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why the right side?
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This is true, but on early locomotives there was no window, and no cab at all. Nor were there any valves to turn, but rather just a throttle lever and a valve lever (or reversing lever). You stood on a platform at the back of the locomotive and looked straight ahead into the breeze, eyes smarting from the wood smoke washing over you. Your right hand rested naturally on the reversing lever (the Johnson bar). <br /> <br />You're correct, later on, if you are peering out the cab window, now your body has shifted to the outside of the controls, and now your left hand is on the throttle or on the Johnson bar, and that's what most photographs indicate. But by that time the right-hand orientation apparently had already been established as standard. <br /> <br />Consider also that most right-handed people are also right-eye dominant (I certainly am). That favors right-hand location of the engineer as well, if you're going to be looking past a long boiler. I don't know if people thought about this in detail, but if one was building a steam locomotive, and wondered which side to put the controls on, intuitively I think they would put them on the right-hand side, unless they were left-handed and left-eye dominant. <br /> <br />I'm not following you on the clipboard reference. Most engineers don't have to write anything down en route, unless it's to copy a track warrant or Form A or Form B restriction. In two-man operation, the warrant or track bulletin instruction is copied by the conductor or assistant engineer if the train is moving, as operating rules on most railroads require the train to be stopped if the engineer is to copy an authority or restriction in writing. (A major source of delay for one-man Amtrak trains, by the way.) <br /> <br />Thinking about this, if one was to do it all over again, and could choose either side, I think I'd still go for the right-hand side if there is any sort of nose to look around. If the locomotive was blunt-ended, and had no switching to do en route, and had no platforms to worry about, then I might choose the location that worked best for my right-handedness. Many high-speed trains center the engineer in the cab.
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