 and in 1939 was renumbered as #E-2. An interesting feature of the EP-2 class electric locomotive was that when a train was on the way down from the top of Snoqualmie Pass, the locomotive engineer would slow the train by throwing a switch, engaging regenerative braking, in which the locomotive's gearless traction motors worked as generators, sending power back into the overhead power lines. Locomotive #E-2 was rebuilt in 1953 before eventually being removed from service in 1961. It's now the sole survivor of its type. I photographed the above scene in October 2003 at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Andrew Craig Magnuson
Forks, Washington
May 25, 2008

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