Ex-Virginian electric arrives in Illinois

Another piece of news to catch up on is the arrival at the Illinois Railway Museum of ex-Virginian, ex-Norfolk & Western, ex-New Haven, ex-Penn Central, ex-Conrail electric locomotive 4601. For a relatively modern piece of equipment (built 1956 by GE) this beast has had a fairly eventful life. Twelve of these ignitron rectifier locomotives were built for coal hauling on the Virginian electrification, replacing old jack-shaft boxcab electrics dating to the 1920s. When the N&W took over the Virginian in 1959 it changed traffic patterns, assigning mostly trains of empties to the former Virginian main line. With less tonnage to haul the N&W de-electrified the Virginian in 1962 and put the six-year-old ignitron rectifiers, known as class EL-C on the Virginian, up for sale.

The eleven remaining locomotives (one had been rebuilt as a slug and was acquired for parts) were bought by the New Haven in 1963 and moved to Connecticut, where they replaced older 1930s electric locomotives in freight service. Reclassified EF-4, the eleven units were renumbered 300-310. All eleven stayed in service with Penn Central, renumbered 4601-4610 (301 was wrecked about the time of the PC takeover and assigned number 4600 but scrapped about the same time), and later entered service with Conrail with the same road numbers

IRM's unit was in the middle of rebuilding work when Conrail ended electric freight service in March 1983. Rebuilding work was completed but the 4601 was immediately mothballed. Interestingly, this work included replacement of the ignitrons with silicone diode rectifiers. The ten remaining locomotives were stored briefly and then traded in to GE in 1984 (though one, Conrail 4604, was sent to the Virginia Museum of Transportation around this time and restored as Virginian 135 - it may not have been returned to GE). CR 4601 was the subject of a campaign to have it preserved and in 1988 it was transferred - sans transformer and numerous internal components - to the Railroad Museum of New England in Connecticut. It remained there, largely untouched, until acquired by IRM in trade in 2014. It was moved to Altoona in 2015 to be cosmetically restored but the deal to accomplish this fell through and the locomotive was moved to Union in July 2017. The museum intends to repaint the rectifier into New Haven colors which would make it the only New Haven electric locomotive preserved as such.