SBB Ae 8/14

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The SBB Ae 8/14 is a class of electric locomotives built for Swiss Federal Railways to be used on the Gotthard railway. Only three prototype engines were built between 1931 and 1938, each of them in a different design. The steep 2.7% grades of the Gotthard Railway are challenging for railroad operation. In the 1920s the trains became so heavy that the power and the traction of one locomotive became insufficient and so costly double-heading or splitting of the train over the mountain was required. Multiple-unit train control was at that time emerging and not yet a reliable working system. The idea was to introduce double-locomotives with eight axles and a weight of 250 tons. These locomotives could pull the trains directly from Zurich or Lucern over the Gotthard and Monte Ceneri to Chiasso. This eliminated the stops for adding and removing additional locomotives in Erstfeld or Biasca, so that shorter travel times would be possible. First two prototypes with the numbers 11801 and 11851 were built to evaluate the best suited drive system. A few years later a third prototype 11852 was built, which was quite similar to 11851 but with increased traction power.