As I was looking through the FM H16-44 and GP7 locomotive manuals online, I see the FM H16-44 denote the long hood as the front of the locomotive whereas the EMDs don’t. The engineer’s controls were “reversed” as it were, compared to the GP as he looked out along the long hood on the right side.
But I do see more rail pic now of the FMs long hood forward compared to GPs.
I know it doesn’t matter as both locos may be operated in either direction of course, but was there any advantage or disadvantage at all to the FM setup?
(edit…I see now also that the GP7 could be ordered with dual controls…almost all controls installed on both sides of the operator’s cab…but I imagine both facing on the same direction, or could one set be mounted to “look” out over the long hood of the GP7?)
Main advantage to long hood forward is that you have some heavy metal between your engineer and whatever the train may crash into (at a grade crossing or on the line).
It also give the engineer about the view he would be used to from most steam engines, where the boiler is ahead of the cab on most designs. And it made the unions less concerned about the railroad trying to get rid of the fireman and run engines with one man crews - with poor vision forward, you needed one person to look out at either side of the cab.
Main advantage of short (and low) hood ahead of cab is a far better view from the cab, especially when switching along the road.
Railroads decided what way they wanted their engines set up - short hood front or long hood front. Some picked one way, some another.
In Canada, CN ran all of its high-hood road switchers long hood forward. In the mid-1980s some of their Geeps had their noses chopped and were set up to run short hood forward.
With CP it varied. The Trainmasters and the first batch of H16-44s were set up to run long hood forward, but by the end of the 1950s the most of the units had their control stands turned around and operated short hood forward until they were retired. The last batch of H16-44s were purchased with the control stands set up for short hood forward operation. DRS-44-1000s, RS-2s, RS-3s and RS-10s ran long hood forward, while GP7s, GP9s, and RS-18s ran short hood forward.
They faced opposite directions. That way, the engineer needn’t continue to look backward in relation to the controls when operating with either long hood or short hood forward.