Gene Mendonca’s painting of Ewbank Electric Transmission Co.’s train.
Gene Mendonca
Q Can you tell me anything about the Ewbank Electric Transmission Co. that is the subject of a picture I painted from a very old newspaper clipping? – Gene Mendonca, Folsom, Calif.
A H.B. Ewbank Jr. built No. 333, a 75-foot-long gas-electric locomotive with a six-cylinder, Corliss 350-hp engine, as an alternative to steam engines in 1914. The newspaper clipping you used as a source for your painting depicted a test run on Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway along the north bank of the Columbia River. Unfortunately, no railroads were interested in Ewbank’s design, and the prototype ended up on the Portland Traction Co. interurban where its frame and trucks were used for a locomotive/snowplow. – Kyle Wyatt, curator of history and technology, California State Railroad Museum
