| Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy E8A 9947B leads an inbound rush-hour commuter run on a frosty morning at suburban Westmont, Illinois on January 4, 1965. This was during the transition between conventional cars (the first several cars on this train) and gallery cars (aka, double deckers). One gallery car is second from last on this train followed by a single deck car which has a generator for the gallery car because the gallery car cannot accept steam from the steam generator in the diesel (eventually all CB&Q E-units in commuter service would be converted to head-end power by BN and pull trains of all gallery cars with no generator car). The gallery car has electric heating, is air conditioned, and had no small generator under it's floor for the lights powered by the rotation of the car's wheels. Conventional cars were just the opposite, needed steam from the steam generator in the diesel (originally from a steam engine) for heat (and hot water in intercity cars), had a generator run off the wheels when the train was moving and an under-floor battery for when the train was not moving for lights. Today all passenger diesels locomotives have a second much smaller diesel engine to generate power for the cars and thus have "head-end power". |