Best hood forward.

Most all of the AC engines I have seen DO NOT have ditch lights on the long hood end - at least on CSX. For the most part, SD-40’s and four axle locomotives DO have ditch lights on both ends, as these locomotives are most frequently used in Yard, Local Freight and Road Switcher services.

At one point in time, the Power Bureau got ‘brownie points’ for all the trains they could power up with only a single unit. Great! Until that train terminate at a location that does not have engine turning facilities, and effectively that single unit cannot be used to move a train in the reverse direction as a leader.

I don’t know what the costs of ditch lights are per unit. My guess would be somewhere between $2500 & $5000 per unit. I have seen ‘portable ditch lights’ used in some locations on other carriers.

Need to ask the FRA for the 20 MPH requirement without ditch lights. Supposedly humans cannot sense speed from a single point of light coming at them - supposedly they can with three points of light.

You used to be able to count on signals being anywhere from directly in front of you (overhead) to the right side of the tracks, but nowadays all you need to be able to do is determine which signal is for your track. It could be–and often is–on the mast to the left of you (I guess sales on bridges and masts aren’t as good as they used to be). However, you should be able to see the signals far enough in advance that a long hood, even with the radiator appurtenances, interferes with observation little more than a high short hood would be.

Think about it…the engineers on steam locomotives almost always had a long “hood” ahead of them. They had a fireman, true, but he was often occupied. The calling of signals across the cab was a safety precaution more than an absolute necesity. There were times in the yard, when curves and other layout anomalies would require a person on the opposite side to pass hand and lamp signals to the engineer (I did that more in my pre-railroading career than I did while I was getting paid), but that’s a whole 'nother story.

Under PSR they want as many trains as possible to run with a single engine. We lost a ouple of our 4 axles for half as many 6 axles. But we have ditchlights on the long hood ends of probably just about all (minus maybe a very few?) engines though.

I heard rumors a while back that CSX was requiring that the leading unit in a consist had to have PTC if one of the engines were so equipped - even if facing backwards. Again, a rumor.

That would make nifty sense if PTC aids in running without clear vision, or if operations require the PTC to be as near the head of the train as possible. Where it makes less sense is that the antenna and presumably GPS fix is now 60-odd feet behind the actual front of the train, which the algorithms may not expect or be able to compensate for.

It’ll be interesting to see how this works out in practice…

I believe they do. You have to tell PTC which way the engine is facing.

If the engine I saw, a safety-cab one, had indeed come all the way from Morehead City (about 35 miles away) long hood forward, would that be quite unusual?

Am I correct in assuming that the hogger’s seat can at least revolve all the way around?

Back in the days before the safety cabs, one would see almost all leading Southern units running long hood forward; I am told this was for collision protection. But weren’t those units set up so that the controls were alongside the engineer, not in front?

Remember - Both N&W and SOU were big time believers in operating long hood forward with high short hoods until the manufacturers made such configurations a ‘extra cost option’ - only then did they start taking delivery of engines with low nose short hoods as the front of the engine.

Many of the existing NS engines were purchased when long hood forward was desired. With engines built long hood forward, engineers have no worse view than if they were operating a steam engine with the boiler ahead of the engineers cab.

In the day, signals for all US railroads, except CNW, were set up for ‘right hand running’ and signals were installed to facilitate it on the right side of the tracks. Recently carriers have been installing signals on either side of main tracks - in many cases a single signal mast will have signal heads facing in both directions, such installations reduce construction costs - train crews be damned.

That didn’t stop them. They still had them set up long hood lead. GP60s, B32s, SD40s were like that.

think it was the SD70 was the first EMD that did not have a high hood option that they ran short first.

The standard AAR stand can be run pretty easily in both directions.

Quite true–I did it twice, turning an engine on a wye.

Larry, is the “standard AAR stand” something that is installed nowadays? Or is that something in the past? Not too long ago, as part of my work, I rode in a modern Amtrak engine. That engineer, IIRC, sat at a desk-like affair. Of course, that type of engine would never run any real distance “backwards” in the lead. But it was my impression that current freight diesels use that type of control arrangement. No? From what I saw, it seems like it would be hard to use that desk setup while facing away from it.

The Desk Top controls was all the rage in the 90’s and early 21st Century - not so much today as the people who order the locomotive are beginning to hear the complaints for the people that actually use the locomotives.

Interesting. Thanks, Balt.

I heard it had to do with ergonomics. Supposedly they started getting more claims for carpal tunnel syndrome because of the way the different levers are set on the desk tops.

I like the ‘retro’ style control stand. The only downside is it takes up so much room in the cab. They liked to the wide nose units ‘comfort’ cabs. The way the control stand, third seat and maybe PTC gear are stacked in a cab, ‘cramped cab’ is more appropriate.

Jeff

I think when you reach a certain level of PTC compliance, all leading engines have to be equipped and operable out of the intial terminal. At first, if the lead engine had working PTC, you ran with it. If not, no big deal. Once we reached that certain level, lead engines out of the originating terminal have to have working PTC. Reaching that level is probably on a subdivision/region level rather than the entire railroad. I know other sections of UP were requiring PTC leaders before my area did.

The subdivisions I run on have reached that level. We also still have to have a operable cab signal/ATC equipped leader for those territories incase the PTC fails. The cab signals aren’t used, but have to be available just in case. I’m guessing that once our PTC is fully certified, the cab signals - or at least the ATC - will go away fast.

Jeff

I have terrible depth perception. I don’t know that I could sense the speed or distance of a train no matter how many lights it has. Seeing the three light pattern tells my brain it’s a train, but that’s just a railfan thing because I’m used to looking for it. Do the ditch lights really preform a service for the train crew? Do they need to have the ditches illuminated?

True ditch lights lit up ditches. Canadian roads like BC Rail had those for ages. They are usually cross-eyed.’

What are commonly referred to as “ditch lights” on most engines are actually “auxillary” or “crossing” lights.

Mohawk, Adirondack and Northern has a former BC Rail unit with both true ditch lights and auxiliary lights. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the ditch lights on, but that would be a sight coming down the railroad at you…

The German railroads in the mid-1970s had a three-white-light triangle pattern on their locomotives, and I understood that it provided just this sort of gauge of absolute distance and speed with a little proportional ‘experience.’ This made enough of an impression on me that my subsequent designs featured its analogue with American sealed-beam lights (a full FRA-compliant headlight being at the ‘apex’ of the triangle)

There’s a bit of a problem with the way FRA implemented the ditch lights in that the size of the ‘triangle’ is not fixed – only the presence of the three light locations. When the ‘base of the triangle’ is restricted as it is on the chipmunk-faced F units the experienced grasp of distance is thrown off. That is a rookie mistake in haptics.

I have seen ditch lights with beams oriented slightly ‘wall-eyed’ on both KCS in Shreveport and SP/SSW south of Brinkley down to Bossier City. KCS added to this a ‘scanning’ circular Gyralight-type beam that picked out a great deal of surrounding ROW and bridge detail that no fixed lights bearable to oncoming traffic could provide. To me it makes better sense to have a pattern pointed ‘where headlights would aim’ rather than as the equivalent of high beams to give oncoming traffic the longest possible glare blindness as an ‘optical alert’. Alternate flashing does that better, and doesn’t in fact require full brilliance straight ahead to work well. (Provided the pattern spacing is familiar!)