09-08-2013, 12:24 PM
I was certainly around the Southern 30-50 years ago (gee whiz!) and all the GP's and SD's were set up to run long hood forward. Of course you would often see them operated short hood forward. But I'd say 9 out of 10 trains I saw with GP's/SD's on them would be operating long hood forward.
The Southern's SD-45's were equipped with dual control stands so the engineer would always be on the right side regardless of how the engine was pointed, but other models simply had conventional control stands. Later models they purchased, such as the GP-50's had what were called bi-directional control stands which were simply positioned so that the engineer sat with his back to the window and looked in the direction he was running.
Even the high hood and later low short hood GE's were set up long hood forward. They did begin purchasing power from both GE and EMD that had low short hoods, but those were still set up with the long hood as front, and it was a cost saving measure as the manufacturers charged more for the high short hoods. This seems to have carried over to the early NS day's too. If you've seen some of the older NS TV commercials, you'll notice that they often featured GE's running long hood forward (what an ugly sight!).
Back in the day, the crew would climb on the power and run the train regardless of which way the power was pointed. These days, your typical NS crew will refuse to operate any of the GE's or EMD's long hood forward on through freights and I don't know how many times I've seen them run a set of engines out of the Danville yard to the wye at SJ Tower to turn them.
The Southern's SD-45's were equipped with dual control stands so the engineer would always be on the right side regardless of how the engine was pointed, but other models simply had conventional control stands. Later models they purchased, such as the GP-50's had what were called bi-directional control stands which were simply positioned so that the engineer sat with his back to the window and looked in the direction he was running.
Even the high hood and later low short hood GE's were set up long hood forward. They did begin purchasing power from both GE and EMD that had low short hoods, but those were still set up with the long hood as front, and it was a cost saving measure as the manufacturers charged more for the high short hoods. This seems to have carried over to the early NS day's too. If you've seen some of the older NS TV commercials, you'll notice that they often featured GE's running long hood forward (what an ugly sight!).
Back in the day, the crew would climb on the power and run the train regardless of which way the power was pointed. These days, your typical NS crew will refuse to operate any of the GE's or EMD's long hood forward on through freights and I don't know how many times I've seen them run a set of engines out of the Danville yard to the wye at SJ Tower to turn them.
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"