On a diesel, which is the fireman’s side and which is the engineers side?
In other words, If I’m placing a figure in the cab, which side should the engineer be on?
The front of an engine has an F, generally along the side sill. If the front of the diesel is moving forward, then the engineer will be on the right side facing the direction of travel.
You may need to check prototype pictures too, as some model manufacturers don’t put the “F” on the models. On more recent diesels it’s relatively easy to tell the front, as the engine will have a low short hood in the front. Older diesels like high nose GPs and SDs and other road switchers could be ordered with either end as the front. Take a late fifties ALCO RS-11. On Northern Pacific, the short nose was the front, but on the Duluth Winnipeg and Pacific and the New York Central, the long hood was the front.
Don’t forget the N&W. First & most second generation units had dual controls so the engineer was always able to sit on the right side. The long hood end was designated as “F” even on some low hood diesels.
Roger Huber
Dual control engines were / are pretty rare. I believe the N&W diesels were set up long-hood forward with the controls set up that way. Railroads normally told the manufacturer which end was the front while choosing the other “options” (dynamic brakes etc.). Remember that early diesels were not all that powerful, and railroads tended to run them together in sets. You didn’t dual controls if you had say two GP-7s that you were running back to back, since you could control the lash-up from either engine. If you were on a branchline or in switching service with a single diesel, running the engine from the one control stand and looking behind you while backing up and running the engine was what steam engineers had been doing for 100 years so it wasn’t that big a deal to them.
Note too that railroads were not always consistent on their choices. For example on some railroads their RS-3s ran long hood forward while their GP-9s ran short hood forward.
According to that Kalmbach “GP” video, the first low-nose GPs were built for a mining co. railroad, that ordered the engines to run long-hood forward. That seems odd, the idea was that the engineer could look back and watch the hopper cars behind him being loaded better with the low cab. Of course it was quickly realized that the low hood gave much better vision, and railroads started about that time (c.1960) to order new engines with low short hoods and ran them short hood forward.
IIRC N&W did order some long-hood forward diesels in the eighties with low short hoods for similar reasons (that the engineer could look back and see the train behind him better).
Pretend you are in England and driving a car - that the engineer in a diesel.
Particularly on the C&NW or Missabe, since they ran “left hand” on double track lines!!
The N&W purchased many SD-40s with the low nose and dual controls. The Long hood was designated “F”. The high hood was an extra cost option by that time, just like dual controls, so they saved some money by not ordering the high hoods. The N&W liked the dual controls because they didn’t have to spend extra time & money turning diesels at the end of a trip. An engine was always facing in the right direction.
I don’t know of any engine where dynamic brakes determined the “F” on a unit. RS-3s, as far as I know, had the DBs in the short hood end. I believe most, if not all, RS-3s had the long hood as “F”. The Western Maryland had 4 “Hammerhead” RS-3s with high short hoods to house the dynamic brakes AND steam generators. The long hood was the front on them.
Roger Huber