Anybody have any photos of High-hood GE’s? I’m currently in a debate with a friend over the existence of these mystical creatures. He insists that they are real while I contend that only Alco, EMD and Fairbanks Morse ever manufactured them. Who’s right?
Thanks in advance.
Here is one I found doing a VERY quick search. Also the first U25B’s for UP were High Hoods also. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=156767&nseq=3
Both Norfolk and Western, and the Southern Railway bought significant numbers of high short hood GE locomotives. In addition the first 8 U25Bs bought by the Frisco and the first 7 U25Bs bought by the UP had high short hoods(7 of these were former GE Demos, 4 to SLSF and 3 to UP). The following models were sold by GE with high short hoods;
U25B SL-SF, UP
U28B N&W
U30B N&W
U30C SR
U33C SR
U23B SR
B23-7 SR
B30-7A1 SR
B36-7 SR
Your friend wins this round, as these do indeed exist.
Yep, he sure does. Personally, I’ve never seen one and I guess I only had to look a little harder to find the answer myself. Seek and ye shall find, huh?
Now next question…what was it about high-hoods that appealed to their buyers anyway? I’ve always thought that they looked interestingly strange and wondered why visibility was being sacrificed. Stand up toilet perhaps?[%-)]
I’ve heard alot of people say N&W did it for safety, but then they ran long hood forward. The main reason I eventually found was that the high hood was cheaper.
Frisco’s U25Bs were also high-hoods. They showed up in NJ at the end of their service lives, leased to Conrail and then shipped of to Naparano to be scrapped, if I recall correctly.
More steel, less money? I guess if you put it that way…
The Reading ran their hood units (both Alco RS-3s and GP-7s) long hood forward as well. I guess engineers running first generation diesels were used to the limited visibility they had from the cab of steamers, so they didn’t miss it running that way. Looking at it from that perspective, most engineers probably found the visibility running short high nose forward far superior to what they were used to.
Anybody know which railroad ordered the first low-nose short hood diesels?
Except for those GP7s and GP9s bought by Phelps-Dodge, the first low short hood locomotives were 20 GP9s built for the Southern Pacific in late 1959.
EMD, GE, and othe other builders based priced their locomotives with high hoods, short hoods were an option. N&W stopped ordering high hoods when EMD & GE started considering high hoods special order and short hoods the base design standard. Making a high hood is just a matter of a longer sheet of metal, no extra labor cost to it. The extra cost of the steel would be offset by not having pay for extra glass for windows, the labor cost to install the windows, the extra cost of FRA glazing (D&RGW made “B” units of their GP30 and 35’s, and CP had only a limited number of locomotives installed with FRA glazing for US service to avoid this cost), also the extra lobor cost of paying someone to cut the steel for the windows and fabricate potruding numberboards, plus the wasted steel from this, and low hoods cost more than high hoods. Most roads ran short hood forward for better visibilty, N&W ran long hood forward for safety, and didn’t feel the need to pay for the short hood “option”. They wouldn’t pay for anything they didn’t have to. N&W successor NS didn’t get wide cabs until EMD & GE discontinued standard cabs and making standard cabs a rather expensive “option”, basically making them get wide cabs, just like they did to N&W on the SD40-2’s and C30-7’s.
Edit: In fairness, I must add, N&W had reached an agreement with the union to run locomotives short hood forward when possible, and that was also an added reason why N&W switch to low hood on the SD40-2’s and C30-7’s. Southern continued to order high hoods, even though at was now a higher cost, though, IIRC, they did also start running short hood forward when possible. EMD & GE were trying to ween them off high hoods as N&am
Alco, EMD, and Fairbanks Morse never manufactured any high-hood GEs (well, maybe Alco did).[;)]
However, as folks have said, the earliest U25Bs were high-hood (Frisco and UP got 'em), and the Southern and N&W had many examples.
high-hood *motors, engines, locomotives.
Thanks for that correction Carl.[tup]
Remember that diesels were maned as if they were steam, unless the Fireman was tending to his diesels there was a set of eyes on both sides of those long hoods so there was no loss of visability. just like steam. If the engineer was unable to see something because of the long hood it was too close to do anything but lay on the horn.
A few NS high hood GE units still run on the old Tennessee Central east end on that portion of track now operated by Franklin Limestone. They are painted in a livery created by Franklin Limestone.
George
Just for completeness: for “safety” read “crew protection in a collision”. If you hit something and you’ve got practically the whole locomotive in front of you, your odds of survival are a bit better than if there’s nothing between you and whatever you hit than a little short hood. (No guarantees—some crashes aren’t survivable regardless of where you are—but the odds are somewhat better with the long hood forward.)
Of course, visibility has its safety aspects, too.
Peace,
–Peter
At least on the UP high short hood U25B’s the throttle stand was hung from the ceiling rather than mounted on the floor. Kind of had to reach up for the throttle, just like steam.
Never had one in the daylight so could get picture inside the cab.
The GBW had at least one, and possibly two RS-2/3s that were chop-nosed and re-classified as “RS-20”. I assume there was some re-engine work done as well. One was working their Mason St. yard in Green Bay when I was there in 1991. I’m unaware of any other lines that did that to RS-2/3’s.
The Delaware & Hudson Rwy. lowered the short hoods also when they rebuilt some of theirs with Model 251 engines. Also Penn Central and Conrail removed the short hood when they rebuilt some with EMD 12 cyl. 567B engines salvaged from scrapped E-units.
Santa Fe low nose RSD-15s and SD24s date from the Spring of '59. Your Espee low nose GP9s were delivered in August and September on EMD order #5608. UP’s SD24s also date from July '59. Sorry beaulieu no cigar.