You probably know where I’m going with this question…The engineer’s perspective is now from the left side vs. the customary right side, the side wayside signals are located. What’s the typical protocol when running LHF or do any locos have controls on both sides of the cab?
I ask my friend who an engineer for NS that very question. he told me that in most of the older NS engines there are 2 control stands in the cab. and some are still set to LHF. He told me that he hate LHF because there is less visibilty.
We deal with this every time we run. For us, the RS3 is set up long hood forward, so the engineer is on the “right” side, but is blind to the left. We always have a second person in the cab. When running short hood forward (half of every trip!) the engineer can see across the tracks enough that he can see what he needs to see. We still put someone in the cab a lot of the time, but if we’re short, the engineer rides alone.
We borrowed a C425 at the beginning of the season. For that, running long hood forward put the engineer on the ‘wrong’ side of the locomotive. When I rode the cab on those trips, I’d see if the engineer knew we were on the whistle board (they usually start the bell there, even if it’s more than 20 seconds to the crossing) before I’d call it.
I recall that for several years the New York Central ran the Janes Whitcomb Riley out of the Illinois Central’s Central Station in Chicago via trackage rights on the IC to Kankakee. The NYC used GP’s on that train and ran long hood forward. I believe they were set up with the engineer’s position on the right hand side for long hood forward. I guess they could have had duel controls, I don’t know.
Not that the high short hoods on the early Geeps were that great for visability, running long hood forward had a real need for some one on the left side. Given that the engineers in those days had run steam, I’d guess they were used to just a right half view.
3 engines make up most of the older ns engines?