Name: kyle
E-mail: 
Employed as: Conductor, for 20-30 years
Posted: 05 July 2012

Good post rrj,, i know when i hired on there was no such thing as ac on
the older locomotives, open the window and prop open the door, many
yard engines today still don,t have ac cuz most of them are the older
type locomotives,, the ac on the newer locomotives is not there for
your comfort to begin with, Its there too keep the computer components
at a stabel temp,, wonder how they did it back ikn the steam days, 90
outside and a hot fire box in the cab, must have been like being in a
furnace in those steam engines on hot days, I do recall a few yrs back
a old head telling me that we as railroaders have become spoiled, There
was still a lot of cabooses when i hired on,, get in one of those on a
hot summer day with a dust type coal train, looked like a big black
cloud around the entire train and all that went right into the crummie
and on who ever was riding in it, I never seen such a dirt mess in my
life, Also they still had a few cattle car types when i hired, and were
did they put them,, oh yes right next to the crummie, the smell was
horrindus on a hot summer day and when you got off that train you had
the same oder too, I learned real fast that if knew those cars were
next to the crummie,, work the head end man.