BaltACD Old timers may have liked having the boiler on the steam engine ahead of them - for a serious collision the engine crew was only inches away from the most dangerous aspect of a steamer - the boiler and it's explosion potential in a serious collision. Knee jerk thoughts and real thoughts on the aspects of safety can be diametrically opposed.
Old timers may have liked having the boiler on the steam engine ahead of them - for a serious collision the engine crew was only inches away from the most dangerous aspect of a steamer - the boiler and it's explosion potential in a serious collision.
Knee jerk thoughts and real thoughts on the aspects of safety can be diametrically opposed.
True enough, but remember the most common cause of a boiler explosion was low water over the crown sheet. All things being equal, a head-end crew had only themselves to blame if that happened.
I have read that most of Norfolk & Western's high nose diesels had dual control stands for bi-directional operation and the carrier felt that the high hood would deter any bias on the part of crews as to which way was front.
However (IIRC); in operation N&W power mostly operated short hood forward while Southern( whose units IINM, had conventional single control stands) specified long hood forward operation....
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
If you have been in the cab of a locomotive, you would instantly see why. Visibility is really cut down. You can only see one side of the right of way. Curves make this worse. Now think the high short hood is bad, running long hood first is roughly 20 times worse. High short hoods are cool, but not very safe compared to the low short hoods and safety cabs.
What I want to know is how much visibility there is when running an SD70ACe long hood forward (eventually one has to back up). Those flared radiators have to really cut down on visibility.
With the coming of the wide cab (or North American Cab) in 1989 the whole point of the short hood being high or low became irrelevant. The high hood, in my opinion, seems like a dumb design anyway: why build it so as to impede visibility? The current safety cab should have been introduced a long time prior to 1989... it's not a counterintuitive stroke of genius afterall. CN showed the way as early as 1973... yet no one else picked up the ball on that or invested in a safer cab until they were forced to. The saftey cab is so much better than any shorthood could ever be in terms of protecting the crew. The standard cab can withstand a 300 thousand pound impact... even the crudest safety cab was designed to withstand a million pounds. The modern cab is probably even more resistent to damage on impact.
The EMD SDP40 has a large room in the front of the long hood. Our BN 6234 has this big empty space in the long hood. GN used those on 2nd tier passenger trains for a few years.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Why high short hoods to begin with? Well, I've got a theory....
Back in the steam-to-diesel transition period a lot of veteran enginemen were very nervous about being right up front, say in an E or F unit, where with a steam engine there was a good 50 feet of steel between them and a possible collision. A high hood, even if it was short, made those gents a bit more comfortable. That little bit of extra steel gave a bit more piece of mind. In the same vein, ever wonder why the GG1's had center cabs? It was due to an engine crew being killed in a grade crossing collision while running a P5A. Being in the center of the engine made the crews feel a lot safer.
Just a theory, mind you. Of course, modern-day engine crews don't mind being up front at all, at least I think they don't. All depends on what you're used to.
Another reason for the disappearance of high short hood locomotives was the lawsuit won by N&W Enginemen over the running of locomotives with the long hood leading on the Pocahontas District. With the long hood leading the exhaust stack is in front of the cab and turbulence causes exhaust to be drawn into the cab. The same lawsuit ended Traincrews deadheading in trailing locomotive cabs under normal cicumstances. The ban was only absolute on certain runs with lots of tunnels, but they were required to be minimized elsewhere.
Very correct on SOU high hoods. When SOU bought out the original Norfolk Southern the short hoods of NS were converted to high hoods. Anyone with dates ?
CSSHEGEWISCHEMD SDP35/40/45 all carried an s/g in the long hood and the U28CG and U36CG were laid out the same way.
All C-C U-Boats had a room for a steam generator, IIRC just behind the cab.
I don't think that high hoods are even an option anymore, with FRA mandated safety cabs. (Why NS stopped purchasing standard cabs.)
High hoods are a extra cost option in todays locomotive market.
SOU kept ordering high hoods for union regulations. Union rules said the end with the most glass area should be the front, and engines should be turned so that the most glass area was in the front.
High hood units have the same glass area whichever way they are turned, so they saved time and money turning engines. Just couple up a consist and go.
Most whistle posts and other signage and signals are along the right side of the ROW, so having the long hood forward sat the hogger on the right side. Going short hood, it isn't too bad to see the signage and signals, less of a blind spot compared to if the short hood was the front.
The windows that remain on a high hood engine are the same as a low nose. Just missing the two that look out over the short nose.
Mike WSOR engineer | HO scale since 1988 | Visit our club www.WCGandyDancers.com
N&W was first to start ordering engines without high short hoods. I think Southern still went with the high shirt hood, but the merger(NS) ended all of that kind of purchasing. And I think you are right about NS ordering Sparten cabs and DC drive very late.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
I seem to recall that the U50s were not run in the lead position due to safety concerns.
With the Safety Cab becoming standard in the 90's, that probably further drove the nail in the special order high short hood.
Wasn't NS one of the last roads to order the SD70 in a Spartan cab?
pajrr Another thing to remember, too, is that passenger trains were heated by steam when diesels replaced steam. The high short hood on raod switchers provided space for a steam generator. When commuter and long distance passenger trains started being powered by electricity generated by the prime mover, it wasn't necessary to keep the high short hood.
Another thing to remember, too, is that passenger trains were heated by steam when diesels replaced steam. The high short hood on raod switchers provided space for a steam generator. When commuter and long distance passenger trains started being powered by electricity generated by the prime mover, it wasn't necessary to keep the high short hood.
Not completely true. While the C420 required a high short hood for a steam generator, the six-motor Century series locomotives were designed with space for an s/g in the long hood. EMD SDP35/40/45 all carried an s/g in the long hood and the U28CG and U36CG were laid out the same way.
Not only were some railroads ordering high hood road switchers, they were designating the F end of the locomotive towards the long hood, steam-locomotive style.
From what is written, I gather that "cab forward" locomotives, steam, Diesel, or electric have always been a concern of crews. Locomotives can meet particularly heavy and dangerous loads at grade crossings, and there is also the collision hazard with other trains. Of particular concern were RDCs, where I believe AT&SF had a fatal accident.
Whether having the long hood is front is safer is probably an intuitive sense from the crews who have to operate the locomotives rather than "science", but crews have been harmed in various "cab forward" setups (think of Amtrak's early collision of an E unit with a fuel truck).
I think the long hood forward era ended with the "wide cab" or the "safety cab." Whether it is effective or not, it was design with crew protection in mind, and you don't get that crew protection from the wide cab if you are operating long hood forward.
I don't know this to be the case any differently from the other speculation offered on this thread. But if the designer says, "This cab arrangement has been designed and test to offer crew protection", you are not going to operate long hood forward. And you are not going to order a high short hood, which offers less protection than the purpose built wide cabs.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Reduced visibility and no particular benefit to high noses.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
ML
I'd reverse your question and ask why, other than sheer stubborness, did certain railroads such as Southern stick with high hood versions of second generation diesels long after the loco builders and the majority of railroads voted in favor of short hoods, including shortening the hoods of their GP7s and GP9s? Was it safety for the crew? One would think the improved visibility of a short hood would create more opportunities for safety on a day to day basis than the relatively rare safety in the event of a collision. Better toilet headroom?
In any event I assume that the persons in charge of making those decisions on behalf of the Southern etc eventually moved on. The era of sharing motive power might also have made high hoods unpopular as run through power and conversely the crews on the high short hood roads had more chances to run with low short hood power and liked them. And since the high short hoods were presumably an "extra" feature that cost more, perhaps it eventually became too expensive a preference. Not to mention the costs of inventory for non standard windows etc.
Dave Nelson
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