Downer Rail recently completed the production of ten locomotives in Cardiff, but five remained unsold until Southern Shorthaul Railroad (SSR) agreed to purchase two of them for a long-term contract to haul domestic grain into Enfield, Sydney for milling. These locomotives will operate as single units to any of 50 nominated grain silos throughout NSW, anywhere from Moree down to the Riverina.
Matt Glover, Team Lead at Cardiff Production, oversaw the repainting and preparation of SSR101 and SSR102, with the assistance of Senior Service Engineer Andrew Hawk. The team also worked on additional customer-requested modifications, including the installation of a rear-facing CCTV camera and monitor.
The CCTV system is a driver aid designed to assist the driver when the locomotive is running long-end leading, a feature that was well-received by the drivers. Andrew approached the team at BLUi for recommendations on the cameras required for this task, as well as a recording and monitoring solution. Working with Andrew, Bozidar Jovanovic from BLUi recommended and supplied a surveillance system that features Honeywell dome cameras suitable for this application.
The Honeywell cameras are weather and vandal-resistant and feature excellent wide dynamic range (WDR) imaging technology, which helps obtain usable, clear video in camera-challenging high contrast scenes involving bright glare and dark shadows that are created as the locomotives travel in service.
One interesting fact is that SSR now operates both the oldest and newest Downer-built locomotives. GM10, the oldest operational mainline diesel locomotive on the register, entered service in June 1952 and has operated trains across the Nullabor for over three decades. By contrast, SSR102 was the very last GT46C-ACe locomotive built by Downer and contains the latest locomotive technology from EMD, such as IntelliTrain, Smart Consist, AESS, and the on-board CCTV system for monitoring and driver assistance by BLUi. These two locomotives represent over 62 years of locomotive technology and development by Downer in its various forms in Australia.
