Wendezugsteuerung

Here ist the first of the promised closeups of old German electric engines. What we are seeing here is what Americans would know as MU cable, for either controlling multiple units or remote controlling the engine from a car with a drivers compartment. Around here, normally only two engines are hooked up together in contrast to the sometimes eight and more in a row which one can see in the US. This is commonly known as Doppeltraktion, which translates into double traction, and can be observed in this very nice shot by Hoyt. Note the cable on the left in its idle position, that you can also see here.

What I wanted to share is the normally unobserved socket, which one can only see when coupling engines together, or when a bunch of engines about to be scrapped are left standing around for me to explore. In the top left pic, you can see the connected cable, and right next to it, the socket itself. If you have counted them correctly, there should be 36 wires, one for each function that can be performed by the Wendezugsteuerung. If you're interested, here is a brochure about the class 181 which, on page 23, includes a list of what each pin is designated for.

For some reason, I liked the mechanism of the socked cover, which also holds the cable in place when inserted, so I had to show it in "action" To the right of the socket, there is a flap under which you'll find another socket, but this time its for the power cable (Zugsammelschiene) that supplies cars with electricity, if needed. Its nothing specacular, just a single copper socket, so I didn't delve into that too much

To be honest, some of these engines where a wee bit jumbled in this section, some had multiple sockets, two on each side, though normally I'd only expect a crossover like on the two pics I've linked. The side of the MU socket holds the idle power cable, and the side of the power socket holds the idle MU cable. But as you can see, there might be some variation to this, with two sockets on one side Though some of the engines had already lost their idle cable, so it doesn't matter any more.