This locomotive was GE's second inside-frame truck electric locomotive, built for stock in January 1921 (c/n 7867), weighing 30 tons. In September 1923 it was leased to the Carey Salt Company (Hutchinson, Kansas) for use on their client, the H&N, eventually purchased by the H&N in January 1927. In 1919 General Electric began its design of the so-called Frameless truck. In the interests of less expensive manufacturing, GE engineers dispensed with outside bearings, journal boxes, and equalizing bars. In place of the customary two axle bearings, the traction motor itself was modified and provided with a single substantial bearing in place of the usual auxiliary bearings. The gears occupied their usual locations. Each traction motor frame was cast with two pairs of lugs directly over the axle bearing to receive the ends of the equalizer bars. In addition to the usual function of truck equalizers in supporting the transom, they tied the trucks together and held all the parts in alignment. The first GE locomotive with this truck design was construction number 6988, erected at Erie in early 1919. It was a 50 ton model, an engineering prototype, and sent out to demonstrate on the Illinois Electric Railway. After the demonstration, the locomotive (renumbered E-8) spent the years 1921 to 1926 working on GE's captive railroad, the East Erie Commercial Railroad, after which it was sold to the H&N as #2. Only one other locomotive was built with this truck design, sold to the Lackawanna Railroad (c/n 10046, built in 1926) for use on its Wallabout car float terminal in Brooklyn, New York as DL&W 4001. The H&N 1 was donated to the Orange Empire Museum in 1972, the H&N 2 languished in a scrap yard for years before reportedly finding its way to a museum, the DL&W was sold in 1942 to the Shawinigan Falls Terminal Railway in Canada, renumbered 7, and disappeared.

The initial equipment consists of 17 units, 15 for freight and two for passenger service. Each unit weighs approximately 80 tons. The two units forming a freight locomotive in each case will be coupled together and operated in multiple, and combination locomotives will haul the 3400 ton train at a maximum speed of 15 m.p.h against the ruling grade and at 21 m.p.h on level tangent track. The passenger locomotives are the same design as the freight locomotives except they are geared for a maximum of 45 m.p.h. on level tangent track. A schedule of eight passenger trains per day, four each way, is maintained, the average train being composed of a locomotive and three standard passenger coaches. All locomotive equipment, as well as the substation apparatus and overhead line material, was designed and built by the General Electric Company. One of the locomotives will be exhibited at the Master Mechanics' and Master Car Builders' conventions in Atlantic City. The general design is of the articulated double-truck type, all weight being on the drivers. The cab, containing the Engineer's compartment in each end and a central compartment for the control apparatus, is carried by the two truck frames on center pins. It is of the box type, extending the entire length of the locomotive, and is provided with end and side doors. Friction draft gear mounted on the outer end frame of each truck transmits the hauling and buffing stresses directly through the truck frame, diverting these strains from the center pins and underframe. The trucks are built of heavy steel castings. The side frames are of a truss pattern with heavy top and bottom members and pedestal tie bars. They are connected by end frames and a cast-steel center transom. The entire weight is carried on semi-elliptic springs suitably equilized. On each axle is mounted a motor of the twin-geared type. The cab underframe conists of two 12 inch longitudinal steel channels on either side of the center and two six inch X six inch steel angles along the outer edge. The central channels are inclosed and form a distributing air duct for forced ventilation. Air is conducted through the center pins, which are hollow, into the truck transoms and thence to the motors. The Engineer's compartment, at either end of the cab, contains the operator's seat, controller, air-brake valves, bell and whisle ropes, ammeter, air gages, sanders, and other control appartus that should be within immediate reach of the Engineer.