Recent upgrades

Seems someone's decided to finally spend some money upgrading the older units to be more like the newer units in the fleet...

Saw one of the 5600's come through today, with the electronic fuel gauges, Witronix, video camera, and auto-start installed. Kinda threw me off for a minute, couldn't find the damn start switch!! Now it's in the cab...

I've noticed the older Dash 9's are getting retrofitted with the auto-start as well.. along with many of them getting distributed power. And the higher-numbered BC Rail units have CN-compatible distributed power radios now.. but the start switch is still in the carbody, no one-button start mod on those..

Rumour has it some of that the IC's in the 1000 series are going to get distributed power mods this year as well... first of the older SD70's to see DP. Maybe the CN ones will too...?

Kinda makes me wonder what the purpose of picking up those ex-UP Dash 8's is.. unless they're getting a bunch of upgrades as well..?

I've had atleast one or two 5600's with the auto start, fuel gauge and camera. I was kind of shocked as well to see them do something like that. One thing I wish they would do is pick a better place for the speedometer on the Dash 9's with the DP mods, it's kind of a pain to look up towards the ceiling for the speedometer.

I like how the later BC Rail units have the DP unit on top of the end of the control stand (above the radio), leaving the speedo head where it is. Don't know if that's a pain for you guys though, having no analog gauges on the CN units (unlike the BCOL ones)... having to look up so high above the radio?

I just think the placement for the speedo is way off, might be a little better if they moved the Pacesetter over and put the speedo more in line with where the engineer sits.