Why "cab-forward" steam locomotives usually didn't work - Cab Forward Locomotives 

Cab forward engines, good idea on paper, backwards in practise.

Fun fact: As mentioned, the SP ran locomotives backwards over Donner Pass before the Cab Forwards were thought of. This was not an official practice on the part of management, however, rather it was first done by a driver who finally got fed up with nearly choking to death in the tunnels and snowsheds on the Pass. As a defiant gesture he had his loco turbed round to run tender-first before departing Roseville yard despite the difficulty of running backwards. Management got the message loud and clear and began trying to figure out an answer to the problem, which led to the construction of the Cab Forwards.

Additional geek fact: SP had been using oil for a while (Bunker C). The oil was gravity fed to the sprayer in the firebox. Someone realized this would be a problem on the Donner route; so they pressurized the oil tank to move the oil up to the firebox.

Fun thing about the Italian cabfowards: they ended up in the game Railroad Tycoon 3. I played this a lot as a kid, and seeing the engine in this video just brought back a lot of memories : )

In my career on CSX, we sometimes ran long hood forward with diesels. With this arrangement, your visibility on some of the 14° degree curves in cuts was about 20 feet at the most. When required to run at “restricted speed”, which required a stop for an obstruction or another train within one-half the range of vision, it was virtually impossible to run at any speed to comply with the rule. Certain trainmasters knew this, and if you fell out of favor with them, they would set up a “banner” (a simulated obstruction) to test compliance with the rule. Knowing that you couldn’t stop say ANY SPEED, they used this tactic to charge the engineer with a rules violation, and resulting discipline (sometimes dismissal from service). And railroad mangers today can’t figure out why nobody wants to work for the railroad anymore. So, in my experience, cab forward was a good idea. Oil firing was what made it possible.

In short, Southern Pacific liked the cab forward not only because it made it easier for the cab crew to breathe in tunnels, but also because it offered superior visibility, too. That's why SP didn't retired the last of them until 1954.

Grew up about 30 minutes from 4294, I’ve seen that engines HUNDREDS of times, it’s my all time favorite locomotive, walking around that thing and seeing all the pipes and feeders is amazing, especially when you walk in the cab, it’s insanely complicated in there, absolutely love this engine

It should also be mentioned that even though the Southern Pacific Cab Forwards were extremely successful with the railroad, one of their biggest problems was just how much water they consumed. Bigger locomotives always use more fuel and water than smaller ones of course, but the Cab Forwards were especially thirsty. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I do know it was high.

There was a reluctance for crews to ride up front anyway because they felt more exposed to the impact in collisions, especially in less controlled circumstances like crossings. Because of this, many early diesels were run long hood forward to keep the cab back where the crews were used to it being. It took a long time for this to change.

As a local to the Donner pass and as someone who has gone to see 4294 many times at the Sacramento Train Museum, thank you for the video. It’s just wonderful to see trains bringing people together around the world.

Sp used cab forwards successfully for decades and the last one built is also the only one preserved (in SPs case)

I really appreciate how much effort you put into these. I learn something new every single time and I can't say that for any other channel out there.

Your story about the Santa Susana tunnel tragedy illustrates that the SP Cab Forward engines were so successful they roamed many lines far from the Sierras. Oddly though, no other American railroad used similar engines more than experimentally, not even the Rio Grange, which had Moffat Tunnel. Great Northern had the longest tunnel in North America at the time, but it was electrified until ventilation fans were installed.

I've been curious about cab-forward engines for a while (I've seen pictures of 4294 since I was a kid and have driven it in Rail Simulator). So thank you!

Many Railroads and locomotive engineers didn't like cab-forwards in-case accidents and the vulnerability of the crews when of a vehicle stuck on the tracks. Even in the Diesel era, some Railroads like the Southern ran their engines with the long-hood forwards for decades until reinforced modern "safety cabs" were produced. With in increased use of semi-trucks the likelihood of a truck getting stuck on a road crossing actually increased in the 60s and 70s, especially in rural areas with limited views of the tracks ahead.

