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Evergreen Pacific & Eastern No. 7

Been saving the best for last! Here's the first of four EP&E locomotive liveries to cap off my livery jam series. Watch for the others later today!

Built in 1909 by Baldwin, No. 7 arrived to handle the EP&E’s passenger trains, especially the new Cascades Cannonball between Bellingham and Glacier. Unusual for a small freight line, the engine was a fast, tall-drivered Pacific capable of speeds up to 70 miles an hour...though in practice, it rarely passed 40 on the winding curves of the EP&E. In 1919 it was rebuilt with a slightly larger firebox and a 4-6-4 wheel arrangement, giving it the steaming capacity for the occasional freight train.

No. 7 embodies the transition in locomotive design seen at the turn of the century, somewhere between the clean lines and distinctive paintwork of its older fellows and the utilitarian simplicity of locomotives to come. It was quite distinct on the EP&E fleet: the only oil burner, the last steam engine to wear the green-and-white, and the first to use the abbreviated “E.P.&E.R.R.” lettering. In 1921, it became the road's only named locomotive: Rasmussen, to honor chief engineer Eugene Rasmussen, Sr. (1853-1920).

Repainted a simple black-and-white in 1932, No. 7 was a crew favorite right up to the end of the steam era. Sadly, an attempt to preserve and display it in a city along the EP&E found no takers, and it was scrapped in 1962. A few mementos--the whistle, headlight, and builder’s plates--survive in a private collection.