These are unusal boxcabs and never came accross them before. they are B&O. They almost look like pre war lionel things.
SHane
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
IIRC, Tunnel Motors. An early solution for smoke abatement through the Howard Street, Baltimore, Tunnels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_Belt_Line
Regards, Ed
Ed is right. These odd creatures were used to pull trains on the B&O's electrified line from Camden Station to Waverly Tower, in the northeast part of Baltimore. According to the excellent book "B&O Power, Steam, Diesel, and Electric Power of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 1829-1964" by Lawrence W. Sagle and Alvin F. Staufer, Copyright 1964 by A. F. Staufer, Library of Congress Catalog No. 64-23526, coal smoke was a problem.
There were ten tunnels on the Belt Line comprising over 45% of the line's total length and up until 1895, steam locomotives on this route burned coke as a smoke abatement measure. The entire Belt Line was built to eliminate the need to ferry Belt Line trains across Baltimore Harbor, from Locust Point to Canton. Since the entire 3.75 miles of the Belt Line had a ruling grade of 1.5%, it would require coal burning locomotives to be worked hard, emitting lots of smoke. This affected crews as well as the local citizenry, thus the nation's first trunk line electrification.
The locomotives pictured in the above post, were built in 1903 by General Electric, as class LE-2 forty-tonners. There were four of them, numbered 5-8, riding on 42 inch wheels and, operating off 625 volts. The narrow, boxy design is quite similar in appearance to the narrow gauge "barneys" used to push hopper cars up to dumpers on some coal piers.
For anyone interested in the early power from pre 1900 to the late 1960s on the B&O, C&O, Erie, PRR, NYC, and New Haven, Mr. Staufer's books are written in collaboration with a person who knew the subject intimately and had access to lots of internal information. Mr. Lawrence W. Sagle worked in B&O's traffic department and also authored an excellent book on freight traffic. These books will be bibles for those with a deep interest in their prototype and its power. As an aside, I don't remember exactly when I bought B&O Power but, the inside leaf of the dust jacket lists the price for 352 pages of black-and-white illustrations and priceless information at $16.50. Way back when...........!