SD40-2's

[NW Mailing List]

This is all from memory...........Unlike the normal practice with" single" cab control, the long hood was designated front (there are plenty of instances where single cab control was setup with long hood front too).  Unlike the N&W prior standard of buying all new units with "dual" cab controls (2 control stands in the locomotive cab, one on each side of the cab, one facing long and one facing short hood lead) these SD-40-2s had a single control stand on the right side of the cab (as orientated looking forward down the long hood with your back to the short hood).  (If I can recall from being in these units,  many years ago, the control stand was oriented a bit differently than normal to facilitate bi-directional operation.)  As such... when running long hood lead the control stand was on the correct side of the locomotive for the engineer to view the road ahead and signals .  If the locomotive was to be run short hood lead (unlike with a high short hood) the engineer could view the road ahead and signals by turning and viewing them through the windows and over/across the low, short hood.  N&W called this arrangement "bi-directional" cab control.  The reason was simple; economics.  First N&W wanted to save capital in not purchasing  2 control stands and associated hardware with each new  locomotive.  Also by having one control stand (as opposed to 2) it would in theory reduce associated control stand maintenance expense for the locomotive by 1/2.  Additionally the locomotive cab now had additional room for crew members.  All the units purchased by the N&W up until these 1600 series SD-40-2's including the T-6's had "dual" cab controls.

Again from memory...Wabash, NKP, P&WV, and ACY diesels were purchased with single cab control (most were short hood front/lead...seems there were exceptions like the H-20-44 FM's and the NKP Baldwin's that were rebuilt by ALCO and EMD).  The "First and Second Generation Diesel" books give this information for all units.

Ed Painter - Narrows, VA,  currently Russellville, AR

From: nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org [mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Mailing List
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 6:30 AM
To: NW Mailing List
Subject: Re: SD40-2's


What's the advantage of running a low hood engine with the long hood in front?

Ron Herfurth
1325 Oaktree Lane
Charlottesville, Va 22901





On Feb 17, 2009, at 10:50 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:


John Hecker wrote:


   In Russ Goodwin's e-mail's second paragraph he says that the Highhood have the short hood as the front and the low hoods have the long hood as front.  Any ideas as to why the high hoods weren't ordered as long hood forward?

The high hood N&W SD40-2's *were* setup with dual control stands and the long hood designated as the front.  The only N&W SD40-2's setup for short hood forward operation were the units in the last order, Nos. 6189-6207, which were also the only N&W SD40-2's setup with single control.  All of the other low short hood SD40-2's were equipped with a bi-directional control stand with the long hood designated as the front.


Chris Toth
NSDash9.com
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