I never understood why first generation diesels were designed with such poor visibility for the crew. What were some of the factors that influenced the early road switcher design?...If it were me designing a locomotive I would make crew visibility one of my priorities...yet that didn't seem to be an important consideration for the early designers. The current wide cab designs make alot more sense...seems a little funny that it took almost 40 years to get to that though. And there's no confusion about which end is the front. Road switchers often had to have a "F" marked on the chassis so that crew could to determine which end is front!
The early designes were a 100 % improvement over a steam engine.
Todays engines are just further evolvements of those first diesels.
When early GP's were built, there was both an engineer and a fireman in the cab. Seeing signals was not an issue. And what you may consider poor viability was a great improvement over steam engine visability! The F is mandatory(goverment rule). It also gives shop crews a reference when repairing something. Since a GP can ge configured as either short or long hood as forward, it makes sense ti identify the configuration from a ground sight perspective. The present 'safety cab' designs are great for road engines, but the more common 'low nose' cabs are a lot better when doing setouts/pickups of freight cars.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Design? in a diesel locomotive? isn't that a contradiction in terms, diesel locomotives are a metal gym locker shroud that contains a motor and generators, the last thing to be added was where the engineer was placed. Someone, someday may come up with a classic design befitting a locomotive, but now, get used to metal boxes with motors.
Design and styling are not necessarily synonymous. Styling costs money and rarely earns a return. The EMD bulldog nose with its compound curves was difficult and expensive to fabricate and involved the use of a fair amount of body putty. Alco's flatnose design was appreciably easier to make.
Don't make the mistake of looking at the early boxcab designs with 20-20 hindsight. You have to start somewhere and the boxcabs were a starting point. Steeplecab electrics didn't necessarily have great all-around visibility, consider South Shore's steeplecabs and the extra machinery in a diesel-electric might not have fit in a steeplecab. The endcab switcher with the low hood was an evolutionary step which improved visibility in both directions. The same can be for the roadswitcher design, beginning with the RS1.
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