Most railroad’s first road diesels were F-units, which they ran as A-A, A-B-A, or A-B-B-A sets. The railroads realized pretty quickly that there was an advantage to having the A units facing away from each other, so the set wouldn’t have to be turned. When GPs and SDs came along, they began to do the same thing, run engines together in 2-3-4 engine sets with the ‘outside’ engines facing away from each other so the whole consist could run either direction without needing to be shuffled around. If you see 10 mainline trains today with multi-unit lash-ups, probably 9 of the 10 (or all 10) will have the lead and trailing engines facing away from each other.
And still some ran A-B-B consist or NYC was known to run A-A-A-A-A-A units in consist…I even seen the A units running in the same direction or funnier looking was 3 nose to nose A-A consist in that same A-A-A-A-A-A consist.
I have seen wide cabs running “elephant” style but,like you said there is usually a trailing unit facing the lead direction.
Again never bet the farm since one is guaranteed to lose…
I seen C&O Geep consist where all the units was facing the same direction same for N&W,PRR and NYC.I’m sure there are thousands of examples on every railroad today’s or yesteryears.
The MP ran a lot of Fs through Omaha and I can remember being stopped on California St. many times and there would be As pointed in either direction with a few Bs mixed in. I imagine the last unit in the consist would be a rear facing A unit but I really didn’t pay attention to it. I just remember that there se
As I can see from books I have, the Canadian National ran its first generation road switchers (Geeps, RS3, FB) long hood forward even up to the 70’s. Running the short hood forward began with the introduction of the second generation diesels.