I got a cab ride in that motor once.
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At one time the museum had three of these. These date from a time in the past when the U. S. Army was prepared to invade another country. and operate the railroads of that country. In order to do that, these were very special in many ways. The large steel plates with eight holes on the pilot were for European style Buffers and associated coupling systems. The operators cab is very low and is difficult for tall or wide people to access, thus to comply with European loading gauges. This locomotive derailed in a very tight cut, and parts of the pilot plate were torched in order to re-rail it. The trucks and wheel axle parts are very special as there are spacers on the axles which will allow the locomotive to operate on every thing from Three Foot narrow gauge, to wide gauge as used in Russia. The museum has had many problems with these, such as taking two years to swap out a bad truck with a good one. Working on the innards of these is also difficult. I remember one particular day when I took my daughter to the museum. Then to have the people working on one of these, ask Jennifer to climb into an area that they were too large to enter, and keep a wrench on a nut while they turned the bolt from below the locomotive. How do you properly explain to your wife that your daughter got rather filthy, inside the engine room of a diesel locomotive ? The area below the walkways has many odd fittings with holes which are to facilitate the many tie downs needed for shipboard transport.
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