Southern Pacific rr cab forward articulated types were an impressive & unique class of locomotives with the cab placed at the front of the locomotive for improved crew visibility and less smoke accumulation. The SP cab forward engines were highly successful in operation and had a unique appearance, it's a shame that SP only saved 1 example for preservation display (4294) as I would like to have seen at least 3 cab forward locomotives survive for public display viewing.

My Grandfather was a boilermaker for the SP and worked on these very locomotives. The cab forwards carried a classification of AC-10 I believe (please feel free to correct this if you know for certain). Incidentally, the SP burned oil in their locomotives because coal is scarce on the west coast, but oil is plentiful,

Great to see you kicking off the New Year with one of the most well known of odd locomotive designs! I'm particularly interested in those Italian cab-forwards. A model of one of those must be a beauty!

The SP Cab forward was much more then simply swapping the cab from one end of the locomotive to the other. SP also had to reinforce the forward cab so that the crew could survive the impact of running into an obstacle on the tracks, such as car stopped on a rail crossing...

We had a successful cab-forward here in Wales! the engines on the Glyn Valley Tramway!

I really like the almost "classic" steam design of the Italian locomotive at 1:35. Maybe that would have worked better with oil. And the German BR 05 at 1:58 looked like today's normal diesel locomotive, impressive

The S.P. cab forward locomotives are the exact same locomotives the the DM&IR used here in Minnesota, just flipped around, the Yellowstone class as they were known, are 2-8-8-4 locomotives, going from smoke box to foot plate, and was the main competitor for U.P.s Big Boy, being only 5 feet shorter and smaller driving wheels the Yellowstones are actually more powerful the the Big Boys, and the Yellowstones, and S.P.s cab forwards, were both built by Baldwin, the main competitor to A.L.C.O. which built the Big Boys

Regarding 03:15: The 05 003 didn't have a second Cab, it was just a normal Class 05 (one of only three btw) turned around. The "Cab" at the Back is to open the Smoke Box Door to blow Soot from the Smoke Tubes. Fuel Oil was considered for 05 003, but ditched for Strategic Reasons that we all can imagine but won't discuss as to not risk YT censoring this Comment. Instead, 05 003 burned Powderised Coal, by blowing it into the Fire Box with Compressed Air. That System was tried and trusted by 1937, but 05 003 always suffered from unreliable Fuel Supply often causing it to burn Fuel rich, thus sooting up the Smoke Tubes, often even until they were completely blocked by Soot. If the Oil Burner wasn't ditched in Favour of Lebensraum, 05 003 would almost certainly have worked very well. The unreliable Fuel Supply was caused by the Coal Piping having to pass under the entire Locomotive, which was not exactly a straight Pipe. The Fuel Feed System and Air Blower were driven by the same Auxilary Engine and thus couldn't be controlled independently, otherwise the Stoker might have been able to react to these Combustion Irregularities. Although I don't know how quickly Combustion changed, if it required Adjustments every few Seconds, I doubt that even the most skilled Stoker could deal with that. Because of the Problems, 05 003 was rebuilt in late 1944 by turning the Locomotive around again, and removing the Aerodynamic Covers completely, thus turning it into a pretty normal German Standardised Locomotive, just with huge Driving Wheels. The other two Class 05 Locomotives were un-streamlined after 1945, matching them to 05 003. 05 001 was preserved with a Replica Streamline Shell. Edit: Apparently, 05 001 and 05 002 had their Covers removed around 1941-1942, so 05 003 was matched to them and not the other Way around. My Mistake.

A few more ideas I heard about during my travels consisted of making tenders shorter, but longer. Installing a cab at both the back *and* front of the engine. (The one at the back was used to drive the train, and the one in the front was used to see the tracks ahead better). It worked on small/ slow goods trains, but was seen as awkward and dangerous on faster trains as there weren't too many people willing to be at the front of a train in case it derailed or collided with something (it's also possible that this could have been illegal). True, having eyes at the front of an engine would prove valuable... but it would look ridiculous and prove to be dangerous: speaking of which- I overheard how one day a train crew tried the brake van at the front idea, almost costing the guy in the van his life as the train he was on traveled down a hill and nearly collied with another goods train. They were only saved when a signal man heard the danger and sent them into a siding. The buffers weren't strong enough to stop the train before the brake van broke in two. Luckily the train wasn't going fast and the guy lived by jumping into a pound. I was always on a plane whenever I heard these stories, and I'm usually not one to but in on someone else's conversations. Still... might be a good idea for another video.

