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Offline FreeBorn

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #50 on: November 22, 2011, 04:39:42 PM »
Quote, CG6468~


"Any locomotive, steam or diesel-electric, passenger or freight, cannot get a train moving unless there is space between the knuckle couplers. With no spacing, it would be like immediately moving the entire weight of the train as a single unit; the spacing allows for moving only one car at a time. The knuckle couplers are designed for this spacing. That's why when a train begins moving we hear the noise of each car's slack in the knuckle couplers being taken up by the moving cars that precede it."

When I worked as a "carknocker" in the old PRR roundhouse in Buffalo switching cars around the yard to and from the roundhouse and the various sheds was a regular daily task. Everyone was checked out on the GE diesel switcher and was trained as a brakeman. If it was your car that needed moved it was you that moved it (and maybe a dozen others in the course of getting it where it needed to be).

That old switcher was a twin engine model but only one engine worked, the other having been cannibalized for parts to maintain the first. The brakes were sketchy.
Most of the rolling stock being worked on usually had no brakes most of the time being they were in various states of repair or remanufacture. Slack action was a very dangerous thing for the unaware. New guys in training usually got right on board with the learning curve but now and then we had an accident or two with those who proved a wee tad slower on the uptake. Once those guys caught a brake lever in the ear or got knocked on their backsides in the slush while attempting to chock the wheels on a "stopped" car they learned about slack action the hard way.
The switcher and one car was no problem. The switcher and a string of half a dozen cars could see that last car creep several feet before it was actually stationary and safe to chock the wheels of with a hunk of 2x4.

I left that job after three years there. Suddenly it seemed several of the guys got the bright idea that we should go union, UAW. The whole sordid affair dragged on for more than a year and it got ugly. Fist fights, broken windshields, etc. When the opportunity came up I took another welding job and bailed. The new job was welding cement mixer truck drums, the big part on the back that turns and mixes the cement as the truck is on its way. Good job with more pay and better hours. Eight months into that we had an all hands meeting, going out of business.
Back at the rail yard I recalled seeing a map of North America on the office wall. There was a little red dot wherever there was a car shop (rail road repair or manufacture facility). Dozens all over the U.S., several across Canada and only two dots in Mexico. That map predated NAFTA. In the meantime it seems our mustachioed friends south of the border had been quite busy indeed. During the meeting I learned that our parent company based in Dallas was mainly involved in railcar manufacture and that since NAFTA went through there were now more than forty car shops down in old Meh-hee-co. As the story went the company had manufactured xxx thousand cars the last year before Nafta, xx thousand the next year, x thousand the next and most of those now being repairs as opposed to new builds and there went my job. Our mustachioed friends south of the border will work for forty bucks a week. How the  :censored: do we compete with that??? How the  :censored: was NAFTA "such a good thing for America"???
Gee thanks, Willie!  :bs:


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Offline BattleHymn

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #51 on: November 22, 2011, 04:42:18 PM »
This is a great thread.  I'm always impressed with the vast amount of knowledge here.   :-)

Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #52 on: November 22, 2011, 04:43:56 PM »
The below is from a book that's here; it's not one of the pictures promised tomorrow (Wednesday), when I go to town and look in the family archives, which are kept in storage there (I keep nothing of value out here where I live; best to always have such things in secure locations).

The book doesn't say when or where, but given it's from the archives of Southern Methodist University, it's probably a pretty good bet it's from Texas or the southwest.  Date?  Maybe the 1920s.  It's identified only as a locomotive engineer standing beside his machine.


I should point out this looks to be only an "average-sized" steam locomotive of the period--but notice how large it is.
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Offline FreeBorn

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #53 on: November 22, 2011, 05:01:31 PM »
BTW, forgot to mention. While I was at the rail yard there was an ad in the Sunday paper one week. Norfolk Southern Rail Road was hosting a hiring seminar at the Holiday Inn on Grand Island, one day only. This was for twenty something jobs with NSRR. Several of us from the rail yard attended, about a dozen.
Total attendance was about 1,800 people. They got the shindig started by saying "welcome, blah blah blah"... "any of you who have ever had a speeding ticket, please put your hand up". That was about half the room, myself included.
"Thank you for coming"... and that was that. One of our group, one guy made it as far as a sit down with one of the reps. He didn't get a job either.

