The IRA Down-Under

[Steve Jeffs]

G'day,
The appearance of the ex Danish State Railway MZ3 JT36C (?) things in Australia has indeed added a different shape on the metals. Any Danes viewing this posting must forgive me, but my initial impression and I continue in this thinking when spying these units was YUCK. Plus, I do wonder if the train crew get neck pain from needing to bend with the slope of the windows.
These shots taken at Blayney NSW. I believe of the 16 units acquired by the IRA (yeh, I also thought that this moniker was a tad strange) taht currently only 10 are in operation. A "steering wheel" of all things on the control stand. Definitely a European design. I have never had to manipulate such controls, so do not know how they perform in comparison with the normal control stand that I am used to.
Steve.

[Damon Hill]

Looks not unlike a double-ended Genesis unit (Amtrak passenger engine by GE)

[NM_RailNut]

...but with even worse visibility from the cab. That "steering wheel" is most likely the brake control; quite a few European RRs use these instead of the more usual brake lever (and yes, the engineers hate 'em!).

[akprodr]

Is the cell phone looking thing actually a cell/sat phone or is a more conventional radio.

And the thing on the left? Looks like some sort of cooker?

[Jon Bentz]

I thought that the 'steering wheel' was the throttle. The brake controls are on the right. Who is the builder. They do look a little like some of the more recent GE export units for China.

[moha113]

I agree with Jon Bentz. The independent brake and train brake are on the right, and the throttle is the steering wheel shaped control. I think the small lever next to the throttle is to select direction of travel.

Who is the builder.

One look at the trucks and I thought "flexicoil". Indeed, it is a NOHAB product, which traditionally powered their locomotives with EMD engines. This particular model is powered by a 645E3. Info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSB_class_MZ

Also note that Spain's RENFE also operates a similar model, the class 333:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RENFE_Class_333

[cp9524]

Originally Posted by akprodr

Is the cell phone looking thing actually a cell/sat phone or is a more conventional radio.

And the thing on the left? Looks like some sort of cooker?

I am assuming that the phone is a conventional radio. It looks almost identical to the ones in the VIA F40PH-2's. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphot...=188414&nseq=5
The other thing looks like a hot-plate. Funny how these Danish units have similar things to the Canadian units.

[9T90]

Originally Posted by akprodr

Is the cell phone looking thing actually a cell/sat phone or is a more conventional radio.

And the thing on the left? Looks like some sort of cooker?

As already noted by cp9524, it's probably a conventional radio. My railway uses similar equipment: We normally have the radio set to the open "control" channel, but if we have to contact anyone specific through the internal telephone system we select another channel, press * to get a dial tone and then dial the number. When the call is finished we press #.

The cooker is indeed just a hotplate. Modern locos have microwave or toaster ovens, but the older units just have a hotplate. Most loco drivers on my system are tea drinkers, so the hotplate gets a workout a couple of times on each trip. On colder nights we leave the hotplate turned on and it acts as a pretty efficient cab heater!

[moha113]

Any Danes viewing this posting must forgive me, but my initial impression and I continue in this thinking when spying these units was YUCK

If you think these are fugly, check out the GE units running in Egypt (on another thread). Same type of windows, and even more blocky...

[Steve Jeffs]

G'day,
Yes, these things are NoHAB units. The steeringwheel is indeed the throttle, which I am told provides some fun when shunting (switching). All locomotives operating within NSW must possess a radio system capable of working on three different systems. There is the Railcorp Cityrail system for trains operating within the Sydney metropolitan region, the general system for open and discrete local communication (switching etc) plus the train control system which must possess GPS to enable train tracking within Train Order territory. Most operators also provide some sort of telephone communication, and this can be enabled via the handset keypad. The radio software allocates each locomotive with a telephone number identity. This we only discovered some yearswhen I suddenly received a phone call via the train control radio which was obviously a wrong number; "Is Jim there?, "NO, he ain't, this is a Freightcorp coal train." After broaching this matter with management, I discovered the fact that all locos possess a phone number.
The plethora of communication systems involved is an annoyance and the aussie federal government hope to resolve this dilemma with a single digital country wide train radio system. Who knows when, though.
Steve.