For those RRs which ran 1200/600v and didn't change the motor connections, they ran at 1/2 the normal speed of each running point on the controller. For the control power, air compressors, and especially car lights, many RRs installed provision for running these directly off the [600v] trolley. The SN had manual-automatic change over in this respect: during Bridge Railway operations, the motorman had to select 600v for the lights upon hitting the 600v trolley by operating a momentary contact switch to pick up a special relay which connected these circuits directly to the trolley. Later on when the train passed under the 600v-1200v section insulator in the Bridge Yard, the relay dropped out, putting the circuits back on the dynamotor bus (reverse this process for EB trains). This arrangement may have predated the Bridge Railway because the SN ran on the 600v of the Sacramento streetcar system until well after after it crossed the M Street Bridge on the way to Oakland (and the Woodland Branch was 600v, which didn't branch off until west of the bridge).

The SP had a special group of their red electrics which could do essentially the same sort of thing when they ran several block on a Key System streetcar line (i.e. lights, but not motors).

Circuits in the "restored" 1005 have been jimmied so the while change-over switch is set so the traction motors are connected for 1500v, the dynamotors, control circuits, and lights all run off the trolley. This is the reason why the car is so sluggish compared to what it used to be (the SN ran at 1500v in later years).