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The cab, crew compartment or driver's compartment of a locomotive, or a self-propelled rail vehicle, is the part housing the train driver, fireman or secondman (if any), and the controls necessary for the locomotive or self-propelled rail vehicle's operation.
On steam locomotives, the cab is normally located to the rear of the firebox, although steam locomotives have sometimes been constructed in a cab forward configuration. camelback locomotives often had two cabs; one for the fireman at the rear of the boiler, and one for the engineer on the side of the boiler. Camelback locomotives were built with this configuration to accommodate wider fireboxes. [1]
The cab, or crew or driver's compartment of a diesel or electric locomotive will usually be found either inside a cabin attached to a hood unit or cowl unit locomotive, or forming one of the structural elements of a cab unit locomotive.
On self-propelled rail vehicles, the cab may be at one or both ends.
The earliest locomotives, such as Stephenson's Rocket, had no cab; the locomotive controls and a footplate for the crew were simply left open to the elements. However, to protect locomotive crews against adverse weather conditions, locomotives gradually came to be equipped with a roof and protective walls, and the expression "cab" refers to the cabin created by such an arrangement.
By about 1850, high speed Crampton locomotives operating in Europe already had a much needed windshield giving some protection to the footplate area. Some other early locomotives were even fitted with a cab as part of a rebuilding program, an example being the locomotive John Bull.
In Germany, the locomotive cab was introduced by the Saxon railway director and writer Max Maria von Weber. However, until 1950 the railway directorates of the German-speaking countries continued to believe that a standing posture was essential to maximise crew vigilance. Steam locomotive drivers, who had to lean out of their cabs for better visibility, therefore frequently developed occupational diseases, along with rheumatism, and electric locomotive drivers suffered from wear to the knees.
This unsatisfactory situation changed—with few exceptions—only with the construction of the German standard electric locomotives, which for the first time were equipped with crew seats. Meanwhile, the maintenance of crew vigilance became possible by technical means through the use of Sifa devices.
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight trains.
A multiple-unit train or simply multiple unit (MU) is a self-propelled train composed of one or more carriages joined, which when coupled to another multiple unit can be controlled by a single driver, with multiple-unit train control.
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels.
A railcar is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach, with a driver's cab at one or both ends. Some railway companies, such as the Great Western, termed such vehicles "railmotors".
A tender or coal-car is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, so their tenders are necessary to keep them running over long distances. A locomotive that pulls a tender is called a tender locomotive. Locomotives that do not have tenders and carry all their fuel and water on board the locomotive itself are called tank locomotives or tank engines.
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels. The most common are diesel-electric locomotives and diesel-hydraulic.
Rail transport terms are a form of technical terminology applied to railways. Although many terms are uniform across different nations and companies, they are by no means universal, with differences often originating from parallel development of rail transport systems in different parts of the world, and in the national origins of the engineers and managers who built the inaugural rail infrastructure. An example is the term railroad, used in North America, and railway, generally used in English-speaking countries outside North America and by the International Union of Railways. In English-speaking countries outside the United Kingdom, a mixture of US and UK terms may exist.
Main components found on a typical steam locomotive include:
In a steam engine, the firebox is the area where the fuel is burned, producing heat to boil the water in the boiler. Most are somewhat box-shaped, hence the name. The hot gases generated in the firebox are pulled through a rack of tubes running through the boiler.
The three L-1 0-8-8-0 Mallet-type steam locomotives of the Erie Railroad, built in July 1907 by ALCO, and numbered 2600, 2601 and 2602 ; were unique in that they were the only articulated camelback locomotives ever built.
A footplate provides the structure on which a locomotive driver and fireman stand in the cab to operate a British or continental European steam locomotive. It comprises a large metal plate that rests on top of the locomotive frame, usually it is covered with wooden floorboards. It takes up the full width of the locomotive cab, and in depth it extends from the front of the cab to the coal bunker on the tender. The cab and other superstructure elements are in turn mounted on it. On some locomotives, the footplate is extended beyond the front of the cab to form a walkway around the boiler – usually referred to as the "running board" or "foot board" – to facilitate inspection and maintenance.
A camelback locomotive is a type of steam locomotive with the driving cab placed in the middle, astride the boiler. Camelbacks were fitted with wide fireboxes which would have severely restricted driver visibility from the normal cab location at the rear.
A Meyer locomotive is a type of articulated locomotive that has two separate bogies, upon which the boiler and firebox swivel. The design was never as popular as the Garratt or Mallet locomotives. It can be best regarded as 19th Century competition for the early compound Mallet and also the Fairlie articulated designs. Most single cab modern trains are of a similar design such as power cars, freight diesel locomotives, and some passenger locomotives.
The term cab forward locomotive refers to various rail and road vehicle designs that place the driver's compartment substantially farther towards the front than is common practice.
The Leader was a class of experimental 0-6-0+0-6-0T steam locomotive, produced in the United Kingdom to the design of the innovative engineer Oliver Bulleid. The Leader was an attempt to extend the life of steam traction by eliminating many of the operational drawbacks associated with existing steam locomotives. It was intended as a replacement for the ageing fleet of M7 class tank engines still in operation on the Southern Railway (SR). Design work began in 1946 and development continued after the nationalisation of the railways in 1948, under the auspices of British Railways (BR).
Push–pull is a configuration for locomotive-hauled trains, allowing them to be driven from either end of the train, whether having a locomotive at each end or not.
The Wootten firebox is a type of firebox used on steam locomotives. The firebox was very wide to allow combustion of anthracite waste, known as "culm". Its size necessitated unusual placement of the crew, examples being camelback locomotives. The Wootten firebox made for a free-steaming, powerful locomotive, and the cheap fuel burned almost smokelessly; the combination made for an excellent passenger locomotive, and many camelbacks operated in this service.
A control car, cab car, control trailer, or driving trailer is a non-powered rail vehicle from which a train can be operated. As dedicated vehicles or regular passenger cars, they have one or two driver compartments with all the controls and gauges required to remotely operate the locomotive, including exterior locomotive equipment such as horns, bells, ploughs, and lights. They also have communications and safety systems such as GSM-R or European Train Control System (ETCS). Control cars enable push-pull operation when located on the end of a train opposite its locomotive by allowing the train to reverse direction at a terminus without moving the locomotive or turning the train around.
Railmotor is a term used in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for a railway lightweight railcar, usually consisting of a railway carriage with a steam traction unit, or a diesel or petrol engine, integrated into it.
A blowback is a failure of a steam locomotive, which can be catastrophic.
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