This week I observed something I’d never seen before, a locomotive running with the long hood forward. I know they’re made to be bi-directional. Other than the obvious issue of the engineer not being able to see any unpleasant surprise coming from the left side, is there anything else that makes running long hood forward more difficult?
If there aren’t ditch lights on the long hood end, then it is restricted to 20 MPH over road crossing.
First of all, on locomotives with desks the controls are still over on what is now the left side, and some aren’t sideways but facing straight back… which is now of course behind where the engineer is sitting to see out.
You can judge some of the visibility issues by the size of the right-side-in-normal-direction rear cab window, which is now the front. The view “forward” along the long hood is complicated, on a GE, by the large overhang of the radiators, so your vision to the front is shall we say circumscribed. You’ll probably want to have the cab side window open to lean out some of the time…
A locomotive like this is equally able to run in either direction pulling a train; it is certainly not equally able to BE run in either direction…
Oddly, seldom a week or two goes by before I see something with relatively modern power and long-hood-leading leaving the ex-Southern intermodal yard at the eastbound end, opposite the grade-separated crossing where that line goes over the ex-IC freight cutoff line. The last one I saw was on an intermodal stack consist and the long-hood problems didn’t preclude the train getting to 45mph before I lost him due to morning road traffic.
If the loco has an AAR stand and there are two sets of eyes, it’s not really a problem. Our excursion trips have to run one way with the long hood leading because we have no way to turn the locomotives.
Recall that “in the beginning” virtually all Diesel/electrics were set up to run long hood forward. Even with the short hood leading, when they were full height, you needed two sets of eyes.
And some locomotives were built with two control stands, one for each direction.
Here in New Bern NC, where we are hanging out for a couple of weeks, yesterday I saw a northbound train come through with a modern wide-cab engine, running long hood forward. From all I can gather it had to have run that way all the way from Morehead City, about 35 miles way. This type of engine looks odd running long hood forward, with the dynamic brake radiators being the chief visual feature as it approaches.
There is a small NS yard here. Maybe the train terminates there, but maybe it goes much farther with long hood forward. There is a wye here, so the engine could be turned if desired.
I now wonder if the train always goes south in normal mode, and always runs north with long hood forward. I believe there is a wye in Morehead City, but maybe they don’t want to take the time to turn the engine.
I hope to figure out the routine before we leave here 1/1.
Having good mirrors helps a lot.
Is it legal, or possible, to ‘bring your own mirrors’ if you know or suspect you’ll be stuck with a long-hood-forward consist? (Or switching with one of these locomotives?)
I remember reading long ago (in Trains, regarding Alcos that usually didn’t keep their water and would create a ‘hunting season’ effect at transition) that savvy engineers would carry certain common components in their grips, together with certain ‘workaround’ pieces. I well remember the calibrated stack of pennies that several people mentioned would adjust Baldwin governors. Does any of that spirit or practice, which I understand has been ‘officially’ done away with, still apply anywhere?
I dunno. Our engines have good mirrors. If one gets broken, it gets replaced.
zugmann, are you saying that the engineer just sits at the controls normally, facing the A end (towards the train), and keeps track of the track ahead (behind him) with mirrors!?
I do not speak for all engineers. I only speak for one engineer: me. I don’t exclusively use my mirrors (never said that), but they help a lot.
Thanks!
Mirrors are very helpful when switching or to check out the train while moving, but, I never used the mirror to run by when running over the road long hood forward and sitting on the wrong side. The big thing that impaired vision were the radiator sections of the car body sticking out in the way, the big flaired ones being the worst.
I couldn’t really discern exactly what the angle of view would be, particularly for a tall engineer, but it did seem to me that those radiators would significantly restrict vision.
I called them “dynamic brake radiators” (the flared-out ones). Am I correct? Or are those just prime-mover engine radiators?
In Europe a cab at each end of the locomotive is common, making the locomotive perfectly bidirectional to operate. Check out the EMD Class 66. These “sheds” are used throughout Great Britain and other parts of Europe as well as in Egypt. Not sure why the same design wouldn’t work here.
Control stands and everything required for them cost money and the sum, when involved in the purchase of 100 or more locomotives is not unconsequental.
Amtrak’s NEC electric locomotives are double ended since they run between origin and destination and return without need to turn the locomotive, benefiting the overall operation. Amtrak’s diesels are single ended; their runs are not ‘shuttle’ kinds of service; and where it is they have taken to using their Cabbage and other similar strategies to facility quick turnarounds.
True enough… and here each end would need to be a safety cab design as well.
No, those large flares on GEs and also modern EMD/Caterpillar engines like the SD70ACe are the main engine radiators, not dynamic brakes.
Thanks, Chris.
After I wrote that, I thought to myself that I have long assumed they were for the dynamics, but really wasn’t sure.
On older geeps, didn’t a smaller, similar-looking (more like a blister) section cool the dynamics?
The locomotive I saw on the local is one of BNSF’s old Geeps. They have them in green, blue, orange and now and then a silver/pink color. I never thought about the engineer being on the lefthand side while running ‘backwards’. As long as you have a set of eyes on each side of the long nose, reading signs and signals is not an issue then?
Are most signs and signals on the right hand side of the track?
Wouldn’t most modern locomotives have ditch lights? Rebuilt Geeps, for example. What’s the logic behind the 20 mph speed limit?