Ed,
A great number of locomotives were built with three cab seats. On freight
locomotives, the the third seat, along with the fireman’s seat, were located
on the left side, one behind the other. On E and F units, there was no cab wall
space to located a third seat because the cab doors were located on either side
wall at the rear of the cab. Remember that this was the days when every
locomotive had an engineer and a fireman. On freight trains, the headend
brakeman also rode in the cab as they did in some cases on passenger trains. I
suspect your model, as delivered has two cab seats, one for the engineer on the
right side and one for the fireman on the left. The third seat is was mounted
near the center of the cab and back away from the front wall where there was an
access door to the locomotive short hood and front door. In some cases, a
brakeman rode in the third seat, in others it might have been a road foreman or
another official. Often the seat was empty. As a field instructor for
Electro-Motive, I had a number of occasions to ride in the center seat of an E
unit on a passenger train returning to my assignment point after a trip on a
new locomotive. It was a great place to have a good view of the passing scenery
and the railroad operation. In fact, an Electro-Motive official, Cy Osborne I
believe, was riding that seat on a Denver and Rio Grande Western F unit going
through the Colorado Rockies. He was so impressed with the view that he thought
that passengers ought to be able to see the same view. He is credited with
originating the idea for the Vista Dome car.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that cabooses were eliminated and two man crews were
adopted, that the conductor moved up to the locomotive cab and it became the
left hand seat became the conductor’s seat as it is on trains today.
Bill Barber
Gravois Mills, MO
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