Cab rides and full-width mu-car cabs

[daveklepper]

The latest posting on Henry's do-it-in-one-day thread and a bus ride this morning prompts this thread.

Using the Egged 34 from the University to my apartment this morning I sat in the bus's bus-fan seat , right behind the entrace door.  (On Jerusalem buses, like most places, younger people are supposed to vacate those seats for the elderly and handicapped.   At 82 I guess I can count as elderly.  A spry elderly but elderly none the less.)   Opposite me was an elderly religous driver, and probably his grandson, or perhaps son, age 4 or 5, sitting on the generous armrest-door-top, with feet through between the armrest and the handhold above.   The driver would occasonally point out particular sites to the youngster.  To me, this was a beautiful picture.  It did not interfere with the driver's attention to the road, or his handling the rather sparse number of passengers that frequent the line in the particular direction on a Friday get-ready-for Shabbat morning.

Those of us past the age of the baby  boomer generation can count ourselves luck y for the real locomotive cab-rides we received, the number of times we could stand next to the engineer or sit on a folddown seat over the opposite trap on the front platform of an emu or RDC, stand nexr to a streetcar operator controlling a conventional K-type drum controller,, and look out the front window of a corner-cab subway or elevated car, or Metro North or LIRR M-1-M-6.  Youngsters growing up now won't have those opportunities.  Maybe that is what makes trolley and railroad museums all that much more important, and I think the effort should be made for them to put more emphasis on children. 

The book of poems, LEGACY, by Morrie A. Yohai, (G.E.S., S. A. de C.V., Mexico, 1997) has a poem that might delight you:

THE BEACH 1924

I love Coney Island

-so nice'n cool

after that long subway ride

from the hot city.

The water feels so good

especially on my feet

burned by the sand

I splash and splach.

Mommy's taking me inside

into a very hot room

I can hardly see

all the naked fat ladies.

One of them screams

What is HE doing here!

Mommy says, He's only three.

I am really four.

[henry6]

Beautiful stories, Dave.  Thank You.

[daveklepper]

Can computer simulation programs make up the difference?  Has anuyone  used them?

[henry6]

I believe it was Conrail that brought a simulator to town...maybe Operation Lifesaver....and the public was allowed to play with it.   I found it interesting but not real if only because it was not intense like either a real or teaching situation.  I have been in cabs and have handled the throttle on 44 tonner and 0-4-0 saddle tanker but with only one car and a GP38 with a few cars...but would not call me either an engineer or an expert.  So I could not compare myself.  I know one pro engineer who lost a train on Gallitzen  slope on the simulator and couldn't believe himself!

[daveklepper]

I had extensvie experience at the Shore Line Trolley museum in running all varieties of electric equipment.  But i first ran a streetcar in The bronx, Bailey Avenue Line, age 14 or 15, with an Irish motorman as instructor.  Even after that, I went through a rigorous training program at Branford (Shore Line) under ex-Connecticu Co.'s Bill Ritchitelli, and the training there is rigorous today.  You should join.  Eventuallyi, you'll run an R-9, and IRT and elevated equipment as well as streetcars.

I already recounted running a GP-7 on a B&M Portsmouht, NH - Sommerville Yard freight in early 1953.

Then, as President and Trip Direcdtor of the ERA, ran the nostalgia Low-V IRT train from Hunts Point Avenue to Elders Lane on the Pelham Bay line, stopping at the 6-car marker at each station.   Around 1982.   Father Casgrove, the TA employee's Chaplain, had run the train from 125th to  Hunts Pont, and suggested I be given a turn.

The ultimate was running a South African 4-8-0 from the Engine Shed to the coal and water docks in Paetoria's Capitol Park Engine Shed location.

But I though I'd seen review's of simulation programs advertized as consumer products for use with MSWindows and Apple.

[NorthWest]

Yes, I have a couple. While they are excellent, you just can't replicate the motion and sound of a train while sitting at a computer.

[daveklepper]

Are they good for kids?

[NorthWest]

Yes! They love them.

[Deggesty]

Dave, Having had the experiences that I have had, I do not think that a simulation program is a substitute for the real thing--but I have never tried one. Running a Geep around a wye, standing at the rear of a train as it is backed into a station and talking with the conductor (I have done this on the trip I am currently taking), riding the deck of a steam engine and staying out of the way of the two firemen who were keeping the engine hot, sitting in the middle seat of an E and blowing for the public crossings (until it became too dark for me to distinguish between a whistle post and a mile post for both had the same shape), boarding a Pullman passenger at a station stop because the porter was not in the car at the stop, and various things that I have done on the ground.

