Kelly Anderson Wrote:
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> Maintenance comes into play as well. Working on
> focusing a headlight on a dark night when it’s
> high mounted in front of a hot smokebox on a tall
> locomotive is not fun. There is only so much you
> can do while holding on with both feet and one
> hand while trying not to get burned when you can’t
> see what you are doing. On small engines, a high
> mounted headlight is still easy to reach while
> standing on the pilot deck. Not so on large
> standard gage engines.
This is why the PRR added the large plate and swapped the location of the headlight and generator (a.k.a "beauty treatment) in the late 1940"s. It gave the workers a safer place to stand when they had to work on the generator and headlight.
Of course, it was butt-ugly.