Northwest Rail Electric provides electrical products and related services to the railroad passenger car industry.
Electrical Locker Packages:
We offer a number of electrical locker packages for upgrading and control of electrical systems on passenger cars. These include:
The NW25-100 and its variants. This package has been an extremely successful item for tourist railroads, some dinner train operators, and in coaches in a number of other passenger railroads, freight railroad business cars, and other situations where a single electrical package is required for HVAC control and circuit breakers.
The NW25-200 is a variant of the above designed for cases where two zones of HVAC control is required.
A number of custom variations of the above two systems have been built. This includes a three-zone version, versions that include space for a battery charger, versions that includes several different types of heating controls, versions that control several different types of air conditioning, versions that have either single speed or two-speed blowers, and various other custom packages have been based on making only minor changes to this package.
For cases where a variation of one of these packages will not work, we do offer custom and modular locker packages, but due to their custom nature, they are also more expensive than making a small alteration to one of the above packages to suit special needs. For examples of custom packages, see our custom products gallery
DC Control System. This includes DC Battery Power Curcuit Breakers, Battery Charging System, and other equipment based on the customer needs. While many of these have been custom packages, even our most simple standard locker package includes as standard equipment an emergency lighting circuit breaker and relay to turn on the emergency lights when the power fails.
Heating and Air Conditioning Equipment:
We have produced a number of HVAC products, including 7.5- and 10- ton under-car air conditioning systems, custom evaporator and condenser systems, a series of overhead blower and evaporator units designed for passenger car retrofit, various heaters, and produce a line of railroad grade air conditioning condensers specifically for railroad passenger cars. Our list of products include:
The NW-2 is a 10-ton capacity under-car complete HVAC system.
The NW-4 is a rooftop unit designed for use on certain railroad passenger cars.
The Compact Overhead Evaporator, Blower and Heat Unit series of overhead units include blowers, air conditioning evaporators, and heat in a compact package designed to retrofit almost any passenger car that is being rebuilt to modern specifications.
The NW-100-CN series of railroad car air conditioning condensers are also specifically designed for retrofit on almost any passenger car that is being rebuilt to modern specifications, and has a profile that is specifically designed to fit under a railroad passenger car.
In the event that a car is already equipped with a compressor and evaporator but a new or additional condenser capacity is needed, we offer our NW-CND-2 condenser.
Various electric heating systems in both custom and standard types are available. Let us know what you need and we can find something that works in your car.
A number of custom HVAC systems, condensers, and evaporators have been produced over the years.
Our older model Overhead Evaporator, Blower and Heat Unit is still available for those who ask for it, but we highly recommend the compact evaporator unit above. Our older unit is a somewhat larger, older, and less flexible unit than the above compact version, and we highly recommend that unit over our older product due to the improvements made.
HVAC Controls:
The photograph at right is a custom HVAC controls system built for a dome car that required multiple zones of air conditioning capacity. Most of our systems for controlling passenger car heating, venting, and air conditioning are designed to be part of a larger locker package (See above). This is not the case with our NW-603-INT. This HVAC control system was designed to be a replacement for older passenger car HVAC control systems, and to fit right into the existing electrical locker as much as possible.
The NW25-100 and its variants. This package has been an extremely successful item for tourist railroads, some dinner train operators, and in coaches in a number of other passenger railroads.
The NW25-200 is a variant of the above designed for cases where two zones of HVAC control is required.
A number of custom variations of the above two systems have been built. This includes a three-zone version, a version that includes space for a battery charger, versions that includes several different types of heating controls, versions that control several different types of air conditioning, versions that have either single speed or two-speed blowers, and various other custom packages have been based on making only minor changes to this package. Many of these custom systems also include generator controls and various other controls for more than the HVAC equipment. For examples of those and various other custom electrical locker packages, see our custom locker packages section.
Generator Controls:
We have three basic families of Generator Controls:
The GC-100 series provides power to a generator control designed to feed power from a single generator to a series of passenger cars with simple controls and automatic operation and shut-down in the event of an engine problem ( low oil level, overheating, etc. ).
The GC-500 series is designed to be a power selection system for a passenger car that can run off of its own generator, the HEP system, or Yard Power while the car is in storage or stopped for long periods. It is common to equip this package to have the ability to feed power through the HEP line to other passenger cars.
Custom Generator Packages include a number of alterations and variations of the above, plus some very unique packages. Some of these packages have included parallel operation for two or more generators in the same power car, control of two generators from a single control box (see custom dual generator control at right), custom control boxes to fit around existing electrical locker equipment, custom indicator and metering systems, and custom enclosures to suit the customer needs. For some other photos of custom packages, see our custom products gallery.
Diesel Generator Sets:
We are a distributor of Stadco Diesel Generator Sets so that we are able to provide not only a compatible generator control, but a diesel generator set as well that is designed specifically for the railroad industry.
Yard Power Packages:
The NW-YPHP is a basic yard power supply for powering the train HEP line while the train is laying over in a station or in storage. There are a number of standard variations available, including several amperage capacities and configurations for full-HEP trainline, quarter-HEP trainline, and half-HEP trainline.
Northwest Rail Electric does not perform general rebuilding and repair of railroad passenger cars. However, we do have good relationships with several shops that are very good at rebuilding passenger cars, and have worked with a number of passenger car shops around the country. We have provided consulting on a number of projects that included our working with car shops and car dealers to find passenger cars that will serve the customers needs. As these projects have all been custom to fit the needs of each customer, for a little more information see our custom products gallery.