Years later I happened to meet a guy who was about 25 at the time. Told me he used to be a locomotive engineer for NSRR, some relative had gotten him in when he was 18. His was a part time gig and his regular run was from Buffalo down to Cleveland every few weeks or so. He would take a string of empty automobile haulers down, sometimes have a layover in a hotel on the company dime and catch a ride back to Buffalo on the next northbound.
He got fired from that job after only six months because on one of the layovers in Cleveland after his run down he got a twelve pack of beer along with some groceries to take to his hotel room. He would be reimbursed by NSRR later after submitting his receipts. They didn't like the beer listed there and fired him for having alcohol on rail road property. The hotel was of course not rail road property and he was off duty at the time but they were paying for the room so he ran afoul of their regs and it cost him his job.

IIRC retirees of NSRR receive their pay in full and full medical and dental for the rest of their lives. If their spouse survives them she gets half for the rest of her life.


"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin; And how do you tell an anti-communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." ~Ronald Reagan

Offline DumbAss Tanker

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #54 on: November 22, 2011, 05:49:06 PM »
I'm still confused however as to why the Milwaukee Road thought this such a good idea, while the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railways, which went through the same sort of country, never did.  Electric railways were popular in the northeastern United States, but to the best of my memory, this was the only major such thing west of the Mississippi.

Why would an electric locomotive work "better" in sub-zero terrain than steam or diesel?

The NP ran electrified lines as well, I don't recall if they were its own original trackage or lines it took over from the Milwaukee.  one of the advantages the electrical lines had in the mountains was "Regenerative braking," i.e. they could produce power with the traction motors acting as generators on the downhill runs, and feed it back into the lines (I believe they used 3300v 3-phase, but I may be misremembering that).  On modern road Diesels you'll generally see blisters about the center of the long hoods, at the roof line, which are the cooling intakes for "Dynamic braking," a cousin of the regeneration.  In dynamic braking, the traction motors brake the wheels by acting as generators (Thus massively saving on brake shoes and wheel wear) but dump the power they generate into a huge resistance load that turns it into heat, without leaving the locomotive, which then has to be cooled with the apparatus those blisters represent.  It's not nearly as elegant a use of power as regenerative braking, but it is still a huge improvement over reliance on conventional brakes alone.

Steam engines necessarily rely on water and therefore have certain disadvantages if not kept with fires alive but at least banked in sub-zero weather, and their support facilities like filling tanks along the line are subject to the same problem.  Even Diesels require the constant movement of many tons of fuel to fueling points along the line, traffic which produces no direct revenue itself (And starting an 2,000+ HP Diesel in subzero weather can be a trying experience, Diesel fuel gets kind of sluggish at those low temps and it can take some nurturing to get the cylinders to start firing). 

The thing about railroads is that they are businesses first, and everything they do has to make more financial sense than the alternatives; some decisions have much more to do with things like fuel taxes in a given state than with questions of mechanical efficiency, and the reasons may be opaque at the time to those outside the railroad's operational management circles. 

One side of my Dad's family were Irish railroadmen in the Chicago area, in fact my uncle was a motorman on the North Shore Line back in the day, actually running their flagship Electroliner in the years before the line went under, circa 1960. 
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That here, obedient to their law, we lie.

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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #55 on: November 22, 2011, 06:44:31 PM »
The thing about railroads is that they are businesses first, and everything they do has to make more financial sense than the alternatives; some decisions have much more to do with things like fuel taxes in a given state than with questions of mechanical efficiency, and the reasons may be opaque at the time to those outside the railroad's operational management circles.

I knew that, sir; that's why I was inquiring of any possible economic advantages to having electrified lines.....and you answered so well in your two paragraphs preceding.

