Trains that went backwards ... and other odd manoeuvres

摘要

From the time of the first passenger trains, it has been normal for them to be hauled along from the front, either by animals or, later, locomotives. With a journey of some distance there was no great problem, but with short journeys such as some branch lines, getting a locomotive from one end of the train to the other became a bother, being both time and labour intensive, often requiring a second locomotive, sometimes a 'turnover' locomotive, so why not push the train one way? Well this is fine, as long as the driver could see where he was going! Many locomotives, especially LMS and British Railways Standard ones, had the upper corner parts of their tenders or bunkers formed so that the crew could see clearly when running in reverse, but long before that the French had an ingenious idea. Around the turn of the 20th century the Chemins de Fer du Nord operated a two-coach train with the locomotive in the middle and the roofs of the coaches cut away (similar to the tenders and bunkers of some of those LMS and BR Standard locomotives) so that the driver could see to the front. A number of French railcars and some in Northern Ireland had the driver's cab extending on to the roof so that he could see over the vehicle ahead of him, and also allowing a railcar to push a 'trailer'. One system that became popular was push-pull or auto-train operation, whereby a remote cab was put at the far end of the train for reverse running, fitting various equipment for the driver to control the locomotive from the remote end of the train, but this article mainly deals with other methods.