Looking at modern locomotives, virtually all now have the cab up front for better visibility (I assume). However, back in the steam days, the only cab forward locomotives in the world I can think of were the SP engines which I believe, were built that way due to the number of tunnels in the area in which they were used. When you think of all the experiments and efforts railroads made to try and prevent smoke from obscuring the engine crew's vision, I wonder why there weren't more cab-forward designs. Was it simply a cost issue? Perhaps the fuel? I think the SP engines were oil fired which would have been easier to turn around than a coal burner.

Was the cab-forward option ever explored by other railroads/locomotive builders?

The only other railroad that operated a cab-forward was the road that invented the design, the North Pacific Coast. It was NPC #21, a narrow gauge 4-4-0.

A cab forward design is only practable for oil burners since the fire box is a long way from the tender.

I read somewhere that WP checked out SP cab forwards before they bought their 2-8-8-2's but decided against the design due to concerns about exposing their crews to injury if the locomotive hit a boulder on the track - not a rare occurance in the Feather River. Considering all the stories that you hear about crews almost getting asphyxiated when steam engines went through tunnels, I'm surprised that more roads didn't at least borrow an SP loco and do tests with it.

Jason,

There was also a group of cab-forward ten-wheelers, the 500 Class, used on the Adriatic System in Italy from 1900 into the 1940's. Over 40 of them were built, and they were apparently quite successful.

Thanks, Taylor

here is a CAD line drawing of the NPC 4-4-0 cab forward.

http://steamcad.railfan.net/npc21.htm

Bill Thomas (Master Mechanic) and James Stetson (President) of the NPC received two patents related to the loco.

The first was for the boiler, and included the sloped profile towards the smoke box end, a cylindrical fire box, with water tubes, a cylindrical steam drum above the boiler, and liquid fuel.

The second was a design patent for the cab ahead design, using liquid fuel with some of the above elements included.

Both patents were issued in 1901

So, guess what I was doing at the National Archives today???

If you have a copy of 'Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail', you would see a proposed drawing of a Santa fe Cab Forward design, so other railroads at least considered the design.

Two words...SNOW SHEDS! Visibility and air quality. I've heard some stories of freeloaders riding the "monkey deck" (in between the locomotive and the tender) losing their lives in those snow sheds due to those conditions.

As for the NPC 21, head here for pretty much everything you wanted to know about this folly of a machine, about the success rate of A.J. Steven's "El Gobernador", which was built for the same purpose as the SP's big AC's over Donner Pass in later years.

http://www.ironhorse129.com/Projects/Engines/NPC_21/NPC_No21.htm

If I recall, some other European countries besides Italy tried cab-forward designs, probably prototypes that never 'hit it off'.

Of course the NPC didn’t have snow sheds… And A. J. Steven's "El Gobernador" was built for the Tehachapi’s, not for Donner Pass.

The Thomas – Stetson narrow gauge cab ahead was a well thought out loco. Beyond the layout and the oil, it had a cylindrical fire box, which is only possible with oil. It steamed well, and was supposedly more powerful than the Baldwin American who’s frame it was built on. Unlike the El Gobenador, which was way too large for its boiler, and therefore unusable from the beginning, NPC 21 was a very effective locomotive, which suffered from crew prejudice, and apparently from problems related to wear caused by oil burning, and related erosion of the firebox, which due to its corrugated design was difficult to repair. I would suspect due to the cylindrical firebox it would have been nearly impossible to install a brick arch.

El Gobenador was a dead end, NPC lead the line to convert to oil. Of course as a narrow gauge loco NPC 21 was a dead end in itself… The line standard gauged and electrified its suburban operations by 1904, and started to significantly cut back the narrow gauge by 1911.

..... the Beyer-Garratts of Africa, especially the South African Railways, were bi-directional, and if the crews had any say in the matter they were usually set up to operate coal/oil bunker first with the exhaust behind the crew.

It counts in spirit, doesn't it? <:-)