The 4-6-4 locomotive was powerful and unique in appearance, and it developed a reputation as a fast and extremely reliable engine. The Chicago & North Western ordered nine E-4s from Alco and they were delivered to the road in 1938.
Assigned to premier trains like the Forty-Niner (an extra-fare, all-Pullman train between Chicago and San Francisco), the engine and her crews made the 488-mile run from Chicago to Omaha in 10 to 11 hours (depending on stops) and required little down time to prepare for the return run.
Although the E-4s were built as coal burners, new boilers were added, and all were converted to oil burners by 1948. Sadly, all were scrapped between 1953 and 1961.
The MTH Premier Line model measures 251/2-inches long (102-scale feet), which includes the oversized knuckle coupler. This compares well to the prototype’s length of 101 feet, 9 inches.
Like the real thing, MTH’s scale-sized E-4 has terrific art-deco styling and has enough red markers and white lights (flashing and steady) on its nose to qualify as a Christmas decoration!
The understated paint scheme reflects a “less is more” philosophy: the engine (and matching car set) is basic Pullman green, and the engine has yellow stripes accenting the streamlined nature of the locomotive. Even if the “almost Army green” paint job doesn’t turn your crank, it is very well executed, and we noted no flaws in the paint or application of letters and heralds.
The C&NW logo on the nose looks great and the engine has a nifty Alco builder’s plate on the engineer’s side of the boiler. As mentioned, the front lights look terrific under way and the stylized vents add a “future-as-seen-from-the-past” element. Of special note is the recessed “down flat” whistle located in a cavity on top of the boiler. Neat.
MTH offers a streamlined passenger car set (no. 20-6536) and two-car add-on set (no. 20-6636), but don’t get locked into that prototype trap! When I was a child, I could easily envision a locomotive like the E-4 on the nose of a speeding freight train, and I’ve got to say that this engine does look good at the front of a string of Center Flow hoppers or a line of intermodal cars.
The E-4 handled our 20-plus car test train with ease, and the locomotive handled O-54 and wider curves very well. There were no tracking problems, and the engine offered sure-footed acceleration and deceleration.
The 12-pound, 3-ounce locomotive had a low-speed average of 14.9 scale mph and a high-speed average of 59.2 scale mph. It seems a bit slow for a toy train, but is close to prototypical. Compared to our benchmark O gauge steam engine, a postwar Berkshire, the E-4 has a lower high speed and substantially more pull than the older locomotive. Drawbar pull for the E-4 is a respectable 3 pounds, 9 ounces, which equals roughly 170 modern pieces of rolling stock on straight and level track.
The engine packs ProtoSound and the usual array of ProtoFeatures. The sound system is good, and the throaty whistle is a big notch above most of the ProtoSound whistles we’ve heard.
North Western fans and students of streamlined power note this: The E-4 weighs a ton, looks great, and runs well. You can’t ask for more than that, can you?
