Alco-GE Electric Locomotive in the Cascades

Last week, I posted what looked like an "olde tyme" effort at photoshopping a picture of an electric locomotive onto a railroad. The post card this week shows that same type of locomotive, but in a much more believable setting.

This looks like a real picture of a real train on an electrified railroad right of way!! Just like last week's picture, the locomotive has a rounded front and toward the back of the locomotive, the pantograph is very obvious. The headlight is in the same location on the locomotive, too. So this must be the real thing. When I turned the post card over I saw that the publisher was the manufacturer of the locomotive - General Electric!!

This train belongs to the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad; probably just like last week's. This one is traveling through the Cascade Range of mountains in Washington state. Operating conditions in the mountain regions of the Pacific Extension proved difficult. Winter temperatures of −40° made it challenging for steam locomotives to generate sufficient steam. Electrification provided an answer, especially with abundant hydroelectric power in the mountains. Between 1914 and 1916, the Milwaukee implemented a 3,000 volt direct current (DC) overhead system between Harlowton, Montana, and Avery, Idaho, a distance of 705 km. Pleased with the result, the Milwaukee electrified its route in Washington between Othello and Tacoma, a further 333 km, between 1917 and 1920. This section traversed the Cascades through the 3.6 km Snoqualmie Tunnel, just south of Snoqualmie Pass. This last bit of information was taken from Wikipedia. This is what the entire back of the post card looks like:

The upper right-hand corner reminds me of a previous post titled: "Don't Do That!". Someone ripped the stamp off the post card, this ruining the value of the card to all but the die-hard collectors.