"Bricks"

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I do not want to belabor the issue, but I found another reference to the "former" Vgn EL-C motors being referred to as "Bricks".
 
As Harry has very correctly pointed out, H. Reid's comment about the new EL-Cs "having the beauty of misshapen bricks", was an after thought concerning the electrics suitability to the Virginian. Good "in almost every way but one; looks". This was not a "name" at all, merely a comment about  their appearance (and written after the merger, at that).
 
An article appeared  in "Shoreliner" magazine, Vol.II, Issue 3, 1980, which is the excellent  magazine of the New Haven Railroad Historical and Technical Association (NHRHTA). This issue had a comprehensive article on the EL-C rectifiers, although they were mistakenly called EL-3a throughout. Otherwise Mr. Charles A. Brown, now deceased, did a good job detailing their history. Mr. Brown, working for Fairbanks-Morse in the early 1950's, had taken advantage of his trips to the Virginian by taking many excellent photos of the period.
 
Back to the EL-C knick-name. In wrapping up his story of the NH EF-4's, as the Hew Haven classified them, he said that "a modified McGinnis paint job.....with a red-orange body having three white stripes with black undercarriage.....earned the knick-name "Bricks" on the New Haven (bold & italics are mine)". So, perhaps a New Haven fan can get by calling their EF-4's "Bricks", but not on the Virginian!
 
Jeff Sanders
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