Maybe my experience differs from yours but I seem to find locomotives are the big draw at most railroad museums and tourist railways.

The thousands of people lining the tracks to catch a glimpse of Big Boy also would indicate that locomotives may attract people to travel to see them.

While to ability to allow access to people with disabilities may be open to question, the fact that locomotives are a tourist attraction is not.

LETX has plenty of locomotive cabs. Enter through the space left from where the electric cabinet used to be and remove the engineers chair and you might be able to fit a wheelchair in.

How about a modern safety cab unit, indoors, with a wheelchair accessible passage angled on the fireman's side back wall, where a window is, and part of the side of the cab? That way you could keep the cab roughly as it is normally. I could see it as an indoor display with other cutaways and access ramps, access doors on the hood removed etc. to see the engine, again with a wheelchair accessible ramp to get close enough to see. It could be a display that appeals to all visitors. There are many of these units being scrapped now (I could see regrets 50 years from now that it was butchered, but the answer is to save a few intact). A big enough museum (say IRM) might be able to get a donation and funding help from a Class I, too.

While I usually agree with your posts, this time I think your box has gotten so small that even a cat won't sit in it.

One of the topics that often is useful here is how do you attract more paying customers to a successful - or slowly dying - RR museum related tourist attraction . . .

Especially here in the US of A, the folks who are able to afford the leisure travel to visit your life's work have survived plenty long enough, but have acquired some physical limitations along the way.

If you don't think preservation of your life's work museum is on topic here == then carry on!!

Brian Helfrich

Folks:

With all due respect, read the original post carefully.

This writer is not proposing making museum and excursion locomotives wheelchair-accessible for museums and tourist operations.

He is proposing making ALL locomotives EVERYWHERE handicapped-accessible, for ALL uses.

And that is why the first response was "this has to be a troll."

The typical railroad environment has to be among the most difficult and physically taxing work environments even on a GOOD day. I'm trying to envision someone in a wheelchair navigating their way to a crew van for a crew change at one of the sidings used routinely for crew changes in my area, and the words "ya gotta be freakin' KIDDING me" come to mind. Now let's go further: carry and change a broken knuckle or pin, or change out an air brake hose. Now, there are exceptions, such as a subway or Light Rail system, but those don't use the locomotives being described here. MAYBE some short line or switching operation could be so accommodating, but not most over-the-road freights.

I'm all in favor of opening as much of the rail preservation environment as logistically feasible to the "differently abled" to experience to the best of their abilities. But the next step from the mentality expressed in the original post to this thread is to demand wheelchair-accessible military tanks, fighter jets, submarines, and the like.

I know of a couple of museums that have an older locomotive simulator, that was donated by class ones. It seems to me that a simulator would be easy to make handicap accessible.

I was wondering when someone would read that properly. I'd argue that an over-the-road bag on, bag off job would be way more accommodating than a local job or a shortline, given that proper facilities were built at planned crew change points and that every single crew change went according to plan and schedule every single time.

OP, I hate to tell you, but there's a hell of a lot more to railroading than sitting at the controls and going "choo choo!" Wheelchair accessibility for a regular crew member is out the window, if for no other reason than ballast. Conductors ride shoves and have to get to the rear somehow (and then hang on!), both crew members have to get to the power from either their depot or their form of transportation, walk around inspections have to be done, and sometimes you're gonna be miles from the nearest sidewalk and street light when the air busts, won't come back up, and you gotta hit the ballast and start walking to find the issue.

I don't say this to be a dick, but your idea is about as realistic as the Loch Ness monster.

"Wheelchair accessible locomotives are not merely an option; they are an essential necessity that can transform lives, foster inclusivity, and promote equality."

Is the word "Locomotive" correct and does it mean what you intend it to mean? If you were to say "Carriages" or "Conveyances", I could totally understand. But the locomotive itself? How is that an essential necessity for travel?

Accomodations should most certainly be made for the passenger compartment. But the operator's compartment doesn't seem to have an impact on your ability to travel. Many buses have wheelchair capability now, but I've never seen one where the driver can be in a wheelchair. This is the same sort of scenario.

While I'm not a labor law attorney, and don't even play one on TV, I suspect the text on this webpage from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission may point in the direction of the answer:

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enfo ... da#general

There's a mind-numbing amount of bureaucratic babel on that page, but its principal theme appears to be what constitutes a "reasonable accommodation" in various types of workplaces for persons with various types of disabilities. I think the key paragraph might be this one, located about 10% of the way down the webpage:

Perhaps one of the attorneys on this discussion board can chime in.

/s/ Larry
Lawrence G. Lovejoy, P.E.

Just stumbled onto this older thread and thought I'd chime in. Not every locomotive needs to be wheelchair accessible, just ain't practical y'know, but the idea of having one locomotive modified for folks with wheelchairs ain't half bad. Like you all said, think about a tourist line. Just imagine the difference it could make for someone who loves trains and just wants to get in on the action. It's about them experiencing, learning, feeling the pulse of the engine. Sure there would be challenges, money being a big one, but let's agree the joy it could bring is undeniable.

