I need to know "everything there is to know" about the technical features of the 1926-1929 Insull era South Shore EMU's.

Now I'm at the Western Railway Museum and I have some familiarity with of the operational equipment here... for instance the South Shore's Westinghouse HB controls are not far removed from the HL controls on many former-SN cars. However what is different between HB and HL?

What was the battery voltage on a South Shore car? How do they charge batteries? Do they use 600VDC anywhere as an intermediate voltage, e.g. to run compressors or heaters, and if so, how do they get the 600VDC? Do they have M-G sets?

I'm dealing particularly with the open window non-AC cars...

I seem to recall that the battery voltage is 32V, and that the compressor works off line voltage, CSS&SB 34 at IRM has had it's compressor armature changed to work off 600V.

Jeff

HB = Hand-acceleration Battery voltage, while HL=Hand-acceleration Line voltage. (As opposed to something like AB control, which is Automatic acceleration Battery voltage.)



I believe Jeff's right that the battery voltage is 32v. The cars are fitted with MG sets designed to charge the batteries off of 1500vDC; unfortunately on 600v the MG sets hardly work at all. Compressors run off of line voltage (IRM has simply swapped out the 1500v D3F pumps on a couple of its South Shore cars with 600v D3F's) but I honestly don't know whether heat is line or battery voltage. I know that, in addition to the switch group, interior lights and headlights run off battery voltage. On the A/C cars, I believe they were simply fitted with Waukesha generators that ran the A/C.

Thanks to your database, Frank, I have discovered there are no less than FORTY South Shore cars in preservation.
http://www.bera.org/cgi-bin/pnaerc-quer ... agelen=200

I spun them out to a spreadsheet and learned a lot.

People who have them have many. IRM and East Troy each have six. Boone and NPS have five. (by which I mean NPS proper; not "on loan from NPS".) Four are at a Chesterton restaurant. Fox River has three.

Weirdly, museums closer to South Bend have fewer South Shore cars. These folks have two: Hoosier Valley, Indiana Railway Museum, Indiana Transportation Museum and Southern MIchigan Railroad Society. Solitary cars are found at Michigan Transit Museum, the New York Central Museum at Elkhart, the RAIL Foundation, and Seashore Trolley Museum.

Condition ranges from mint to ****. Surprisingly, condition is the REVERSE of the quantity a museum has. The museums with 1-3 have the cars in worst visible condition. (this is going by simple exterior appearance per the photos.)

The "South Shore" legacy is deeply respected by the owners except where food is involved. Everyone has retained South Shore logos and paint except for two East Troy dinner train cars, and the restaurant.

According to Hicks' database, 18 cars came through the National Park Service (NPS). Having been involved in that liquidation in the mid-80s, I thought they had 19 or 21 cars.

1-9 are 60 foot motors built 1926.
11-28 are 78 foot "stretched" motors built 1926-1927.
30-40 are 63-foot open-air motors built 1929.
100-111 are 78-foot 1926 combine (baggage room) motors.
203-206 are 78-foot 1927 trailers.
NPS has preserved one of each of the above types.
24-28 (not sure about 23) and 100-111 have air conditioning conversions.

Thanks Jeff. Do you know how they charge batteries? Is there a generator that's part of the compressor, or is there a motor-generator set somewhere else, or some other scheme altogether?

Robert -

For the record, yes, there are two South Shore cars at the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum; numbers 4 and 31. But neither car is actually owned by HVRM, but by another organization.

Les

Quote:

Four are at a Chesterton restaurant. Fox River has three.

Actually FRTM has only two South Shore cars, the 7 and the 14.
Both are currently in rough shape, both cars stored outside with less-than-watertight roofs.

When IRM brought their IC MU motor+trailer out to play last summer I asked about the MG & compressor and was told they ran them on 600 V by changing the wiring, that there was some sort of double windings or something that were normally in series across 1500 V but one could rewire them in parallel. I cannot vouch for this info personally nor do I know if anything like that, if accurate, is applicable to South Shore cars but I thought I'd mention it.

Steve

East Troy charges the batteries on their South Shore cars through strip resistors which reduce the 600V line voltage.

For the original drawings of electrical, for Pullman and Standard Steel Car interurbans, we have a very large collection of the original drawings, many of them now easily accessible to provide under IRM Pullman Library guidelines and at a charge to cover library expenses. Just drop a line to:
Pullman Library
Illinois Railway Museum
P. O. Box 427
Union, IL 60180
I am sure the wiring diagrams will answer questions of how the cars were originally configured. Note that manufacturers' information other than the car companies themselves most likely are not in the collection. Specifications and drawing lists are available for Pullman cars. Drawing lists of the drawings that we have located can be supplied free of charge on request.
Ted Anderson, curator

Right, some of the IC MU cars had some sort of compound-wound MG sets (or so I've been told) that with some simple rewiring will work off of 600v. Why they had these I don't know, but when IRM got its pair of IC MU cars we made sure to get one of these MG's. Unfortunately the South Shore didn't use this type and we didn't get any extras.

That's unusual. I'd love to see that setup.

Dual voltage electrical equipment (normally 600 / 1200) was pretty common at one time where interurbans had to run in the streets through intermediate towns. I believe the Michigan Electric was a big user. The interurban wanted the advantage of higher voltage, less substations, but the existing street railways were already built to 600V and their franchises may have specified that voltage. Not a big problem for traction power, the big cars didn't need full speed in the streets, but the auxiliaries were another matter. I'm rather surprised that dual voltage equipment isn't more common than it is, but most of the market for it dried up in the thirties.

That would be an easy trick for a 1500 volt system to use available 600 volt ones wire 2 in series. Like I have heard before, most electricals work, just at half speed at 600 volts.

Orange Empire has three Pacific Electric cars and one locomotive that could run on the 1200 volt San Bernardino Line (as well as the remaining 600 volt lines). They have a "dynamotor compressor" (the loco has two) that can run on 1200 or 600 volts, and puts out 600 for the lights and control system. The dynamotor shaft has a clutch that turns the pinion gear to run the compressor. When main reservoir pressure reaches the set point, the clutch disengages, leaving the dynamotor to run for the electric auxiliary power. One of the dual-voltage cars is tower car 00157, which can be set up to install trolley wire. During this process, it can be switched to the 1200 volt circuitry, for really slooooww operation. A dual-voltage setup would not have been needed for the South Shore, since it (and the IC Electric lines) were 1500 from end to end. Why the IC Electrics had dual voltage compressors may be a mystery of the ages.