Freericks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh, so very cool... loved those beasts.

Maybe cool, as is "liked" (definitely a matter of personal opinion, my guess is that you never had to run one), but certainly not in cab temperature. The SP&S's two C415s were miserably hot in the summertime and the complaints of the crews fell on deaf ears until one engine caught on fire. Notice in the SP pictures that the engine exhaust stack lies against the cab wall. The interior cab wall was pegboard which was ignited by the heat radiated from the adjacent stack. After the fire the company finally straightened the stacks which greatly reduced cab temperatures. The cab temperatures were further elevated by the very poor cross ventilation afforded by the union-mandated window boxes.

Another irritant was that any crew member who happened to be getting up from the seat on the non-controlling side of the cab had to be very careful of the throttle on the Duplex Controller if he didn't want to be singing soprano.