JGR Unstreamlined Boxcab EF58.25 Model

Shortly after World War II ended, Japanese Government Railways (JGR) designed a new 2-C-C-2 electric express passenger engine to replace engines destroyed in the war as passenger traffic returned to prewar levels.  EF58.1 resembled the EF57 as a boxcab with a long balcony over each pilot bogie, but it had roller bearings on all axles.  Unfortunately, these 31 early EF58 engines were unreliable, and production was suspended in 1948.  When Japanese National Railways (JNR) resumed EF58 production in 1952, it redesigned the engines as the familiar streamliner and rebuilt the first 31 engines to match the later 141 engines.  This large-scale model of EF58.25 at the Railway Museum (Omiya, Saitama) shows the locomotive in its early unstreamlined form.