Posted By vsmith on 08/08/2008 8:23 AM
Technically you can run any dismal frontwords or backwords, just depends how it ends up coupling to the rest of train. The only RR that I remember specificly setting up their engines for long nose forward ops was the Norfolk Western, and that was because their crews were concerned about head on collisions.
and Southern.
Southern and N&W were well known for ordering diesels with high short hoods and designating the long hood as "front"..even up into the 1980's with locos as modern as GP38-2's and SD40-2's..
In this photo:
http://www.trainnet.org/Libraries/Lib016/SOU3248.JPG
the lead SD40-2 is running forward, the second unit is running backwards..
and here is a series of my own photos, Waverly NY, 1986:
THREE high-hood N&W SD45's! /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/w00t.gif
quite the rare lashup for Waverly, even then.
all three are running forward.
Scot