Hi guys,
i hope someone can help me. What is this little thing on the nose of GN´s Class Y1a electric? If i wouldn´t know better, i would say its kind of a pantograph or electric connection. I think i also saw it on other Great Northern electric locmotives. Here is an image:
Thanks,
It appears to be an ice breaker to remove built up ice from the wires. As always ENJOY.
It is a electrical connector for two identacle locomotives operating in mu so that when there is any pantograph bounce or ice the pantograph remaining with contact to the wire will feed both locomotives and arcing will be reduced considerably. GN considered this a safer approach than jumper cables which is what most other electric railroads, including suburban and interurban lines with mu equipment used. One other railroad used this technique, the Reading’s green mu’s. If you look at a picture of the Reading mu trains, you will see the same contactors. The Silverliners that replaced them, identacle for both PRR and Reading, did not use either jumpers or overhead jumper contactors.
Bingo! New Haven used the “bus bars” on their EF4s (a/k/a EL-Cs,and E-33s) The Virginian had them on their EL-Cs as built and they kept them until Penn Central removed them around 1969-70.
The bus bars were used to make the high-voltage connection between locomotives. This would allow the entire consist to draw current through only one pantograph. Without the bus connection, each individual locomotive would have to have one of its own pantographs raised to draw current from the overhead.
Incidentally, the Y1a shown was sold to PRR in 1957 along with the unrebuilt Y1’s, but served strictly as a parts source.
Daveklepper is right on. One thing to note, even though the bus connectors
permitted the locomotive consist to operate with only a single pantograph
raised, it was standard GN practice to always operate with 2 raised on any
given locomotive consist. One class-the big 1947-built GN class W-1s were
not equipped with these bus bars, so were unable to operate MUed with
the older boxcabs-or 5011. In service, they would frequently operate singly
on the head end with a 3 or 4 unit helper cut in mid-train.