Credits:    Photo of NYC Hudson #5403 by noted photographer, the late Phil Hastings as seen in Classic Trains, Summer 2014.  Notice how Hastings managed to get a silhouette of the engineer, usually unseen in pictures of the left side. Text by Robert S. McGonical, Editor of Classic Trains, used verbatim.  Bob’s right, other than a short visit in the cab of UP’s excursion locomotive #844 in the Summer of 2004, I cannot recall the last time I’ve responded to “come-on-up.”   In that same magazine were six accounts in “Tales from the Cab.”  Great stuff.

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Those three words – used almost universally by engineers to invite visitors into their locomotive cabs – are among the most thrilling a train-watcher can hear.  They signal access, however temporary, to the most alluring of railroading’s inner sanctums.

Although we may also be drawn to other places, some that reveal even more about how a railroad functions – dispatcher’s office, caboose, boardroom, backshop, interlocking tower – none of these matches the engine cab for its combination of public visibility, crew-only exclusivity, and sheer excitement.

Spend enough time around the railroad, and circumstances eventually tend to result in invitations to visit, or even ride in, engine cabs. For most of us, these are rare glimpses into a realm to which we’ve been attracted since childhood.  Memories of these occasions stand like trophies on our mental mantelpiece.

Today, an increased emphasis on safety and security are threatening to make those “Come on up” moments extinct.  In any case, the cab experience for crews in vastly different now” steam locomotives are gone, employees are fewer, equipment is more uniform.  – Gary Ostlund