engineers seat!

[Mookie]

many years ago, the engineers sat on the right, the fireman on the left and the conductor in the rear.

Now with only an engineer and conductor - where does anyone sit besides down. If I see a person inside the cab, how will I know or will I?

And I saw my first remote the other day - that was spooky! The person with the remote pak was on the rearend of about 3 cars and an engine - and the engine was empty. A little unnerving to say the least!

Jen

[favuprailroadfan]

Dear Jenny, I have had the pleasure of being in many of engines. I will tell you this. There are more than 2 seats in the cab. Most of the time there are 3. In case the train needs a brakeman. I have seen a UPC41-8W with 4. You have the engineer's seat on the right, 2 on the left(conductor and brakeman) and the other one was in teh middle of the cab. It was a weird site. This was the only cab that I had been in that had 4. I think(correct me if I'm wrong here) but I think the new SD90M's have 4 in them. The SD70M's have 3.

Hope this helps, Dru

[Mookie]

Hi neighbor: Yes this helps. I have only been in one engine - a small switch engine many years ago. But since my knowledge is from the 50's and 60's and so much has changed, I need to get caught up. Wasn't sure if they had changed the engineers seat from right side to some place else or not. (legally, not just the conductor wanting to change it.)

DPU? Maybe I am having a spell or maybe I just plain don't know, so can you tell me what that is?

Thanx

Jen

[Mookie]

I did what Ed from Houston told us to do - I went to the trains glossary and found out what DPU is!

So now I know!

[favuprailroadfan]

Distributed Power Unit, AKA unmanned helper engine. Its the ones on the end with no one in it.

DPU has really taken off. BIG TIME. I know that there in Lincoln it is mostly all coal, lucky girl. Most of your trains have 2 SD70MAC's up front and 1 or 2 on the back. The AC stands for Alternating Current but I'm sure you knew that already. Tell you what, if you ever get the chance to, go down by the yard, tell them who you are, what you are doing there, ask them for permission to be there, but never go into the yard. This is how I learned so much them in a very quick time. Get to know everybody from the maintainace(sp) workers to the railraod police. If they know who you are, then they should start letting you hang out more. That is the first thing I did, is that I went to the railroad police instead of him finding me. That way he knew. Right now, railroads are being very tough on who's there because of recent events. Take pictures, this helps. You can learn alot just from one pic. Back to the DPU thing, there is a issue of TRAINS mag. from I think last year. There is a entire story about DPU's and hopw they work. Who uses them and everything like that. Excellant issue. Well right me back and ask me anything you need to know.


LAters, Dru

[Mookie]

Dru - the BNSF police patrol the area where we sit and they won't even look at us. I think we must really be non-threatening! We sit there and eat a burger and watch - or as usual - he reads, I watch and flap my arms and get really excited!

Even the city police go by us and don't even look in our direction!

I used to be able to go into Hobson Yard all the time, since I would go with my Dad to the yard office, but that has been some time ago. It is now a very big, forbidding place with all the tracks and many engines and cars all over. So I am content to let them sort it all out and send a few my direction so I can watch them go by.

Jen

[Anonymous]

According to the gm/emd speficiations, the sd90mac only have 3 seats in the cab, but they can be built in different arrangments(the three seats).

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