DM&IR 2-8-8-4 "Yellowstone" Locomotive Cab. Of the 3 surviving DM&IR Yellowstones, only one offers the public the chance to actually enter (and admire) the cab. DM&IR #227 is perhaps the best-preserved of the 3 extant Yellowstones. She's located indoors in the main exhibit hall of the Lake Superior Railroad Museum, in downtown Duluth, MN. Although the exterior of the 227 is a bit tough to photograph, due to the tight confines of the museum exhibits, the cab is open to visitors and is maintained in rather immaculate condition. It's also perhaps the most well-lit locomotive cab exhibit I have ever seen. The cabs on these Yellowstones are wide and DEEP. Tons of room up here. Not only that, but they are VERY well-laid-out. The networks of valves, piping and instrumentation are almost a work of art. About the only thing that seemed like an afterthought was FORWARD VISIBILITY. It's terrible. The windows in front of the engineman and fireman are very small and with that monstrous boiler out front, they really can't see much of anything ahead of them. If I were operating this thing, I would want to have a lookout on the pilot deck, with some sort of telephone back to the cab. If the visibility situation on UP's Big Boy is anything like what I saw here, I can totally understand their lead engineer's habit of leaning WAY out the side window. Talk about flying blind....
