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Concept
Control car
Summary
A control car, cab car (North America), control trailer, or driving trailer (UK, Ireland and India) is a non-powered rail vehicle from which a train can be operated. As dedicated vehicles or regular passenger cars, they have one or two driver compartments with all the controls and gauges required to remotely operate the locomotive, including exterior locomotive equipment such as horns, bells, ploughs, and lights. They also have communications and safety systems such as GSM-R or European Train Control System (ETCS). Control cars enable push-pull operation when located on the end of a train opposite its locomotive by allowing the train to reverse direction at a terminus without moving the locomotive or turning the train around.
Control cars can carry passengers, baggage, and mail, and may, when used together with diesel locomotives, contain an engine-generator set to provide head-end power (HEP). They can also be used with a power car or a railcar.
European railways have used control cars since the 1920s; they first appeared in the United States in the 1960s.
Control cars communicate with the locomotive via cables that are jumped between cars. North America and Ireland use a standard AAR 27-wire multiple unit cable, while other countries use cables with up to 61 wires. A more recent method is to control the train through a Time-Division Multiplexed (TDM) connection, which usually works with two protected wires.
In North America, cab cars are used primarily for commuter rail and, less frequently, for longer distance trains. There are both single and bilevel models; styling ranges from blunt ends to newer, more aerodynamic, streamlined cabs. They may be very similar to regular coaches, to the point of including a gangway between cars so that they could be used in the middle of a passenger train like a regular coach if necessary.
The Chicago and North Western Railway had 42 control cabs built by Pullman-Standard in 1960, which eliminated the need for its trains or locomotives to be turned around.
Official source
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