[henry6]

Being a resident of the Binghamton, NY area for the past almost 50 years I would have to say they are 100% effective.  I say that because Edwin LInk invented and produced the airplane flight simulator here and the invention has been so important to commercial and military air applications since before 1940.  And railroads use them for training as well as truckers.  Plus the amusement industry has used the automobile and truck versions.  I believe Ed Link would be proud of the simulators' universal use in so many different transportation applications.  And, as an aside, Ed Link was a railfan...I met him while I was working as a volunteer at a museum with a steam locomotive in the early 80s..  My wife, who was attending the ticket office, brought him to me saying he wanted to know more about the engine.  We had an 0-4-0 saddle tank Porter and he reveled in the cab ride he and his wife enjoyed.  He gave me his card with an invitation to come ride his live steam railroad in his back yard in Florida.  No, I never got down there.

[efftenxrfe]

Being in the last, we were told, class (group) promoted to engineer  in the classic way, it felt great to be the last of that kind of engineers to be assigned to instruct at what was called "the simulator," the Cerritos Ca. SPT Co Engine Service Training Center.

First, possibly misleading, Hank VI wrote, "since before 1940," "And railroads use them for training" suggesting Link's machines were used by SP.

But no, a Brit post-WWII immigrant, Swiss educated Mechanical engr. got the project to simulate freight train operation; operating 1960s  jet transports and supertankers and other simulators, he claimed and I believe designed the motion base, computer linkage, concluded the parameters of in-train dynamics, (slack action and break-in-twos.) visual coordinations.

And when he walked, you saw a British NCO, from in the war films,,,,justifiably proud......Gordon Adams.

Second, Tho' Dave K's, near a decade older, I remember watching LIRR's MP54's motormen.....I envy the watching M1s thru  M6s....I didn't do it.

[henry6]

My post was just to show the acceptance of the simulator in transportation.  Ed Link is given the credit of inventing the simulator...the Blue Box as they were called...and there are at least two of the first one's on display in this area.  Link was purchased by Singer in the 70's.  There are many companies making simulators for many purposes today.  But it all began with the LInk.

[efftenxrfe]

I agree with you and give full measure of credit to Ed Link for inventing the "simulator"

Henry6, when SP went shopping  for a 12 inches equals 1 foot scale locomotive-freight train operations simulator in the 60's, there were none; nobody had put one together,  much less designed one.

SP was going to be in major need of engineers real soon----in Jan '66 the Coast Division had 450 engrs, 150 of them over 60 yrs old, and of those, 50 over 65;  and no fireman in the pipeline....other districts...well, the Stockton District ran out of men and had to get "loaners" to fire their passenger jobs, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin Daylights in 1968. I  loaned out, there and, then.

So Gordon got the project to put together the simulator for the school which instructed, and then tested the air brake, mechanical and rules knowledge while making them encounter situations fraught with risks, hazards while running the simulator...SP 8799 West.....and maybe, "high green" all the way.

Gorden's simulator,  and with 10 top grade engr/instr's filtering the flood of graduates who were promoted, or not, by their home division RFE's, helped by reports from the "the simulator," Gordon Adams accomplishment was inspired by an original invention by Ed Link.

Link invented. Adams redesigned and refined the concept.  Perfected?   

[efftenxrfe]

See previous .

[daveklepper]

Northwest's answer:  Yes, Kids love them.   That makes me happy.   Not the same thing, but a good solution just the same, and every railfan with kids should have one in his computer.

[NorthWest]

At the local museum, there is  a simulator, and there are always kids on it. It is the only thing to ever have a line! They  have a console on the keyboard that simulates engine controls, with a throttle, brake levers, bell, etc.

[daveklepper]

Is there anything like this available at the usual game price for PCs?

[NorthWest]

The simulators have a price range, and you get what you pay for. ($20-50ish).

The console is the RailDriver: http://raildriver.com/products/raildriver.php

[daveklepper]

If I had kids I would definitely go this route.   Since I already had actual train driving experience, t his is defnitely not something I need for myself, and I'd rather be exploring the internet for real rail information.