11-27-2010, 07:33 PM
Lutz ...
I don't have first hand knowledge, nor have I ever seen it discussed in any of the many books about the Reading, the Lehigh Valley, Lehigh and New England, or other Camelback roads, I would have to make an educated guess.
And that guess would be that number one, it was very cramped inside that cab, sitting there as the meat in a boiler lagging/ cab wall sandwich, and very warm as well. Sitting on the cab window armrest, although probably not the safest seat, allowed the engineer to be in the airflow ppassing the cab, as well as affording a slightly better vantage point to view what might be ahead on the tracks. Remember, He did not have the luxury of a foireman sitting across the cab from him to watch the left side of the tracks or to call out signal aspects for those signals that were difficult to see from the engineers seat on the right-hand-side of the locomotive.
So ... there you have an answer ... it may or may not be correct, but as a long time camelback fan, it is what I have surmized as the the reason you see so many camelback engineers sitting on the sill armrest.
I don't have first hand knowledge, nor have I ever seen it discussed in any of the many books about the Reading, the Lehigh Valley, Lehigh and New England, or other Camelback roads, I would have to make an educated guess.
And that guess would be that number one, it was very cramped inside that cab, sitting there as the meat in a boiler lagging/ cab wall sandwich, and very warm as well. Sitting on the cab window armrest, although probably not the safest seat, allowed the engineer to be in the airflow ppassing the cab, as well as affording a slightly better vantage point to view what might be ahead on the tracks. Remember, He did not have the luxury of a foireman sitting across the cab from him to watch the left side of the tracks or to call out signal aspects for those signals that were difficult to see from the engineers seat on the right-hand-side of the locomotive.
So ... there you have an answer ... it may or may not be correct, but as a long time camelback fan, it is what I have surmized as the the reason you see so many camelback engineers sitting on the sill armrest.
And as a terminally slow typist, who proof-reads everything twice to catch the myriad of typos, ol' E-Paw has snuck one in ahead of me!
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln