Hi,
Was just on ebay making my nightly scan in the HO section and noticed that the Southern Railway used predominently “high nose” diesels. Does anyone have any idea why this railroad preferred the high nose variety as opposed to the full cab or low nose diesel? I used to work for the long gone SP and never liked working in high nose versions of locomotives as the view is very limited or one sided I guess you could say. You were either looking out your front window or the inside of the cab wall and if my memory strikes me correct that wall was colored a very ugly shade of light green on the SP units.
Southern preffered to run long hood first. (they felt it was safer, in a collision) In fact I think they special ordered their locos, with the cabs set up for the lonf hood to be the front. They bought their engines with high short hoods, because they considered that to be the rear.
Both Southern and Norfolk & Western continued purchasing locomotives with high short hoods until their 1982 merger, and I believe Norfolk Southern still bought some locomotives that way into the 90’s. Those railroads believed that a full height hood provided more safety for the engine crew in in the event of a grade crossing accident. The crews felt that the additional mass of the hood outweighed the better visibility afforded by a low hood. (After all, in most grade crossing accidents, better visibility for the crew can’t stop some idiot from crossing in front of a train. But, a high hood can keep collision debris from crashing through the front of the cab.) This was before the “wide cab” design gained acceptance in the US in the early 90’s. The wide hood now offers better crew protection and better visibility.
Tom
PS: SOU/N&W historians are welcome to correct me if I don’t have all the details correct.
Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for your great information to answer my question. Makes allot of sense to me now. Never was involved in any fast grade crossing accidents, only a slow collision with a pickup truck when we were doing some slow switching maneuvers. Unfortunately we took out a cow running down the mainline between Oakland, CA. & San Jose one night. The engineer turned off the headlights on that event so that we did not have to witness chipped beef in action.
Regards,
Brad
I posted this response to an earlier post about the Southern running their loco’s backwards.
You can tell which end of a Southern Railway engine was the front quickly by looking for the bell as it was always on the “official” front of the locomotive. They kept the high short hood after the other railroads had gone to the short hood so they could run either end as front and not break the rules. The rules stated that if a locomotive had a full view across the cab (low nose) then that had to run in the forward direction. Any additional safety was an afterthought. As far as I know the SOU didn’t have any dual controls.
This policy saved the SOU a lot of time that would have been spent turning locos at the end of a run. Typically on a north south line if the short hood was facing north you would see that loco running long hood forward on the southbound run and short hood forward on the northbound run.
I believe that the wide - or “safety” - cabs have the main frames extended upwards inside the wide nose to provide substantial protection to the crew space in the event of any kind of bump. I’ve seen pics of this for early safety cabs but don’t know for certain that it became common or, possibly, mandatory.
A cow can go a long way(s) when you hit it at speed with high tonnage…
If you ever find yourself in Georgia, check out the Georgia Central railroad. Runs from Savannah westward through Lyons, Vidalia and on towards the Atlanta area (I think). They have a batch of ex-Southern High Nosed GE U-Boats. Most of them are painted in plain black with the Georgia Central lettering in white.
My understanding why Southern, and the N&W also, had high short hoods was for a couple of reasons.
When diesels replaced steam locomotives, steam generators were needed to heat passenger trains. E and F series car body units were designed mainly for passenger service. There was plenty of room in the rear of the unit for the steam generator. But hood units are road switchers generally used for freight service. Locomotive builders offered steam generators in hood units and they are mounted in the top of the high short hood. This made the hood units more versatile so they also could be used for passenger service. The first generation hood units were only available in the high short hood with or without the steam generator.
Later the low short hood became available as an option but at an extra cost. N&W and Southern were spend thrifts and believed in running long hood first anyway. There was no need or desire to go with the low hood until it became standard equipment.
It’s the same situation with NS and the Spartan cab. They didn’t have any wide body cabs until the Conrail merger. Now the wide cabs are standard
Both the Southern and N&W continued to order high short hood units until the merger, long after short hoods were standard. See my earlier explanation for why they did this.
Yeah, I read about that in a recent Model Railroader (can’t remember which one, though). It was in the article about “F for Front”. Their excuse for running them long hood forward was to provide excellent front end collision protection. Seem like it would work, doesn’t it? [:)]
Because N&W, VGN, and Southern, all being Southern U. S. roads run by Gentlemen with excellent taste, all judged correctly that long hood forward looked worlds better, so they ran theirs that way.
Norfolk and Western was also the last class one railroad to still use steam locomotives in regular service. I guess maybe they liked running their diesels long hood forward because it looked kinda like a steam locmotive that way.
