Long hood or short hood?

[Jdvass]

OK - I'm hooked. All I used to run on my layout was CP desiels. But while doing a repair on a friends GN loco, I fell in love with Great Northern loco's. Now I'm running a "what if" scenario where the CP and GN interchange at my home town of Lestock, Saskatchewan. (Even though neither one ran anywhere near Lestock) What I ned to know is did the GN run their high hood GP-7's with the short or long hood forward?

[BoxcabE50]

Seems to me they were originally equipped to run long hood forward. Wow. That's a long time ago. Memories are fading some.

:D

Boxcab E50

[Dave Jones]

Never saw a real GN engine, but have read in several locations that they ran 'em long hood forward. Go to an internet souce like "Fallen Flags", look at the engine photos, believe you'll see that little letter "F" on the outside of the walkway.

[Jdvass]

Excellent, thanks.

[BoxcabE50]

Made a quick pass at a couple of books. Definitely see mostly long hood forward. Which confirms a picture burned into my mind. From years long ago.

:D

Boxcab E50

[Kurt Moose]

You could always tell an ex-GN Geep in BN colors 'cause the white stripes would always be on the long hood!:teeth: GN always went long hood forward until the GP30's arrived. They both interchanged I believed in Vancouver, and along time ago in Nelson, BC.

[HemiAdda2d]

That is correct. GN was among a few roads the chose to run LHF.
The GN (BNSF still does) did interchange with CP at Sweetgrass, MT..... This location was near Alberta, but hey, this is a model RR, do things your way! ;)

[BoxcabE50]

GN also interchanged in Canada at New Westminister, BC, and Grand Forks, BC. Gretna, Manitoba, And Winnipeg. Touched Canada at Northgate, North Dakota/Northgate, Saskatchewan.

:D

Boxcab E50

[SDP45]

The long hood forward thing started on the GN with the pre-war NW3.
The complete listing is:

NW3
NW5
GP7
SD7
GP9
GP9m (GN called them a GP5. They were GP9s built by EMD with trade-in FT parts)
SD9
GP20
RS1
RS2
RS3
You can make a case that all EMD/GMD switchers were run long hood forward, as there was no short hood, but lets not be nitpicky here:D
The 44 tonners had equal length hoods, so they don't count, do they?

[HemiAdda2d]

Thanks for the list, Dan!

[GNFA310]

Dan .. you don't list NW2's? Thought GN had some of those as well? Just curious .. :shade:

[SDP45]

Yeah, there were NW2s. I made the switcher comment to catch these and the SW1, 7, 8 ,9, 1200, 1500, NC, NW1.

For giggles, GN classes sometimes differed from what EMD and others called their power.
Real-----GN
NW3 was RS1
NW5 was RS2
RS1 was RS3
RS2 was RS4
RS3 was RS5
SW1 was SW1
SW8 was SW2
NC was SW3
NW1 was SW3
NW2 was SW4
VO-1000 was SW5
S2 was SW6
SW7 was SW7
SW9 was SW7
S12 was SW8
SW1200 was SW9
SW1500 was SW15

RS 1,2,3, and S2 were Alcos
S12 and V0-1000 were Baldwins
Remainder were EMDs
No model designation for the 44 tonners.
All other units used the manufacturer type as the GN class.