Expiring contracts with PG&E may have been a factor in the timing, but it was only a matter of a short time anyway - contract or no contract. WP/SN management was sensible and wise enough to not wait until the inevitable sudden collapse of the operation, which was looming large. So why seriously renegotiate with PG&E when the end is so near anyway.

The two running engines may have or may not have been "Fine" at the time. As seen from a distance maybe. They at least were marginally operable. Same with the catenary. But they all were also victims of seriously deferred maintenance and extreme parts obsolescence. Electrical and catenary maintenance being deferred only because near the end, there was only one skilled man left doing it - with one part of the time laborer helper.

The only readily available parts source was to sacrifice the remaining engines to cannibalize the needed parts - to keep at least one running. And that source was about exhausted, leaving self fabrication of parts and salvage companies as their only options to keep going.

But not only that, men with the requisite skills to do the highly specialized electrical maintenance were in critically short supply and hard to get. Worse yet, the need to fabricate parts on your own only escalated the needed skill level. Such skills (especially to make your own one-of-a-kind electrical parts) was and still is, quite rare. When the last such man in their current employ announced his pending retirement, the decision was inevitable. It was then only a matter of time.

And how do I know all this? Because I rode with that last man numerous times before he retired, often on statewide hunts of electrical and electronic salvage sources. And yes, many of those places resembled a Sanford an Sons salvage yard.

The effort to keep the electric operation going was heroic - but ultimately - futile. Same goes for the Iowa Electric.