You, like TVDOC, should've been a teacher, and a highly-paid one.
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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #56 on: November 22, 2011, 07:33:40 PM »
I'm waiting for the senior business partner to get back to me on something--I know what I'd do, but he has to sign off on my work, so best to learn what he thinks--and while waiting, I took out some photographs kept in one of the books on trains here.

During the 1950s into the early 1960s, the older brothers used to write public relations departments of various railways, inquiring of this or that, usually asking photographs.  This being a kinder and gentler time, the public relations departments always responded.

What follows are all 8x10 glossy photographs sent by the various railways.  There used to be a lot more, but much of this stuff eventually decorated the bedroom of my younger brother and I, and some things just aren't hardy enough to survive children.


A publicity shot, obviously air-brushed and altered, from the Chicago & North Western railway, of the famous Chicago-San Francisco Overland Limited, which ran on the rails of the C & NW to Omaha, the Union Pacific from there to Ogden, Utah, and then the Southern Pacific to San Francisco.

There's no identifying information on the back (other than the C & NW logo), but one assumes this is probably Iowa, and from the first decade of the last century.
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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #57 on: November 22, 2011, 07:41:07 PM »


As one can see, "the initial trip of the Los Angeles Limited in the desert."

If it was the initial trip, this photograph was snapped in 1906.

The Los Angeles Limited was one of the premier passenger trains of the Union Pacific until the advent of the streamliners during the late 1930s.

It went from Chicago to Los Angeles, but I disremember which line carried it on the Chicago-Omaha leg of the trip.

The deal was, for some reason long ago buried in the archives of the ICC (the Interstate Commerce Commission), the Union Pacific ended (eastward) at Omaha.  All the other transcontinental lines were allowed to build, or acquire, lines that gave them direct access to Chicago, but the Union Pacific wasn't allowed to do that, not even via stock ownership in a rail line that came out of Chicago.

This was a definite handicap, as Chicago was the main rail center of North America.  Omaha was pretty big, but really nothing compared with Chicago. 
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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #58 on: November 22, 2011, 07:43:47 PM »


The above has NO identifying mark or script on the back; one assumes it was in Iowa, circa 1900-1920.

From the position of the engineer on the left-hand side, it must be the C & NW.

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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #59 on: November 22, 2011, 07:46:17 PM »
The Los Angeles Limited, probably between 1910-1920.


The cracks are apparently from a cracked glass negative.


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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #60 on: November 22, 2011, 07:48:11 PM »



Identified only as "#17," and from the Chicago & Northwestern, probably in Iowa, on its way to Omaha; probably from the 1920s.

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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #61 on: November 22, 2011, 07:50:40 PM »


The Chicago & North Western's famous "400," leaving Chicago for Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.

Probably from the 1920s.

It was called the "400"--its actual name--because it took 400 minutes to make the trip.

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Offline Carl

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #62 on: November 22, 2011, 07:52:01 PM »
That is a really good question, and I can only speculate......by electric locomotives, I assume you mean "overhead supply" electric, as powered rails would be far too dangerous in the open areas without fencing the road to protect livestock and humans.  The sheer cost of the infrastructure to run all those overhead supply lines would have been immense compared to using coal and water..,,,,,unless the railroad owned the power plants, and viewed running the trains on electricity as a freebie.

The only other consideration that I can think of is what was the load they were hauling??  Electric locomotives (traction motors), had the ability to "start" heavier loads because the torque to the wheels could be very finely tuned to eliminate driver slippage.  This was the major disadvantage of steam......a steam locomotive could haul a hundred car train at 90 mph halfway across the country......the problem was getting it moving, too heavy a load, and the locomotive just sits there with the drivers spinning.  "Sanders" were used to partially overcome this shortfall, but even they had their limits.

One interesting fact about steam is that there was NO theoretical limit to how fast a steam locomotive could go......keep the throttle wide open and pour on the coal to keep the boiler pressure climbing, and they would accelerate until they destroyed themselves.

