[ Post a Response | Bessemer and Lake Erie Messageboard ]
Posted by Nate Clark
on November 2, 2009, 10:28 pm, in reply to "Re: Bay window cabooses"
72.65.224.85
Yes, I believe safety issues were indeed the primary reason, Carl. A secondary consideration was the ever-increasing height of railcars (hi-cube box cars, multi-levels, etc.), there was no way to have an even taller cupola to look across the tops. The industry standard became the bay window layout (and, to a lesser degree, also the wide-vision cupola).
The B&LE would mostly have been interested in what happened beside the train...hotbox smoke, triple offset hopper cars heading into cornfields, etc. And, of course, it also isn't far to fall from a bay window's seat to the floor.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread