I have a up GP7 with the enginer facing the long hood way,did LIONEL HAVE A REASON DOING IT THIS WAY. my UP GP9 set has the enginer facing the short hood. The LEGACY SYSTEM works great . My hat is off to Lionel
THANKS HIBALL
Welcome to the Forum, Hi Ball. The GP7 is set up for farsighted engineers and the GP9 for the nearsighted ones. [swg]
Jack
seriously, some roads ran these things long nose first and some the other way. i don’t know which was which, but it could be correct.
I believe someone asked this question a while back, and the real life answer: both ways are correct. It had to do with the engineers being able to push/pull and with the ability to run the engines in both directions without turning the engines around.
Jack
Most were configured to run in either/both directions (aka controls on both sides of the cab). There would always be a designated “F” direction on the frame.
At first I thought my figures were glued in backwards!! But that’s the direction the engine started up also. I also have the Rock Island version and that one runs short-hood first. It’s interesting to note how they are different from each other. Most importantly, the beauty of toy trains is that you can run them however you want!!
NS runs their 'high noses" long nose forward. Atlas even sets their NS SD40’s long nose forward. Use to see a lot of Southern “high noss” running long nose forward. I just read [maybe in the history of the original NS] that some were run that way as the crew felt they had more protection with the long nose forward.