As an aside, the "Land Speed Record" was for many years held by a steam-powered automobile.....the Stanley Steamer......over  100 mph, somewhere around 1900, when such speeds were unthinkable.....same principle.

doc

Interesting as this is also a distinction between a gas fueled,spark ignited piston engine and a diesel fueled,compression ignited one.
The gas one is limited by how much air it can draw in to mix with the fuel whereas the diesel will keep revving faster and faster (called running away and the reason the old 2 stroke Detroits had an air shut off) until something mechanically failed.

Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #63 on: November 22, 2011, 07:54:55 PM »


The San Joaquin Daylight of the Southern Pacific, which ran San Francisco-Los Angeles, probably from the late 1930s, maybe as late as the late 1940s.


The Coast Daylight of the Southern Pacific, which also ran San Francisco-Los Angeles, about the same time.

The Southern Pacific had two lines running up-and-down California, one in the interior, and one along the Pacific coast.

Both Daylights were day-time trains; there were also Starlights which went overnight.
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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #64 on: November 22, 2011, 07:56:52 PM »


From the Southern Pacific, no identification, no date; one assumes California, late 1950s, early 1960s.
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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #65 on: November 22, 2011, 09:05:28 PM »
Hmmm.  I wasn't aware.

I knew the 4-8-4 of the Union Pacific was in active duty, never retired, and sometimes used when there's abnormally-bad blizzards in Wyoming, and that the 4-6-6-4 had been retired but then was restored, and is currently "active".

I had heard a rumor that there's an operable 4-8-8-4, and thought it was in Cheyenne, but it's in Omaha, on display but ready to go any time it's fired up.  In fact in 1996 it had gone from Cheyenne to Omaha under its own power, no help needed.

I guess the problem is.....OSHA.

Anyway.

Quote
Alone among modern railroads, UP maintains a small fleet of historic locomotives for special trains and hire in its Cheyenne, Wyoming roundhouse. The roundhouse is just south of the historic depot.

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UP 844 is a 4-8-4 Northern type express passenger steam locomotive (class FEF-3). It was the last steam locomotive built for UP and has been in continuous service since its 1944 delivery. Many people know the engine as the No. 8444, since an extra '4' was added to its number in 1962 to distinguish it from a diesel numbered in the 800 series. It regained its rightful number in June 1989, after the diesel was retired. A mechanical failure occurred on June 24, 1999, in which the boiler tubes from the 1996 overhaul, being made of the wrong material, collapsed inside the boiler and put the steam locomotive out of commission. The UP steam crew successfully repaired it and returned it to service on November 10, 2004. It is the only steam locomotive to never be officially retired from a North American Class I railroad.

Quote
UP 3985 is a 4-6-6-4 Challenger class dual-service steam locomotive. It is the largest steam locomotive still in operation anywhere in the world. Withdrawn from service in 1962, it was stored in the UP roundhouse until 1975, when it was moved to the employees' parking lot outside the Cheyenne, Wyoming, depot until 1981 when a team of employee volunteers restored it to service. In 2007, it underwent repairs for service, and was back up and running in 2008 to continue its run.

Quote
UP 5511 is a 2-10-2 steam locomotive. This locomotive is very rarely ever heard of, because it was never donated for public display. This locomotive is reportedly in excellent condition, and a restoration probably would not take more than a couple of weeks. The only thing keeping it from being restored is that it would be limited to 40 mph (64 km/h) or lower due to its large cylinders and small drivers. As of August 2004, this locomotive is being offered for sale by UP. It is currently in storage at the roundhouse where 844 & 3985 are repaired in Cheyenne, Wyoming

Quote
UP 1243 is a 4-6-0 steam locomotive, and is the oldest locomotive owned by UP. Built in 1890 and retired in 1957, it was at first stored in Rawlins, Wyoming. It was cosmetically restored in 1990 for public display, and toured with 844 as part of the Idaho and Wyoming Centennial train, being moved on a flat car. It was moved to Omaha, Nebraska in November 1996 and put on display at the Western Heritage Museum.

