A 2-unit boxcab electric locomotive of the Milwaukee Road.
(Jack Boucher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
BOXCAB
A boxcab, in railroad terminology, is a term for an electric locomotive in which the machinery and crew areas were enclosed in a box-like superstructure. Deriving from "boxcar", the term mainly occurs in North America. The term has rarely been applied to diesel locomotives. It was also applied in Australia to Victorian Railways' "E" class second series electric locomotives.
Boxcabs were either diesel or electric locomotives.
Most North American boxcabs were built a few years before and after 1930, the most prominent builders being Baldwin and Westinghouse, GE and Alco.
Preserved Alco boxcab at the North Alabama Railroad Museum.
(William Hunter, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Design
Locomotives had either a box-like body of equal height along their whole length including the cabs, the boxcab; or else the cabs were inset from the ends and a lower nose or 'hood' section protruded beyond.
Boxcabs did not have heavily styled ends or a superstructure consisting of multiple structures, although the prototype diesel/oil-electric, GE No. 8835, had one end prominently rounded – attributed to its trolley (tram) car ancestry – and the second and following 100-ton ALCO boxcabs had semi-cylindrical ends.
A self-propelled Express-Baggage Boxcab, ca. 1915.
(Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons)
