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Obviously other than the F and E units, Did the Southern Railway have any low nose locomotives? I just found out today that they had high-hood Dash-7s which I thought was pretty neat.

The Southern Railway purchased nothing with a low hood, clear to the Norfolk Southern Merger. Their last new locomotives in Southern paint were the GP50's, I believe. Norfolk Southern purchased SD60's sublettered for the Southern, but they were delivered in NS paint.

When the Southern absorbed the original Norfolk Southern, the original NS rostered Baldwins (retired shortly after merger), GP38's and GP18's with factory low noses. When they got Southern paint, they also were high hooded!

The only "Southern" low nose unit was the Commemorative GP60, 4610.

While they didn't have a lot of GE's, they were all High hood as well.

I think it had something to do with the Unions and safety which kept the Southern ordering High Hood units long after most railroads abandoned them. Even the N&W had ordered their last batch of SD40-2's and an order of SD50's with low hoods, after being a predominantly high hood railroad.

Granted the N&W had units from the Wabash and NKP with Low Noses and High Noses.

MQT1223 wrote:I think it had something to do with the Unions and safety which kept the Southern ordering High Hood units long after most railroads abandoned them. Even the N&W had ordered their last batch of SD40-2's and an order of SD50's with low hoods, after being a predominantly high hood railroad.

Granted the N&W had units from the Wabash and NKP with Low Noses and High Noses.

The long hood was the front of the engine for Southern. What purpose would it have served to get a low nose on the back end of the locomotive

DaveO wrote:

MQT1223 wrote:I think it had something to do with the Unions and safety which kept the Southern ordering High Hood units long after most railroads abandoned them. Even the N&W had ordered their last batch of SD40-2's and an order of SD50's with low hoods, after being a predominantly high hood railroad.

Granted the N&W had units from the Wabash and NKP with Low Noses and High Noses.

The long hood was the front of the engine for Southern. What purpose would it have served to get a low nose on the back end of the locomotive

Some of the later engines had dual control stands.

Never said that the railroad had to make sense.

I read an article in Trains Mag that, along with safety, another reason for the long hood forward was because it was easier for the engineer to see going backward with the short hood.