Southern Railway

[Anonymous]

Why did the Southern run their engines long hood forward? A practice that the NS also used after the merger. I also seen a NS loco with the new Horsehead logo but with no white facing, are they not painting the fronts anymore? Any info is appreciated.Thank you.[:D] Tracy15

[Anonymous]

Commonly the locomotives were BUILT long hood forward (look for an 'F' by the steps to find the front), because during the transition from steam to diesel, the engineers were used to the long boiler in the front, and it would be a little difficult to have to adjust instantly between having that long front and then a short front, and have to swap the two routinely. At least thats what Ive read & was told by some former B&O employees.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE:
Commonly the locomotives were BUILT long hood forward (look for an 'F' by the steps to find the front), because during the transition from steam to diesel, the engineers were used to the long boiler in the front, and it would be a little difficult to have to adjust instantly between having that long front and then a short front, and have to swap the two routinely. At least thats what Ive read & was told by some former B&O employees.

Yeah, that's what I heard too. It was just the way things worked with the steam engines having the long hoods, naturally the new diesles were made that way too.

Then someone found out that you could actually see better when the hood up front, and with diesels it didn't really matter what way the engine ran.

They started running more and more short hood forward, then that was they way that the engines were built.

Apparently lots of old time engineers didn't like the short hood forward beacuse they liked the idea that if they ran into something they would have this enormous nose to protect them.

Runnig short hood forward also prevented diesel fumes from entering into the cab while on the road.