As delivered, the CB&Q bi-levels were not all electric cars. Lighting was provided by a DC trainline that was powered by self-contained power cars. However, the CB&Q did have a limited number of locomotives (a few E-units and at least one GP) that could provide DC power for short consists. The cars remained steam heated with Waukesha air conditioning. Mechanically, they are very similar to the Rock Island's 2700 series coaches that first arrived in 1949.

Here is a link to an good 1965 photo of CB&Q cars. Note the steam line, DC trainline, and Waukesha propane fuel cabinets: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1357925

The 1974 re-manufacturing carried out by Budd for the West Suburban Mass Transit District converted these cars to all-electric 480V HEP. I believe this program is the first en masse conversion of a fleet to 480V HEP - predating Amtrak's Heritage Program by a few years.

Yeah, 480V 3-phase, being a very common voltage in the US, was probably a given. Just wondering where the rest came from.

Don's great summary on his site mentions that among the various advantages of AC over DC is elimination of motors using brushes & commutators and their maintenance. That in turn not only allows the use of common industry standard components but when it comes to A/C, the use of hermetically sealed (whether welded in a dome or bolted hermetic) compressors where the refrigerant is blowing across the motor. Never done (at least not that I've ever seen) when there are brushes and commutators. Thus with DC one has to keep them separate and use shaft seals which ALWAYS leak to some degree.

I think it's very unfortunate that IRM dismantled the HEP on MILW 33C, which was one of the first units with (constant speed) prime mover-driven HEP (off the rear engine). Other than the FM Speed Merchants, who else did this? Surely historic.

I would think the National Electrical Code, National Fire Protection Association, IEEE and perhaps a few other code organizations weighed in on the implementation of 480V-3ph in a railroad application.

Dave

Not the NEC. From their "Scope" preamble:

"Not Covered. This Code does not cover the following: (1) Installations in ships, watercraft other than floating buildings, railway rolling stock, aircraft, or automotive vehicles other than mobile homes and recreational vehicles ... (3) Installations of railways for generation, transformation, transmission, or distribution of power used exclusively for operation of rolling stock or installations used exclusively for signaling and communications purposes," etc.

NFPA: No, those are the folks who do the NEC.

Not sure about others.

The American Public Transport Association has codified the standards but surely they didn't originate there. No sign of who was first with these things.


General:
http://www.apta.com/resources/standards ... 016-99.pdf

About the connectors:
http://www.apta.com/resources/standards ... 018-99.pdf

I see that IEEE is currently active in rail vehicle standards. They have a "Rail Transit Vehicle Interface Standards Committee". If you read their publications you might find one that gives a brief history of HEP. As you know their papers are not free, so it would mean visiting a university library with a full IEEE subscription to do the search. Hey that might be a fun thing for me to do some weekend. :)

The BN3 has the same HEP generator it had when it came to IRM. We removed the skid, rebuilt the engine and reinstalled the skid. We did change the exhaust and muffler setup so it would no longer take in water, that is the only part that is different than the way it came to us.

Jamie

Dick Bruss of Amtrak compiled most of the HEP standards for APTA, and while he has been keeper of the flame and tweaked and improved the standards, he did not originate them. I consider the CNW installation from the'50's as the originator of the modern standard; however, as noted previously, their phase rotation is different and they are not compatible with the Amtrak standard.

In the early '80's I worked on some pretty old CNW equipment, and seem to recall the older HEP connectors were built by Joy, plus Pyle National later. Clements came into the business in the late '80's.

Steve

Also, to further Steve's comments, the 27-pin MU connectors on the CNW equipment are not necessarily compatible with present Amtrak (black) connectors, which are keyed to go in vertical (key as at the bottom) . The Door/PA 27-pin connectors (blue) are keyed so as to be 30 degrees of vertical.

G.F.Payne
Baltimore

Still no hint so far of who established the 480Vac HEP standard, but I'm still looking.

I have updated my page to incorporate the above comments, and some limited additional searches.

http://www.utahrails.net/pass/dynamos-h ... commutehep

Don Strack

From Mr. Strack's webpage:



The Amfleet equipment came with 4 jacks on each end (2 one each side) but due to the problem of the cables becoming dislodged, these and later cars were converted to one cable and one jack in each corner.

-Hudson

The gearbox had suffered a major failure which took the locomotive out of service at Metra. The shop crew (without notifying management) decided to return the locomotive to service, and was well along in the process of rebuilding her, when the quote for rebuilding the HEP gearbox came back. The dollar amount was above the threshold requiring management approval, and the entire project was quickly set aside. Shortly thereafter, 33c was donated to IRM.

On a side note, IRM was given permission to salvage certain surplus materials when the old Western Ave shop was being closed down, and while I was walking out with a set of fuel lines for a 12-567C, our department head stopped me so he could read the tag on them..."33C"...he had just purchased a new set to replace the missing lines.

Jeff

Like I said. Early Roman electrifications.

Well… Serbian, to be precise.

With a little help from the other guy. The limiting factor in traction motor voltage was commutator insulation and that favored 500-600vDC, which is why Sprague picked it for trolleys. Which reflected sort of a "crossover point" in insulation, where much above 600, electricity gets rather feisty and hard to insulate. So this carried on into interurban, freight motor and diesel traction motors.

Meanwhile Tesla's gang had settled on some standard voltages (440 just happens to have an RMS peak of 600v, so, same insulation), which crept upward into the 120/240/480 we know today. So from those, railroads selected the one that industry had selected decades ago for the same capacity-vs-insulation reasons and fit the insulation they already knew how to work with.

If they hadn't picked 480, they would have picked something near it (like GO did with 575) and then had a harder time procuring motors, transformers, controls, lighting etc.

Howard Edison Pincus? Presume he named the system after his initials.

dave

Worth noting here... 575VAC was a standard utilization voltage in Canada within recent memory... so not such an odd choice.

It's not the 480 VAC 3-phase per se; I would suggest that's almost a given.

But someone chose or designed those connectors and that the trainline would be 4 runs. It might have been 2 runs of thicker cable though larger connectors would get rather unwieldy. So to some extent that much might have been a given as well. But someone had to actually design it.

By the way, aren't there three small pins for the safety? Are they all paralleled? It is just one safety line per cable set, isn't it, down one, then loop back via the other etc.?