| Southern Railway 905915 at Knoxville, Tennessee on an unknown day in April 1980, Kodachrome by Chuck Zeiler. For those of you not familiar with Southern's locomotive remote control program ( Locotrol ), the idea was to place the receiver boxcar ( 905915, in this case ) MUed in mid-train with a few locomotives, and one master locomotive leading. The progam began in the 1960's, with retired FT B-units gutted and equipped with radio receivers, and by 1966, 50 totally new cars, numbered 5900-5949, were built by Berwick Forge and Fabricating (BFF). In the late 1960s all the BFF cars were renumbered with the addition of the "90" prefix making them 905900-905949. These cars had a light weight of from 166,000 to 169,400 pounds. The electronics of that era were large and bulky, and although the equipment could likely have fit into Southern's high short hood locomotives, the thought was that one car could be so equipped rather than a fleet of locomotives. I'm not sure how successful the program was ( did they have feedback so the lead knew what the mid-train locomotives were doing? ), but the program lasted until the 1990's. Internally, these cars were just big boxes with racks and cabinets for the radio equipment, relays, breakers, tools, direction and address controls, air reservoirs, and a brake stand. Externally, they were about as plain as they could be with their welded steel sides and only a couple of vents on each side. Most of the details were on the ends of the cars. In addition to the usual coupler, air hoses and train air line, there was a door for access to the inside, a brake wheel on one end, an MU receptacle, an electric power connector, a narrow walkway, and ladders. As originally built, the MU receptacle and power connector were located next to one another on the upper left side of the door. This position was necessary because F-units were commonly used in helper service, and their MU receptacles were located up high on the nose next to the headlight. However, after the last F7s were removed from helper service in the late 1960s, the MU and electric power receptacles were moved down below the level of the door, requiring a vertical conduit for the wiring, for convenience in connecting to hood units with pilot-mounted MU connectors. |