@PRR Man posted:Simon, I cannot speak to why Bill Wolfer used a twin motor-in-truck design. The E44 is a long engine with a narrow body. Getting a single horizontal drive and towers in the body probably would not work. I suppose a single drop-down tower and 'tank drive' shafts could have worked. I have no idea.
As can be seen in the photo above, I only changed motors, not the driveline.
I believe post CB, Ed Duddy (House of Duddy) picked these up along with the EL-C/EF-4/E-33, he would offer them both as kits and assembled; this Duddy built example sports a single can in the car body driving CLW towers. For me the knock against the older Wolfer Chain drive is the fiber axle gears would get brittle and break teeth.
A late colleague of ours, Eddie Chamber's did some of the painting for Ed on these, as I recall he used the Champ Blue Ribbon sets for the E-44's, the lettering and heralds both are unique to the E-44 size and color-wise, so I get why you want to have them custom printed. As an aside, according to Eddie the Virginian scheme was the most popular on the E-33 in terms of orders.
