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Well, Karl has it right - you're looking at a converter, which has a motor and a generator on a common shaft. The motor end would run on 74 volts from the locomotive aux gen and the generator end would put out 24 volts for the radio. (A lot of this is from an old man's memory, so I might be a volt or two off.) Seems like military/aviation radios were all 24 volt. On the C&NW suburban cab cars these converters were set on top of the train control equipment box in the cab. Which was fine until the bearings started to go bad, then the converters would howl and chatter just inches away from the engineer's ear. The advantage with a converter is that the output voltage for the radio is completely isolated from the locomotive electrical system. There are no wires connecting the locomotive to the radio. Of course, in the 21st century, all of this is done with solid state electronics. When it goes bad an electrician has to change out circuit boards and tweak the onboard computer. Back in the old days we'd haul off and whack the converter with the wrench. PAW __._,_.___
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