Not at all surprised. In the UK someone is suing First Great Western the train operator over the Ufton derailment, (the one I linked to earlier) despite them not being at fault. Yes, the cab car has normal controls and they are wired through to control the loco on the rear of the train in the normal way.
Yes cab cars have a full set of controls built in. I believe they are even equipped with headlights and ditchlights like a locomotive.
PUsh-pull is based on the EMU's like Metra Electric. I belive and you may correct me that C&NW was the first in the US to implement push-pull during their commuter shake up in the 60's. At that time some of C&NW's managers had come from Illinois Central which was running the electric multiple units in commuter service and they talked about turn around times and questioned whether it would be possible to run a locomotive and cars like an EMU, put a cab in the last car and then only the engineer changes ends instead of the locomotive. and that is how I have heard history was made.
I posted on one of the other forums that was in the wrong place about the UP crew being among the fatalities. NOT TRUE. I believed what I read, never do that. The UP engine was vacant, but apparently some of the front end riders on the Metro were thrown into the UP engine cab. The conductor, Tom Ormiston, was among the fatalities and was evidently a well-loved railroader. I apologize for the original post.
I just received this from Scott Schifer, one of the guys at the Belmont Shore Club. Scott writes: All, I am sad to report a fellow modeler and train buff was lost in the tragedy yesterday. I knew Scott McKeown casually through my friends in the Glendale Model Railroad Club. His club is devastated by the loss. Scott Schifer Belmont Shore MRRC ------------------------------------------------------- From the LA Times. Train Buff Rode in Front Scott McKeown, 42, lived in Moorpark in Ventura County with his family and commuted each day to Pasadena City Hall, where he was in charge of the city's phone, radio and sound systems. He had fallen for trains when he was a boy and his family had come West from Chicago in one. He and his best friend, Joe Wilke, had made a model of the train line that included the track on which he was killed. Wilke said that on days off, he and McKeown would take their families to Los Angeles by train for lunch, then return home in the afternoon. McKeown had been sitting in his usual spot in the first car, directly behind a window where he could watch the engineer operate the controls, a friend told Wilke. "For those of us who love trains, that's where you sit," Wilke said. "I'd like to think that Scott was having a good time." McKeown and his wife, Susan, moved to Moorpark four years ago because they wanted a family-friendly environment for daughter Ashley, 8, and son Brice, 5, said David Doan, his brother-in-law. Doan also talked of McKeown's passion for trains. "He'd talk to the conductor, the engineers, the ticket man anyone who shared his love of trains," he said. McKeown was a member of the Glendale Model Railroad Club for 20 years, friends said. He helped build and maintain the club's replica of the Southern Pacific Railroad, now Union Pacific. "Scotty's been coming in here since he was a kid," said Fred Hill, the 62-year-old owner of the Original Whistle Stop train store in Pasadena. "He loved commuting on that train. He was a train nut."
