BandA wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2024 1:39 pm
MBTA3247 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2024 5:52 pm
How a cab car's interior is configured is irrelevant to the concerns an engineer in the cab would have about being in a collision.
I suppose; I was mostly thinking of the safety of 100 passengers over the one engineer.
If those passengers are the only or primary concern, just put a locomotive on both ends of the train now. Locomotives have the weight to reliably shove a lane pickup truck off the tracks while staying upright, which cab cars (empty or full of passengers) don't.
BandA wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2024 1:39 pm
That said, if the cab car has a "nose" and the engineer is set back the normal ~10 feet it should be just as safe as a locomotive, perhaps more safe as the bicycle area behind the engineer could incorporate a crumple zone. You could even have a "front door" in the nose in case the cab car was being used mid-consist.
A crumple zone behind the engineer does nothing to protect the engineer. That said, recent commuter car designs that do not allow the cab car to operate mid-train, have additional protections for the engineer (and, probably just as important for the engineer) offer visibility, space, and comforts that the existing cab-in-a-corner designs do not.