I've visited the Sacramento museum a fair few times and I've always loved the way 4294 looks.

I have so many great memories from my childhood of engine 4294, as I and my family would regularly visit the museum, and it's one of the bases to my interests in trains. One of the main reasons it played such an important role though, was because you are allowed to go into the cab, and as a child I would go into it and play, unfortunately in a more recent visit they had to close it off due to covid. But I always wondered why it was like that. I've always sort of assumed that it had something to do with giving better visibility, but I knew that there had to be some sort of more advanced reason for it.

Number 4294 of course, is housed at the CA. State Railroad Museum. Quite a monster up close. Rather amazing what it took to get so much power. Reminds one of the Wright R3350 Turbo Compound engine which powered some of the last piston engined airliners. 😇

Switzerland's Eb 3/5 "Habersack" tank engines had many controls duplicated on both sides of the cab so that the driver could look out the back while driving in reverse.

In Denmark we did a small cab forward locomotive design similar to the first one shown in the video. It was known as the Jutlandian & Funen Railways (JFJ, later part of DSB) P class locomotive A small 0-2-2 tank engine from the 1880's with a long rear tank, making the locomotive look more like a tender engine. Like the american engines they were specifically designed for work on light railways with very cheaply laid trackage to save money. Though this quickly became a problem as the lines they operated on quickly had so much demand the little P class machines couldn't keep up. Over the next many years many were shuffled around to work on branches and secondary routes around the country until around 1904-06 when all the locomotives were sold to private railways. The private railways in Denmark were historically a scruffy affair with lower finances and poorer tracks. So for many of these, getting some P class locomotives to start service with for their brand new line was quite ideal. Though most only lasted 10-20 years on such lines. Today a single P class is preserved, P 125. It was sold to the Copenhagen-Slangerup railway in 1906. The line opened a year before with 4 subpar steam locomotives and needed better locos asap. The little locomotive ran on the line, doing shunting and light trains partway up it, all the way until 1948 when the Copenhagen-Slangerup railway was taken over by the state railways. With P 125 being one of only 2 surviving P class locomotives at the time, the State railways immediately put the locomotive into their historic collection, forming part of whats today the Danish national railway museum, which was separated from DSB in 2017

The SP cab forwards have been a favorite of mine ever since my dad told me stories about his experiences with them, during a very brief stint as a head-end brakeman for SP.

Good Video, and a good introduction to "Cab-Forward" locomotives. Being from across the pond, and a huge fan of the SP and their exploits, I thought I would share some notes for additional context: @0:35 - I think it's a bit misleading to consider the Forney locomotives as a "Cab-Forward" designed locomotive. Primarily, I'd like to point out that it was designed to be a 0-4-4T engine, with the intention of bi-directional running. It sounds a lot more similar to shunting/switching locomotives, but with an additional set of wheels to distribute the weight. Additionally, there are plenty logging locomotives that had similar design traits: good running capabilities in both directions, often ran backwards for extended periods of times, had a singular frame on which both water and fuel were stored, yet there are often not considered to be "Cab-Forwards" @3:26 - The American Camelback locomotives come to mind when you discussed this section. It must have been awful trying to communicate with a fireman if you couldn't see or hear them. It's possible that something similar to a steam ship's engine telegraph could be created to improve communication between the engineer/driver and the fireman. @5:10 - While the risks from oil leaks were possible from Cab Forward locomotives, the reason that they were not widely adopted was more to do with the fact that they were not conventional locomotives. The only reason that these locomotives were created was out of necessity, and it was certainly a lot easier to produce conventional locomotives than it was to produce these specialty "Cab-Forward" types. There are additional nit-picky limitations on "Cab-Forward" designs, logistically, practically, and technically, but I recommend that you pick up a copy of Donald Church's book, "CAB-FORWARD" to go into those details.

Not even a big train guy but went to the Train Museum in Sacramento and was blown away by their cab forward displays there. Really stunning to see in person

You can see #4294 in the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. It's really huge, too. Somehow, when you are standing next to it in the museum, it seems to dwarf modern diesel-electric locomotives, even though they are actually about the same in overall physical dimensions.

In otherwords there's always going to be design flaws no matter what

Thanks for staying on track with this subject

Considering the SP ran a lot of these very successfully for a long time and they did what was required of them, this video is knocking the Cab Forward principle on the few that weren't a success in other countries. Please read the authoritative books on the SP locos and watch the videos of them in action. The bunker C oil was pressurised in the tank from the start...

Thanks for this - have I had fun sharing with some of the other commentators.

I see I am not the only one here commenting about Western USA where we had no coal, bringing it over from, let say, Pennsylvania would have make it expensive. Oil fed front cab locomotives were a norm for some time here. But I got to give it to the content creator(s), they did mention it and its problems. Yet, I would not say it was such a rare case. Thank you for pictures from California State Museum. We go their twice a year at least.

As a child (9) I saw the 4-8-8-2 going over the hill at Donner pass, I still can hear and smell those monsters, have been to CSRM many times, great time.

cool to see that a design that was inpractial in most places is better in one instance

People who made cab forwards: the design is very human

I love theese videos man. Keep making them they are so good

I've seen that 4294 in Sacramento at the museum. Seeing it in person where you can look at the details and go inside the cab is very interesting.

Southern pacific cab forward

My grandfather and my uncle were both engineers for CN. They would have loved this channel.

How do you not have at least 1 billion subs??? Great video! I live in the sierras and taking Amtrak from Colfax to Reno is really cool because of all of the sharp turns and going through the snow tunnels 👌

The 05 003 did _not _ have a separate cab for the fireman as is implied with the picture shown at 3:15. It was basically a turned-around standard 05, so the fire box was in front. The locomotive burned coal dust to deal with the distance between tender and fire box. The dust was carried through long pipes by an air stream, and this didn't work too well.

1:06 That's the Nantucket Railroad, a potential video in and of itself, as it was a narrow gauge line running from the harbor in the center of the town of Nantucket across the island to the village of Siasconset. It was ripped up during WWI and the rolling stock sent abroad to aid in the war effort. In addition to it, there were two narrow gauge lines on Martha's Vineyard due west of the island, both of which ran between the harbor at Oak Bluffs and Edgartown.

Yeah the Espee’s cab forwards really had visibility as a secondary benefit. The main reason just had to do with air flow because of the fumes in the several snow sheds and tunnels coming from the stack. Plus it wasn’t a one off or Frankenstein creation the SP decided to make from several locomotives. Having a set basket to put your eggs in can do wonders for any class of locomotive

There were a few later Cab Forward designs tried in the US besides the SP designs. All of these were steam turbines

I would date cab forward (or perhaps driver forward might be a better terminology in these examples) designs to the early days of locomotives. Some of Stephenson's engine's placed the driving position well ahead of the fire grate. Locomotion and Invicta had the driver standing on the side of the boiler, presumably to give him a better view. Hackworth probably built the earliest 'cab/driver forward lcoos, with the Royal George and Derwent types of engines placing the driver on the opposite end of the boiler to the fireman all be it with a tender on both ends. I would suggest Sans Pareil could be the first true driver forward loco as the driver's footplate was a raised platform at the front giving an unobstructed view ahead whereas the fireman stood at the rear on the tender.

I would like to see an episode with the topic about the Italian/European designed and inspired Franco Crosti boiler locomotives.

Excellent video ! Very clear and interesting. Thanks a lot.

Surprised you didn't mention Bulleid's Southern Railway "Leader Class" which was a failure because the newly-formed British Railways was LMS-orientated. 5 were under construction though only the first was finished. A few more weeks of development could have led to working locos.

Nice to hear a little about in Italian engine. Doesn't happen often lol. On that note would you please be able to do more videos on FS stean locomotives ? Be it Franco Crosti ones, Caprotti, anything really.

Worth noting that the experimental SR Leader class also had a cab forward design (although it failed for a number of reasons, as far as I can tell, it was in part due to the unusual cab configuration). Some Garratt locomotives ran cab first as well.

Many SP workers called them "backwards Mallets". There it goes, here it comes. I remember seeing them go through my home town in Nevada and seeing always at least 13 at the Sparks, Nev, round house.

