ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,698,012, issued on Aug. 4, was assigned to Siemens Mobility GmbH (Munich).
"End cab switcher locomotive" was invented by Sebastian Bleth (Munich), Jorg Melde (Olching, Germany), Hannes Peer (Munich), Jorg Pforr (Moosach, Germany) and Manuel Ruttiger (Herrsching, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An end cab switcher locomotive includes buffer systems, an end cab and a switchman's footstep in front of the end cab on the side of a first one of the buffer systems. The switchman's footstep is disposed in such a way that when the buffer of the first buffer system is completely elastically pushed in, its buffer plane lies in front of the sw...