For all the folks who say this is a great idea, how many of you are in the museum shops to do the actual leg work to make this happen? How many of you have check books out and have sore arms from all of the zeros you’re writing? Just the space inside of a cab? How much of that cab are you cutting away for wheelchair access? Unless it’s some empty cab on a concrete pad for visitors to roll into, this is all crazy. Doesn’t that trolley museum in Columbus, Ohio have a UP cab on the ground? Maybe that’s as close as you’d get?

News flash:

Almost none of us are "experiencing, learning, feeling the pulse of the engine" even on our own railroads.

I've been nose-deep in this field for decades, assisting all manner of rail preservationists and hobnobbing with real railroaders, and I can count the number of times I've been able to get true cab rides on the fingers of two hands--and about half of those were spur-of-the-moment "need a lift back to your car?" or "If I give you a ride, can you get a picture of me at work for my kids?" deals by Class One railroaders, and one guy needed a break from firing the woodburner with logs! Even railroad museums aren't randomly giving their members rides on the cabs, unless, say, you're a big sponsor, Jay Leno, or the local TV news cameraman.

Yes, SOME operations do offer "engineer for an hour/day" programs. And if you're coughing up $250, $500 or whatever for one of those programs, I would like to think most such operations will do whatever they REASONABLY can to accommodate you, such as a forklift platform to get you up and back down. And I knew one late "disabled" railfan who did amazing things to experience whatever he could in rail preservation within reason, and I could just see him pulling himself up into a steam loco cab by his bare arms for a ride just because he was that kind of guy, determined to overcome what obstacles he could without making trouble for the hosts. And there are cars out there being built new with wheelchair/disabled access in mind--I've seen them at Strasburg, EBT, C&TS, and other places, and if you want to build new, you're a fool not to consider it.

But, no. I'm not cutting a hole in the side of "my" preserved GP9, Deltic, Stanier Black Five, or PRR P70 just to MAYBE give you a ride or job.

For example: (Drone Ohio photo from a few weeks ago).

I've been in the cab of diesels over one hundred times, all as a non-employee, including riding around in a yard engine (actually several ex-PC GP38s spewing crankcase oil) dozens of times in Bloomington IL on a bankrupt regional with next to no supervision, and when I think about it I wish I had used my youth for more productive things. These days I have zero interest in climbing those steps. But I could see someone wanting to see it at least once.

Hi everyone I just wanted to thank everyone for their comments my main goal is to help others with disabilities who enjoy trains and would like to work for places like ns or csx or maybe they just want to want to work with passengers I know that this project is possible I just need all the help and support possible.

I’m partially disabled. To be brutally specific, I survived two bad bullying incidents in grade school, one of which crushed a vertebra, and an indescribably bad hospital stay for pneumonia two and a half years ago where the staff managed to throw me around and wreck a lot of the remaining nerve function. My legs are numb below the knees. One knee is all but destroyed from the hospital and the other has loose cartilage from grade school. I use a cane, walker or electric scooter depending on terrain.

Can I get into the cab of a locomotive and into a seat? Yes. (Waynesburg and Washington #4 is so little I can hoist up and look around just fine. However, i think my days of donning the GG1 at RMM are over because that was difficult when I was younger and two-thirds current size.) Can I do everything it would take to be a conductor, fireman or engineer over the road? Nope. There’s no way I could remove myself from the cab of a moving locomotive were the worst to happen, nor could I assist passengers who would need help.

However, not being on an over the road crew wouldn’t disqualify me for a lot of RR jobs were I looking. Bench mechanic and carpentry work, dispatching, safety training, security camera monitoring (backing up security/RR police in the field,) tourist railroad gift shops—all of that is entirely possible. One of the TV car shows has a builder who uses a big Beyour walker like mine with the backrest positioned so he can lean his chest into it, relieving strain on his lower back so he can bend over an engine bay. A lot depends on whether the person can stand for short periods with hands free (some can use leg braces,) or whether a wheelchair is the only option.

As far as museum visitors go, I can’t wait to try out the new ramps at PTM. I can get into most of their older trolleys, but they have one that arrived gutted and is now configured to allow wheelchairs and scooters. Altoona is another place very well laid out for visitors who have to use a chair full-time. The full-size model of 1361’s cab upstairs is flat to the floor so you can roll right up and look, even though they can’t let people get as close as they did at first. Where there’s room for a ramp at a live event, a full-time chair user who can use a transfer chair and will accept help can be rolled up to look around most locomotive cabs. (Think folding camp chair with casters and handles on the back. They’ll fit anyone up to about 250 lbs. anywhere a normally seated person would.) Would a junk diesel cab be a good display? Likely yes, and it might even hold a slightly out of date simulator that wouldn’t have to cost a fortune. Much is possible.