Diesel Department

Control stand of USA 8537.

The United States Army 8537, a GE 45 ton diesel locomotive, was brought into the shop at the same time as the BN 9908. The purpose is to finish updating the cab interior by installing the new cab lights, a two way radio, permanently wiring the cab heaters, finish the painting inside the cab, and several other items. On Saturday the 3rd, the cab lights were installed, which are a standard EMD style. This required pulling all the old wire out of the conduit to the existing cab light and roof beacon and pulling it all back into the conduit, just to add one wire to provide constant power to the new lights. The lights are done now, along with the wiring to the cab heaters, which was run along the existing wiring in the electrical cabinet. They had been temporarily wired last year just to get heat in the winter months.

New cab light over the engineers seat.

A number of years ago, Dan Currens installed a DC to DC isolated converter that took the 36V positive ground loco system to a 12V negative ground. The truck stlye cab heater motors, a priming fuel pump, and the two way radio run off the 12VDC system. The next step will be to wire in the radio and mount the AAR radio plate to the console. After that, more painting in the cab.

DC-DC converter.