Wired up: The stages of U.S. railroad electrification

Tunnel electrifications paved the way for larger projects, and soon a few lines tried much longer installations, including the coal-hauling Virginian Railway and the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific.

Both the Virginian and the Milwaukee Road electrified their steepest mountain districts, where electrics held the greatest advantage over steam. The Virginian’s 134 miles of electrification, completed in 1925, included 14 arduous miles of 2 percent grade against loaded coal trains out of Mullens, W.Va. Taking a 5,500-ton coal train to the summit was a two-and-a-half- hour slog with a 2-8-8-2 road engine and two 2-10-10-2 pushers. Electric operation was an immediate success, as two 3-unit box-cab electrics whisked 6,050-ton coal trains to the summit in a single hour.

Ten years earlier, electric power similarly proved superior to steam in nearly every way when the Milwaukee Road energized 113 miles of its steep main line through western Montana. By fall 1919, the installation had grown to encompass two separate districts, a 438-mile division in the Rockies and a 207-mile district across Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Great Northern did the same for its route in the Cascades, running electrics through the Cascade Tunnel, the longest tunnel in North America at the time.

What killed the Virginian’s electrification was the line’s 1959 merger with the Norfolk & Western. The N&W was a much larger system and the Virginian’s 134 electrified miles were suddenly a much smaller portion of a larger whole, as well as an operating anomaly requiring specialized equipment that was confined to a limited area. The wires came down in 1962. (Ironically, N&W had electrified its own route through the Appalachians even before the Virginian, then forsook electricity for a diesel-powered line relocation.)

The situation on the Milwaukee Road was far more complex. Cash-strapped for much of its existence, the Milwaukee never made the major upgrades that would have been necessary to modernize its electrification, which had become quite outdated by the 1970s. The railroad’s directors had set their sites on merging with another railroad, and deferred maintenance across the system. In addition, the costs of maintaining separate locomotive fleets and servicing facilities for electric and diesel power became too much to justify. The wires came down in the 1970s, almost inexplicably during a global energy crisis that made diesels twice as expensive to operate.

Electrification expert William D. Middleton reports that in 1913, Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broad Street Station in Philadelphia was handling 500 daily trains. Even more remarkable was the fact that with terminal switching moves, each train required an average of eight movements through the interlocking plant, leading to a staggering 4,000 daily movements, nearly three every minute. Electrifying two of the busiest routes in 1913-1915 relieved much of the congestion, and it should be noted that unlike earlier projects, the PRR utilized A.C. in Philadelphia, which could easily be integrated into a larger system. The project was an immediate success. Electric multiple-unit trains, which could easily operate in both directions, eliminated the switching moves required by steam-hauled consists, while the trains’ faster acceleration cut the running time on 20-mile routes by as much as seven minutes.

Other railroads also electrified congested terminals and busy commuter lines, including the Reading Railroad in Philadelphia, New York’s Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station, the New York Central and New Haven commuter operations serving Grand Central Terminal, Illinois Central’s Chicago-area commuter service, and the Lackawanna’s commuter lines out of Hoboken Terminal.