And now, for a change - apropos of nothing important - just some railfaning observations . . .
During lunch from about 1:00 PM to 1:20 PM today at trackside (MP 32 Reading Line, 31st St. SW grade crossing), the daily NS local had a couple of rare - for me - Geeps for power:
Leading is NS 4616, a GP59* with a low nose, but with the long hood forward - and the engineer operating from the right-side, so that he’s looking down the long hood, not across the short hood, as the Southern Railway no doubt intended way back in 1985 - 1989 when the (only
those gp 38 was long hood forward also or engneer on right side even though it may seem difficult to work from long hood end it isnt its just as easy and safer.
OK, thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, I can appreciate the safety aspect - there’s surely a whole lotta metal and machine between you and whatever gets in the way.
Here I don’t think the cab and control set-up made any difference. There are 2 main tracks and no cross-over, so the trailing-points switchstand is on the engineer’s side anyway. He could have done it with either hand signals - because the turnout is at the end of the long tangent that he was on, and it’s a nice bright sunny and breezy day, with no ‘fog’ - or radio, whichever was more convenient. Long hood/ short hood, leading/ trailing - ‘makes no matter’', as they say around here.