Quote
UP 4023 – A Union Pacific Big Boy 4-8-8-4 articulated steam locomotive, on display at Lauritzen Gardens/Kenefick Park, Omaha, Nebraska. It has been rumoured that Number 4023 was being considered by UP for restoration to operational status.

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UP 3203 – A 4-6-2 type, donated to City of Portland, Oregon in January 1958. Originally Oregon Railway and Navigation Company #197, it was moved to the Brooklyn Roundhouse in 1996 and is scheduled to return to operation by 2012.

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UP 838, a twin 4-8-4 to 844, is stored in the Cheyenne roundhouse as a parts source, though as most of its usable parts have already been applied to 844, it is more likely to see use as a source of pattern parts for reproduction replacements. Reputedly, 838's boiler is in better condition than that of 844, due to 838 having not been in steam since retirement, compared to 844's relatively heavy use since 1960.
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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #66 on: November 22, 2011, 09:14:05 PM »
Now my question for the science and technology guys.

Quote
UP 5511 is a 2-10-2 steam locomotive. This locomotive is very rarely ever heard of, because it was never donated for public display. This locomotive is reportedly in excellent condition, and a restoration probably would not take more than a couple of weeks. The only thing keeping it from being restored is that it would be limited to 40 mph (64 km/h) or lower due to its large cylinders and small drivers. As of August 2004, this locomotive is being offered for sale by UP. It is currently in storage at the roundhouse where 844 & 3985 are repaired in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

One can only speculate, but for what purpose was such a locomotive designed?

If it couldn't go more than 40 mph even in its prime, while it may have worked other places, it would've been too slow to begin with, on the Union Pacific.
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Offline CG6468

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #67 on: November 22, 2011, 09:15:14 PM »

The above has NO identifying mark or script on the back; one assumes it was in Iowa, circa 1900-1920.

From the position of the engineer on the left-hand side, it must be the C & NW.

It looks like the one HERE, Frank.

The number and the smokestack design seem just like what your picture shows.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2011, 09:17:45 PM by CG6468 »
Illinois, south of the gun controllers in Chi town

Offline CG6468

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #68 on: November 22, 2011, 09:16:35 PM »
Now my question for the science and technology guys.

One can only speculate, but for what purpose was such a locomotive designed?

If it couldn't go more than 40 mph even in its prime, while it may have worked other places, it would've been too slow to begin with, on the Union Pacific.

Maybe it was a switcher, Frank.
Illinois, south of the gun controllers in Chi town

Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #69 on: November 22, 2011, 09:16:55 PM »
It looks like the one HERE, Frank.

The ones at your link, sir, are narrow guage, not standard gauge.
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Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #70 on: November 22, 2011, 09:17:41 PM »
Maybe it was a switcher, Frank.

A 2-10-2?

Surely you jest, sir.
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Offline CG6468

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #71 on: November 22, 2011, 09:20:22 PM »
The ones at your link, sir, are narrow guage, not standard gauge.

I know. But like I said above, the general design and the number match your pic.
Illinois, south of the gun controllers in Chi town

Offline franksolich

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #72 on: November 22, 2011, 09:23:39 PM »
I know. But like I said above, the general design and the number match your pic.

I just noticed something else about that picture, and am wondering if the negative was reversed.

We don't know if this is a C&NW locomotive; I'm just guessing it is.

The C&NW, alone among American railways, drove on the left side, not the usual way.

Like the way the British drive.

I dunno why the C&NW did that, but that's what they did.
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Offline CG6468

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #73 on: November 22, 2011, 09:32:30 PM »
A 2-10-2?

Surely you jest, sir.

No, just a JFU!  :cheersmate: :lmao:

I got the photos mixed up in my small mind!  :wink: :hyper:
Illinois, south of the gun controllers in Chi town

Offline CG6468

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Re: horsepower
« Reply #74 on: November 22, 2011, 09:34:21 PM »
I just noticed something else about that picture, and am wondering if the negative was reversed.

I think not. The numbers on the cab are not reversed or backwards. I think the photo is OK.
Illinois, south of the gun controllers in Chi town