Spartan cab verse safety cab - Trains Magazine

The only reason I would think an engineer would prefer a spartan cab is visibility.  From what I've seen, a trainman riding on the nose in front of the engineer's catwalk on a spartan cab can be seen by the engineer.  I don't think that's possible with wide cabs unless the trainman leans out.

I have ridden in spartan cabs and from what I have heard from mainline trainmen, they love the wide cabs for comfort reasons.  It's less noisy, and warmer in winter, plus cooler in summer.  For some reason, they say the ride is better as well- although I have no personal basis for comparison.

I think there's a lot to be said for having a heavy duty structure in front of you that's designed to buffer, then divert, crash debris.  My understanding is that the wide cab was designed to throw things like automobiles either off to the side, or up and over... which is a little rough on the hit object, but pretty important in saving lives of the crewmen.

I was invited up into the cab of a brand new NS wide cab- it was so new they had spray painted road numbers on the sides and nose.  The engineer I talked to said he liked the computerized readouts- there was a flat screen mounted on the stand above the "standard" AAR controls.  It might have been a case of someone falling in love with something brand new.

I gave up trying to argue asthetics of locomotives a long time ago... for some reason, the railroads have not consulted with me personally.  This might explain the demise of the EMD F unit... which was the original "safety cab"...