Fun Fact: Loco 4249 is currently preserved at the California State Railroad Meuseum. (And you can sit in the cab to experience what it was like to drive one)

I know nothing and care nothing about rail logistics and design, there is nothing about this video that should make me interested in it, and yet I am still glad that it showed up in my recommendations.

This video raises a question I feel kinda stupid about for not asking it myself before, and then answers it. Thanks.

I'm not an engineer but, if having tender at the front we would have either a tender too tall that it block view, or too small it would limit range, can we instead have a tender low but longer to hold more fuel?

The long tunnels and snow sheds in the mountains also gave rise to air-intake problems on replacement diesel locos. Usually roof-mounted, intakes suffered from the fumes which accumulated, reducing oxygen levels, so the locos were modified to have them at footplate level. They then became known as "tunnel motors".

Great video. Thanks. You should do a video on the halfway compromise - the Camelback. Fireman at the back, engineer in a cab that straddled the boiler.

I got an idea for how a cab-forward locomotive could work. Use a corridor tender to hold the coal and water, modify the tender to have a driver cab on one end while the fireman cab is at the other end, and make it a duplex engine like a Big Boy. And, if you have redundant controls in the tender cab and the firebox cab, it can be easily driven either way

0:32 the basis of Lexi from thomas and friends journey beyond sodor

I suppose really the ultimate cab-forward design would probably be the Leader (from Southern Railways in the UK). It wasn't a success but the design was promising

Driving tender first is the one solution i would have though of. And through the tender you have a passageway where driver and fireman can pass. I would also look into making a chute where you shovel coal from the front (back) such that it travels to the firebox and this chute can be positioned to distribute coal in the firebox. The issue at its core though is that you have to have access to the firebox AND tender AND be able to communicate. Oil fired would be the optimal solution if made with this limitation in mind. Making sure that it's built from the ground up with cab forward in mind. But then again, diesel did just this and did away with steam altogether. Eliminating the problem entirely.

The Cavan and Leitrim Railway in Ireland used 4-4-0 T locomotives, but because part of the route ran as a street tramway, they were required by law to have the driver at the front where he had the best view of traffic. They tried running cab-forward as 0-4-4, but it was too hard on the track, so they ended up putting a second set of controls in a little cabin on the pilot deck at the smokebox end. I would love to see a picture of one of those. Consider also the Great Western Railway railmotor/autocar sets, which had the second set of controls at the far end of the passenger car. (There is one in service at Didcot.) I think there was some sort of signal bell between the driver's end and the fireman's end.

Nice video. Were there any attempts to use periscopes or other optical devices to improve forward visibility in the standard rear cab configuration? Thanks.

Canadian Pacific for a time considered converting their T1a class 2-10-4s into cab ahead locomotives for service in British Columbia, where CP trains had to tackle not one but two entire mountain ranges back to back. Those of course being the cascades and the Rockies, which bookend my beautiful province. The 2-10-4s were already uniquely designed for mountainous terrain, being the largest and most powerful locomotives on the railroad, however they wanted to take this a step further by following SP’s example and turning the locomotives so they ran cab-first. It was a logical step, as CP was also known for its long snow sheds and numerous tunnels along its lines perhaps even more so than the Espee down south, which sometimes did cause problems for the crews when it came to breathing and visibility. In the end CP came under more conservative management that decided not to go forward with a lot of the modernization projects CP had planned, instead opting to purchase a fleet of new smaller locomotives based on old designs, rather than move on with the new 4-6-4s and 2-10-4s that were pushing technology forward at the time.

I can think of a way that would work for having two cabs one for driver one for fire crew, have two or 3 drivers like an airliner in the first cab, then in the fire cab have the same number of fire crew, as for communication between the two they could have had levers that pull signals inside the two cabs like a signal box for the driver (if that makes sense) they could signal each other "slow down low water" or whatever, or they could use flags signalling different things. I also think that in the driver cab you could have the regulator, reverser and brakes all linked up with the ones in the rear cab, maybe not the reverser or brakes but defo the regulator and then the fireman can see the position of the reg and he will know weather to keep firing or not. This makes sense in my head lol so hopefully whoever reads this will know what I mean

Putting a cab at the front - well, at both ends; they were steam boxcabs - worked out for the LNER Y6 and J70 engines. Like with the SP cab forwards, the arrangement was made to solve a practial problem (in this case, safety on street tramways + avoiding having to turn the engine around), and them being short tank engines meant it caused little trouble.

Great video! Thank you

Honestly I'm surprised no cab forward designs ever came about in the UK. There was that one really long tunnel on the S&D, if I'm not mistaken... And on the trans Pennine route outside of Manchester Victoria where they had to evacuate a train after it hit a huge chunk of ice that came down the ventilation shaft

2:55 cracked me up mate very accurate loved it

One of the last photos on this video of the SP cab forward is at the California Railroad museum in Sacramento, CA

0:27 this reminds me of Lexi from The Journey Beyond Sodor movie.

0:54 Tank Locomotive sometimes is considered Cabforwards but these are designed to run in equal speeds in two directions and thus can do return trip faster by simple passing switch and not turntable.

Great work ToT!

In UK many commuter lines used tank engines which then followed the train out and into a slip road ready to be attached to the back of the next train into the terminus. They would then run tender first to the other end of the line.

Thank you. The Santa Sudana Pass tunnelisjust three miles from me. Visiting it since I was a kid in the 1970s. Ad a train guy I had no idea about the deaths of a train crew interested in 1941. I'll hold that with me bow for the rest of my life

Very interesting. Thank you.

Fun fact: Lexi from Beyond Sodor is inspired by the Cab-forward train.

I wonder if 4294 could be restored to running order. That would be a very neat engine to see in action, perhaps even alongside 4014, 3985 or another big articulated locomotive.

The SP liked their cab-forwards and had more than a couple hundred of them.

This is interesting and I find a parallel here with diesel locomotives. In the first several decades of diesel it seems that freight locos mostly had the cab at the rear. I'm guessing that this was a hold over from steam engine design. From what I have read, many engineers preferred that layout as in the event of a wreck or collision at a road crossing, they had much more metal between them and the point of impact. However, the railroads felt that cab forward increased visibility would ultimately be safer all around and thus that is the standard today. Yes, it is only a matter of flipping some switches and a diesel will drive either way, but cab and control layouts favor cab forward.

A better design would be "Split cab" where a person in the back manned loading the tinderbox, and a person in the front would handle throttle. This would mean having a crew of two instead of one, but that is a good thing unless you are footing the bill for labor. An intercom system can be used for communication as well, although simply doubling up all the pressure indicators on both sides reduces the total Communications needed, a regular status check would be needed none the less to determine that everything is OK.

In the case of BR 05.003 the cab forward was not done for improved speed, just for improved visibility. And the problems where not with the cab but with the coal dust firing system (germany tried those a couple of times - the GDR/East german version system worked)

You should do a piece on geared locomotives

Excellent discussion

I'm surprised that you didn't mention the Leader...

Would it be possible for you to do a video doing a comparison between the PRR K4 Pacific, and Nigel Gresley's LNER A1 Pacific?

The cab-forward locomotives were basically the reason why diesel locomotives typically run with their cabs forwards to the direction of travel. Increased visibility is really difficult to do on a steam locomotive without sacrificing operating efficiency and running qualities. Diesels are less of a problem, as they don’t normally need tenders, and have no firebox. Additionally, since diesels use internal combustion engines, the engine can be mounted in a way that makes cab-forward operations more practical.

Cool train video. With nintendo music!

And due to the coal dust system the "fireman" in BR 05.003 actually IS in the front cab. The fuel is "pumped" from the rear tender

If you ever find yourself in Sacramento California you can visit the cab forward #4294 at the California Rail Road Museum (CRRM)

So Good !

They can place the driver at front and the fireman and tender at the back while having a mechanical telegraph system between two like in ships (full, half, slow) between bridge and engine room. I wonder if they ever tried this.

Could you do a video on the Big Boys taller but shorter cousin, the Lima Locomotive Works Allegheny Class?

German cab forward BR 05 was fired with coal dust (Kohlenstaub), so there were no problems with dripping oil. But I think the main reason was, that they needed the oil for other things and coal dust was available. And as far as I know, incomplete combustion of the dust particles has always been a problem and lead to clogging of the heating pipes in the boiler.