This was covered in an article in a circa 1921 - 22 issue of General Electric Review (available online) and may also have been touched upon in the Westinghouse's "Electric Journal". Upshot was to tie in the electric utilities in the northeast area to make better use of hydroelectric resources and larger and more efficient thermal plants. By the early 1920's, central station efficiencies had gotten to the point where electrifications powered by coal fired power plants would generate significantly more ton miles per ton of coal than steam locomotives.
Bear in mind that there were significant shortages of coal during the US involvement in WW1 that did not ease up until late 1919. Other issue was the major Texas oil discoveries were still a few years in the future and there was much concern about running out of oil (also drove the Teapot Dome scandal).
Interesting reading. I couldn't help thinking about Samuel Insull, and how in the 1930s the gov't decided that large interstate electric utilities were evil.
In 1919 , Congress funded a study/ analysis/ investigation of the power situation in the North East.The result was a very detailed and through report which included the power economy of electrified railroads which required an analysis of steam locomotive operations on "Eastern" railroad that included for each railroad the coal consumption , freight ton-miles, passenger miles, etc.The report is in PDF form- pubs.usgs.gov.|pp|0123|report.pdf or you can search by title A superpower system for the region between Boston and Washington via pubs.er.usgs.gov
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