When the PV&T decided to electrify in 1911, they started by putting up wire on the Brattleboro subdivision (Merrimack to Brattleboro) and ordering a pair of prototype units to test on this line. #X1 came from GE (the prototype for the class A motors; renumbered to 201 when the testing was finished) and #X2 (this unit) from Westinghouse.

X1 had the advantage of being able to run on curvier track (the PV&T had some idea that they could use streetcar curves on industrial trackage instead of having to engineer around traditional railroad curvature), but had less horsepower and couldn’t reach the speed that X2 was capable of (the X1 maxed out at 50mph, but the X2 – like the PRR’s DD-1s it was designed after – was able to get over 90mph without much trouble.)

What gave X1 the nod over X2 was that X2 was officially too fast for the PV&T’s curvy New England rails, and the operating department, which had plenty of experience with drivers shoving locomotives as fast as they could go despite speed limits, thought that this was a recipe for having to send out the wrecker to pull one of these units out of a river over and over again.

Nevertheless, X2 was a perfectly good engine which spent the next 8 years pulling passenger trains across the subdivision before it was retired when the class B motors started flooding the railroad.

However, it was not cut and it ended up being shoved into the far corner of Portland’s repair barn, where it sat for the next 92 years before being cosmetically restored and brought out to accompany 201 in cavalcades & fantrips. And then the newly restored unit immigrated to Canada as part of the historical fleet.