The government was going to bailout the MILW, connect the disparate sections of the electrified lines, and upgrade the infrastructure as well as provide loans to allow the road to purchase these locomotives for motive power. The idiot management decided to purchase GP40-2s at the height of the energy crisis and scrap the copper at its lowest price instead.
Foreground... honest, it did have Favely pantographs before years of bashing around by movers. Also see the very short EP-5 (but C-C!) and a Japanese electric loco factory-painted for Great Northern. I was always an electric-trains guy.