Or does it matter? I’ve seen a couple of posts where people would prefer the widecabs all else being equal. Are they more comfortable/better equiped than the old spartan cab design?
Interestingly the railroad that started the widecab revolution in the early 70s, CN, was also the last to buy new spartan cabs (IC SD50 or 60s in the 1990s).
Better heating and cooling. Less drafty. Quieter. Better “bathroom”.
Not the NS/Conrail SD70s of 1998?
Wide cabs offer a better ride, less noise, don’t have to wear ear plugs, you’re able to carry on a chat w/the crew without in a normal voice tone, better air AC/heating. Older units are nothing but junk, they are worthless as leading units and many should be either used in yd service or put to scrap.
On the minus side:
No place to stretch your legs. Nearly impossible to operate long-hood forward. Nearly impossible to see trainmen on the steps.
I really don’t like the wide-cabs at all because when I’m in a cab I’m there to see the territory and make judgements about the track quality, alignment, grade crossings, signal system, side tracks, and local customer potential. The tinted glass, lack of a decent-sized window behind you, and because the seat is down in a hole, makes it hard to see anything. When I’m riding territory I’ll wait for a train with an SD40. Unless it’s the middle of July in Louisiana and it’s daylight – then I’ll wait for the air-conditioned AC4400!
RWM
That’s a good point about visibility…that must be why CN order those teardrop windows…probably due to widespread concern about the view or lack thereof from the cab.
I think you’ll find that crews running long distance, point-to-point prefer wide cabs for the comfort factor, but that the local crews probably prefer regular cabs for their functionality as Jim poined out.
The older cabs, on the Conductor side the room sucks. You have two seats that are on top of each other, hard to rotate them (mainly the large newer seats NS is putting in) and end up having to sit side ways the entire trip and have a neck ache. No room to slide the rear seat back so you can slide the front seat back to get your knees out of that stupid heating box in the way. So of them, the bathroom door is only 3 1/2 feet tall. No joking. There are no steps to go down into the nose, just a tiny midget door with a drop off. And most of those ragged POS Conrail engines have that annoying boat horn mounted right on top of the cab so it just rattles your head every time you blow it.
Those NS-Conrail engines were built for Conrail at the end of their existence, but they were built to NS standards as they would soon be taking over. NS apparently wasn’t totally committed to wide cab units at the time so these were built with the old cabs. Even though they are still around they seemed to fade into the background pretty fast.
[soapbox]Are the cabs any wider on these units than on any others?
I think the only thing that’s wider is the noses. And, of course, the windows in front.
Off [soapbox] We now return you to your regularly-scheduled discussion. Sorry about that!
[(-D] I wanted to point that out, but knew someone else would. Should’ve known it would be Carl.
A friend of mine who’s an engineer for CSX used to refer to their fleet of CW40-8s and CW44-9s as “Wide Bodies” and I’m in no position to correct him either. [;)]
That seems to be standard CSX talk. I have heard that from many employees, and it always gets me.
Room, and more of it.
I am glad I am not the only one who thinks that way. I remember on my first road review, I had never sat in the middle seat of a comfort cab before, so I didn’t see much of a problem with catching a train with one in the lead. Well after about 2 hours of seeing nothing but the top of the nose and the tracks WAY down the line, I decided that I was only going to catch stuff with standard cabs for the rest of the week. While they are a little hotter and louder, you get a much better view out of the third seat in a standard cab.
So I guess we can agree on a couple of things…1) you’re better protected in a widecab in the event of a collision, and 2) a collision with something is more likely because visibility is reduced in a widecab…
Does anyone has a picture? [:-^]
Ulrich…Your first point is right on, but I disagree with your second point.
If you’re that close to what you can’t see because of the bigger nose you’re going to hit it anyway unless you’re moving slowly enough with zero trailing tons to be able to stop suddenly as in when switching, but even then the conductor would be on the ground or riding the front anyway acting as the engineer’s eyes. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, switching is rarely done with these behemoth motors anyway which is why GPs and SD40-2s are still plentiful and will be around for a while.
All competent engineers look well down the tracks while their trains are moving forward and any collision with something whos view was obstructed by the larger nose would have had to of thrown itself in front of the train at the very last moment. A most unavoidable incident no matter what kind of nose the locomotive has or how slow the train is travelling or even how light the train is.
Less drafty. As a Canadian, I feel that point should be stressed…
You guys must be midget RFE’s running with the seat down on the floor. With the exception of it being harder to see the crew member on the front steps, I disagree you. I have no problem seeing the track ahead. And, how can you see comfortably sitting the middle seat with the window pillar straight in front of your nose?
The worst thing about a “wide body” is a desk top control. Those things suck big time and are the ones where you can’t stretch your legs. Even though the new stuff from EMD and GE don’t have desk top controls, some gang of idiots decided to put a small desktop right in front of the engineer and screw up the leg room issue again.
The second worst thing about a wide body is if the air conditioner goes out. Then they tend to be quite a bit hotter than a standard cab.