What is the plan for use of the car? If the car is intended to operate in excursion service on a typical tourist railroad, full Amtrak HEP is not required. In fact, many tourist railroads operate with open excursion cars and no electrical power at all. However, doing so also severely limits how the cars are able to be used. For example, there can be no off-season specials if the cars have no heat in them. Some sort of lighting is necessary if night runs are ever planned. A fair number of tourist railroads have decided they would like at least a few air conditioned cars to satisfy customer request. If the car is to be taken on an occasional private car trip at the end of an Amtrak train then full Amtrak HEP is required.
Is the car currently equipped with some form of HEP due to earlier Amtrak conversion? If so, then perhaps all that is needed is to upgrade the HVAC control system with our NW-603-INT HVAC control system for replacement of the outdated Amtrak HVAC control system.
We would also probably suggest removal and replacement of any existing HEP connectors that are rebuildable. Rebuildable connectors are no longer allowed in new Amtrak-compatible conversions due to the huge number of failures that have happened over the years. Because of these failure problems, we would probably recommend that these connectors be replaced even if they are not worn, depending on the circumstances.
How old is the wiring in the car right now? Although neoprene insulation is considered acceptable for use in railroad car, it does not hold up very long in service, does not tolerate abraision very well, and has little resistance to diesel fuel and other petrolium substances. The wire may need to be replaced. If so, a much more satisfactory wire insulation is cross-linked polyolefin, such as the Brand-Rex wire that we distribute.
Does the car have HEP connectors or HEP trainline wiring? This is the wiring that carries the power from one end of the car to the other down the length of the train. Amtrak now requires that the connectors be the non-rebuildable type. Even if you are not using the cars in Amtrak service, we strongly recommend using the single molded piece connectors. We distribute Clements HEP connectors, as well as communication and MU connectors.
We have a list of the wire, connectors, and HEP parts required to put Amtrak-style HEP lines on a passenger car. Multiple-Unit wiring is only required on certain Amtrak routes. If MU wiring is needed, there is a slightly different list of parts.
If the operation is separate from Amtrak, or operates in occasional Amtrak service with special arrangements, it may be possible to avoid the expense of conversion to a full Amtrak HEP system. We have a page that describes the various HEP schemes that are used by some of our customers.
All parts required to install HEP on the car are available from Northwest Rail Electric. This includes the Power Connectors, Amtrak approved HEP junction boxes, the cross-linked polyolefin insulated wire, and various specialty parts.
What sort of electrical equipment is on the car right now? If the car is a non-updated 32 volt or 64 volt D.C. car, or otherwise not equipped with standard electrical equipment, the car will probably need to be converted to an air conditioning, heating, and electrical systems that can work with HEP. On a typical conversion, we convert the heat, air conditioning, and overhead air circulation blowers to 480 volt three phase power, which is the same as the HEP line. We usually have a small 480 volt circuit breaker panel, and a 120-208 volt panel for providing common 120 and 208 volt power to lights and small electrical loads, and a compatible HVAC control system. One typical package used on certain commuter railroads, tourist railroads, and independent passenger services is our NW-25100 (right). An assortment of custom variations of this panel have been produced for customers that demanded special systems as well.
What sort of heat and air conditioning is in the car right now? If the car currently has only steam heat, then a switch to electric heat to operate off of the HEP system will be desirable. See our heater page or overhead blower heater and evaporator unit. Many tourist operations find that they can operate fairly well off of just 18,000 watts of overhead heat. However, conversion of the baseboard heat to electric is recommended for any winter operation in cold areas, and in areas with cold winters we suggest using 24,000 watts of overhead heat in addition to electric baseboards.
For air conditioning, we highly recommend conversion away from low energy unit refrigerants such as R-12 and R-134A. These require a lot of space for the capacity of air conditioning provided. For many years we converted passenger car systems to R-22. Today, all of our new installations are with R-422B.
Emergency Lighting? The traditional 32 volt DC electrical system had a wonderful feature: most of the systems had almost 4 tons of batteries under the car floor to provide power while the car was stationary. No emergency lighting systems were needed because the existing system was itself powered by batteries. With a HEP conversion, this is no longer the case. Obviously, emergency lighting needs some sort of battery. The batteries that we have found work best are Optima deep-cycle spiral wound batteries. These are lead-acid batteries that are of such high quality they are regarded to be the same as a gel-cell when shipping them by air freight. The can be drained to their limits, and still not experience any reduced life. They are built to take vibration without any plate failure. They may be turned upside-down and still provide power. In short, they are what is required in a railroad passenger car to provide emergency lighting in the event of HEP power failure, derailment, or other battery lighting need.
We stock these batteries as well as some miniature 12 volt halogen lamps that we have found work reasonably well in emergency lighting applications, and battery chargers that work well in the passenger car applications of charging emergency lighting batteries and generator starting batteries.
What other power sources are needed? In many coaches that operate in day to day service, provision for power from the HEP line is all that is required. In many cases that is not the only desirable power source, however. Many private and business cars also have on-car generators. Stadco makes a line of under-floor generators. Northwest Rail Electric generator controls are designed specifically for railroad passenger cars and are warranty compatible with Stadco generators. The NW-GC500 series can even be set to provide power to the car when the HEP line fails. Power from yard power units in stations and storage tracks is also available in many locations, and quite a bit cheaper than running the on-car generator. If the car will use one of these yard power units, will it be a 480 volt yard powr unit, or 240 volts, or 208 volts? One customer had us build a yard power converter so they could use 480 volt, 208 volt and 240 volt yard power units.
Will the car act as a power car? Many passenger operations are running a Stadco under-car generator on one of their coaches, baggage cars, or other revenue passenger car. This allows them to avoid the expense of having an extra power car, as well as avoid the hassle of having a special passenger-only locomotive equipped with HEP feed.
The answer to the above two questions may lie in having a generator control system from Northwest Rail Electric that allows the car to have a generator that can feed the HEP line. One such system is our NW-GC155, which is designed to control a generator that feeds a HEP trainline. Our NW-GC500 package is a much more complex package designed to auto-start the generator and supply power to the car's electrical system in the event of a HEP or Yard power failure, as well as allow the system to feed the HEP trainline if the generator is running.
Where is Northwest Rail Electric on a typical passenger car? Take a look at the average passenger car project to find out.