Hi Listers:
I want to thank Dennis Henry for asking the right question about equipment
and my wife for taking a little longer with her makeup, so that I can take
ten minutes and provide some information about Bi-levels, or Gallery cars as
the Q named them.
First, I need to apologize and retract and earlier figure. The old memory
just don't work sometimes. My computer is on the second floor and my files
are in the basement, so research isn't always what it could be....
Former Q cars 700 to 795, BN 796 to 820, and Metra 7100 to 7121 (built
1977-78) are built to the Q end loading design of 1,200,000 lbs., not he
figure I quoted earlier. All other Metra bi-levels are built to an 800,000
lb. end loading design. The former Q cars are equipped with a bolster roll
stabilizer, others are not. Cars operated on BNSF are equipped with a PS68
brake with D-22AR Control valves, others have different brake schedules.
Also, the door control trainline, 480 volt control, and 27 wire trainline
are to BN specification. Fromer Q and BN cab cars are equipped with Cab
Signals, other control cars have different systems or none.
Ok, so I did not type fast enough and it is now Sunday afternoon.....
I did not note on any diagrams pages, note about concrete floors.
>From the differences in control circuits as well as the end loading design
issue, we can establish that Metra does not exchange equipment due to these
subtle, yet critical differences.
Ed DeRouin
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