Why do train locomotives have cowcatchers today?

Question

Why do train locomotives have cowcatchers today?

Answer 1

in case of cows or stupid c**p cray people may leave on the tracks like a couch or a car passing through

Answer 2

New Diesel locomotives DON'T have them, they have a connector so that they can be connected backwards to push trains up steep grades.

Answer 3

They do called car crunchers.

Answer 4

Trains run through rural area everyday.Cows,deer,horses really still exist !!

Answer 5

Deer?

Answer 6

There are still things that sometime block a train's path today.  I heard a story once that an Amtrak train hit a washing machine that a bunch of kids put on the tracks just to see it get crushed.

Answer 7

Cow catchers?

I don't know of any locomotives that have had cow catchers in maybe a century or so..

I do know why locomotives have pilots and snow plows..

Answer 8

So your mother can eat without having to cut the meat herself.

Answer 9

indeed, it is to protect the locomotive

Answer 10

Because we still have cows that wander around in pastures these days.

Answer 11

cuz it looks really cool.

Why do SUVs have brush guards?  Most of them never leave the highway.

Answer 12

so when idiots think they can beat the train at a crossing - they can easily be moved out of the way

Answer 13

They don't.  The cow catcher was retired along with the old steam engines.

What is there today is called a "pilot", and their design is not for knocking cattle off the track, but rather for operations in the snow.  Study the design and this becomes apparent.

Answer 14

Because their purpose is still valid.

In railroading, the pilot is the device mounted at the front of a locomotive to deflect obstacles from the track that might otherwise derail the train. Archaically this was called a cowcatcher, and this is still the common layman's usage, but this term is deprecated and has not been used by railroad workers for more than a century.