H&N-1

Hutchinson & Northern No. 1 is an electric locomotive designed for pulling short freight trains. It was built in 1921 by General Electric as a “demonstrator” locomotive. To encourage purchase of GE locomotives, it was shipped to prospective customers so they could take a “test drive”. Its use a demonstrator probably explains the extra-large GE logo on the side of the cab.

In 1923, No. 1 was sold to the Hutchinson & Northern Railway, and operated there for 47 years. The H&N was a two-mile railway near Wichita, Kansas, built to connect a local salt mine with the Missouri Pacific interchange inHutchinson. The H&N finally replaced their electric locomotives with Diesels in 1970, and donated number 1 to the Museum.

Number 1 is known as a “steeple cab” locomotive, so named because of the sloping ends and the cab that sticks up in the middle. It is considered to be a light-duty locomotive; in good weather it was capable of pulling only about ten of the relatively small freight cars of the time.                               

No. 1 was repainted into a Bicentennial livery in honor of the Nation's 200th birthday, but has since been returned to the orange livery it wore when it arrived in Perris.