I know this sounds like a silly question but back in their glory days, what was the proper(if any) direction for an RS3 to be traveling? Long hood forward or short hood forward?? I was under the impression that a steam generator was installed under the short hood, therefore they traveled long hood forward so the passenger cars could be heated. Is this correct??
Rich
Rich,
I asked this same question a few months back and the general consensus of opinion was long hood forward but some claimed that some railroads ordered them as short hood forward units. I did a little on line research and found out both camps were correct and for various reasons some railroads wanted them either way. I could see long hood forward in case of a collision and short hood forward for viability. I like to run all my RS unit’s short hood forward strictly for aesthetic purposes. But if your running DCC check and see which way the motor is wired for. I had to reverse the connections on a few of them so you didn’t have to run the engine backwards on the throttle.
Not all were equipped with steam generators, and I believe that they had steam lines at either end, the steam generator did not have to be at the same end of the locomotive as the cars. The RS series locomotives could be ordered from Alco to be oriented with either the long hood or the short hood designated as the front, it was up to the ordering railroad which way they wanted the locomotives set up.
Doug
Why? If you are running DCC just change the setting on the decoder and it will change which end is the front, no need to change the wiring.
Sorry guys but,that age old DC operation.
Why bother? It won’t hurt the locomotive to run “backwards”.It doesn’t know-sorry couldn’t resist…
All I do is turn the locomotive to face short or long hood forward and run it…
Well no it doesn’t ‘hurt’ to run backwards, but on DCC throttles you have “forward” or “reverse” choices. If you choose “forward” the engine goes in the direction it’s been told is forward regardless which way it’s facing. So it’s sometimes a little easier if you set up the engines so the “F” on the side on the front actually represents the front direction of the decoder setting.
BTW it wasn’t just RS-3’s that could be ordered with either hood as the front, many railroads bought GPs and SDs from EMD/GM set up to go long hood forward, including Great Northern and New York Central.
stix wrote :Well no it doesn’t ‘hurt’ to run backwards, but on DCC throttles you have “forward” or “reverse” choices. If you choose “forward” the engine goes in the direction it’s been told is forward regardless which way it’s facing.
D’OH! I plum forgot about that…[:I]
Early ALCo’s were built long hood foward by manufactorer default, EMD built units as short hood forward by default. Now just to confuse you more NW, NS and SOU liked to run high hood units with long hood forward. It was either NW or NS that also bought some short hood units (GP38 or 40’s) and still ran them long hood forward, and IIRC NW ordered some locomotives from EMD with dual controls, so the operator could be running his train in either direction with out looking over his back so to speak. But as said it was all pretty much the railroads choice. Personally I think early RS units look best long hood foward and any EMD roadswitcher looks best short hood forward. When I first got into model railroading just about 2 years ago the only thing I liked was low-short hood units, nothing older than an SD40/40-2 interested my. Now I’m infatuated by tall short hoods and can’t get enough of old diesels.
Thanks for the replies fellas!! I was kinda leaning towards long hood forward for my Reading RS3 unit, but like most of you guys mentioned, depending on the RR I had seen it done both ways from different photos over the years. I agree that those early diesels are becoming somewhat addicting and quite painful to my left rear pocket.
Rich
That simplifies it. The long hood is front on a RDG RS3.