Why do, (did, and some shortlines now) rr’s run long hood first? What does it do? It seems like they are reverting back to steam days when the cab is in the back of the loco. Thanks, bnsf97
When most railroads were ordering road switchers with the short hood forward, a few decided that the crew was better protected in the event of a collision by having the long hood forward. Southern Railroad and the Norfolk and Western continued this until the early 1980’s.The locomotives operate just as well in either direction. Th main reason that a short line will run long hood forward is that’s the way the engine was facing. There aren’t as many turning facilities such as wye’s and turntables as there was in the steam engine days, so the engine always faces the same way.
I’ve heard that Rio Grande only had a few RS3’s and did run them long hood forward for crew safety. So…that’s the way I’m going to run mine.
Jerry
My first train set had an Erie Lackawann GP50 (I know, they never had one in real life) with high short hoods. I always ran it long hood forward because I didn’t know any better, and now I prefer high short hood engines and running long hood foward. Bachmann made the same engine in N scale… but they still charge like $50 for it. Wish I could find it cheap on ebay.
Visibility is the advantage with short hood front, particularly on curves for observing signals and the track a head. Apparently the rail roads were slow to pickup on this from the car-body style diesels like the F’s, sharknose’s, and C-Liners. I don’t know if the operating unions had any input for crew safety that influenced the rairoads that opted for long hood front operation.
Will
There was a thread on this a month or two back. With high short hoods, it really does not matter which end is the front end. The visibility is roughly the same as a steam engine either way.
Some railroads ran long hood forward for crew safety. Debris has a long way to crawl to get to the cab when it is at the rear of the locomotive. Not to mention some pretty heavy gadgetry (like a prime mover) in the path.
As for the Alco RS1,2,3,4 and 5, long hood forward was more prevalent from what I have seen.
The main difference inside the locomotive was on which side the controls were placed.
Somebody mentioned in the previous thread that locomotives with low short hoods are required to run with that end forward (visibility) when they are leading the train. That was why Norfolk & Western and Southern, to name two, ordered their locomotives with high short hoods for quite some time after those became rare.
Remember guys,a diesel can run equally well in either direction…Thats why you see low hoods running long end forward some times-yes,that includes wide cabs.
Long hood forward was a carry over from the steam days for some roads while other roads it was for collision protection.[:D]
As for seeing signals,locomotives had signal indicators in the cab so the engineer could know what the signal for the next block was before reaching that block signal.
Ya a lot of it was just inertia - railroads were used to steam engines with the boiler in front and the cab in the back, so that’s the way most of the early diesel switchers and road switchers (like the RS-1) were designed. Oddly of course, the first diesels and “oil-electrics” were modified electric boxcab engines, and had the crew right in front.
A few railroads like NP preferred everything, even their RS-3’s to be short hood forward, but I would guess most RR’s ran their RS-3’s long-snoot forward. Then of course next door, GN ran everything long-nose forward until the first low nose diesels were ordered - I think their first were the GP-30’s from 1962-3.
This is a topic I was wanting to ask a question about as well…
I noticed Atlas is making a GP7 now, in my railroad, and when looking at the picture, I saw that the engineer figure is facing long hood forward. Is this the typical front of a GP7 or 9? Personally, I like the short hood forward, maybe it would be best to take the figure out and forget it…
You can probably turn him around.
A lot of times you will see a local freight running with the low hood forward on it’s outbound leg and long high hood forward on it’s return trip. As was stated earlier there aren’t many turning facilities remaining on the railroads.
Doesn’t Norfolk Southern still prefer run long hood forward for crew safety? Thats why some locos have ditch lights in the back right?
From my understanding, the Norfolk and Western did this for crew protection in case of a collision with rock slides. And some units are equiped with control stands on both sides for operating in either direction.
NYC ran their GP7/9 and the Alco road switchers long hood foward…This will apply equally well for the FM,Lima and Baldwin road switchers.
See http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ and look under NYC.
Research “your” railroad to find out what it’s practice was in the time period you’re interested in. Some roads ran GP7/9’s long hood forward, and some short hood forward.
For example, the GTW (“my” railroad [:D]) used to run them long hood forward. Here’s a link to a photo of a couple GP’s in passenger service at Valparaiso, Indiana in October of 1963: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/gtw/gtw4919ads.jpg
HTH,
Steve
I think it’s for units assigned to branchline duty, they can run them “legally” in either direction.
Brad
No…NS runs their wide cabs forward as well as the exCR units The ex N&W and Southern units still run long hood forward.However…Once again the units can and will at times operate long hood forward or short hood forward.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=144331
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=144246
See more NS photos at
http://www.railpictures.net/
Most of the smaller NS locos I’ve seen have ditchlights on the front and the rear, and they were running long hood forward. I remember reading something in MR magazine about which way locos were run. I think they said Norfolk Southern did this for safety reasons. Or it could have been a different railroad, I don’t remember.
I’ve seen a couple NS (ex-CR) GP40-2 units running long hood forward in light engine moves on the Lehigh Line in NJ. There’s also a CSAO job (SA-31) that has the power running long-hood forward for about half the trip (either on the way from the yard, or on the way back) because there’s no easy way to turn the power around.