These locomotives were made famous by the many toy trains modelled after them in the early days by American Flyer, Ives, and others.Here's one of the control positions, with a close-up. Notice the phone. "Hello, Central?"
You have to step down to enter the hoods at either end. Please watch your head! These contain the control system.
Here are the huge contactors and the reverser, located inside the hoods.
This is the original pantograph. It's tiny because it was designed to contact an overhead third rail, not wire, so very little vertical adjustment is needed. No dome cars could travel into Grand Central!
Finally, here's a third rail beam; each truck had two shoes next to each other. And here's the huge 2500 amp fuse box, with its mechanism for breaking the arc. I'm sure I wouldn't want to be nearby when a 2500 amp fuse blows!
8 comments:
what voltage did those puppies run on?
650 volts via DC third-rail.
Is the one at IRM runnable, or would it be with a proper trolley pole?
It has operated at IRM in the past, but blew a motor or two. It was used as the diesel shop's air compressor for some time.
Cool! It looks like it is indoors. Where is it at now? Last I knew it was outside in a yard.
It is in Barn 2, not on display. As you can see from the linked photo, it currently has a large South Shore pantograph mounted, but that's not authentic. It originally ran from third rail, either at ground level or mounted on girder bridges over the special work entering Grand Central. No trolley poles.
The device in the center of the fuse box is a pneumatic “fuse breaker”. In case of an electrical problem, all of the fuses can be broken to isolate the locomotive from the third rail, important for tunnel operations with limited clearance. Bill Wulfert
Also, the New York Central used an Underunning Third Rail, rather than Overrunning. Metro North still uses this type of third rail along with Philadelphia's Market-Frankford "El". Bill W.
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