I have some qusetions on US style loco.
- What is an “Anti-climber”
- I’ve heard that wide-nosed locos have some honking big steel bars inside to help protect the cab space. Are they effective?
These are not necessarily questions for a boilermaker.
An anticlimber is just what the name implies. It is an extra heavy duty “bumper” usually found on locomotives to prevent the end of a car from running up over the end of the locomotive in the event of a collision. A form of protection for the engine crew. Old street cars had a primitive form of these a long time ago.
A fair shot of the anticlimber on an Amtrak P32-8 engine. Note the beveled area above the two lowest headlights, topped by the white painted band.
http://www.hebners.net/Amtrak/amtP32-8/amt516b.jpg
There are heavy duty collision posts (among other names) in the nose section of most modern locomotives. They do protect the crew in the event of a collision better than a locomotive without them, but no safety device is perfect.
I am an ex-boilermaker, a Purdue Boilermaker that is, though being from Thailand you might not be familiar with that nickname for Purdue University students and their football team.
I am most familiar with anti-climbers as used on electric interurban cars. When these were involved in a head or rear end collision one car would often “climb” over the floor body of the other and “telescope” inside the second car interior resulting in horrific casualties to the riders in the car which had been telescoped. Anti-climbers were designed to prevent this from happening and consisted of heavy shaped steel shields that wrapped around the front and rear ends of the under frame and floors of such cars. The idea was that in a collision the anti-climbers of the two cars would hit and engage each other causing one or both cars to “jacknife” off the the tracks instead of one car telescoping inside the other. I can’t say for sure but anti-climbers may also have been used on the passenger cars of steam railroads for the same reason.
I never knew of anti-climbers being applied to either steam of diesel locomotives but perhaps someone else will correct me on this if I am wrong.
Mark