The Southern and the Norfolk and Western both followed this practice, N&W through 1973 and Southern through to the merger. I should also note, Even though N&W started ordering low short hoods starting in 1973, they continued to be set up for long hood forward operation through 1980.
The N&W's high nose locomotives up through SD40-2 #1635 had dual control stands. Which meant that any of these locos could lead running either direction with engineer facing forward on the right side of the loco. The dual control stands made the locos more expensive and the cab more crowded, but certainly had their value.
There has never been a definitive answer for why N&W and Southern continued the high nose after everybody else went to low nose pretty much when the builders began offering locos that way as the standard. I've heard many different explanations. For one thing, it made for a toilet in the nose with more headroom. It also provided some additional protection in a collision.
One of the best and most plausible I've heard is that the high short hood provided a locomotive that "crews would not object to running long hood forward". As weird as that sounds, it has a ring of truth. Steam locos were always run "long hood forward" in that the cab was at the back of the often very large locomotive, and the engineer's view was a long side view, not a direct frontal view. There were certainly exceptions but the majority of steam locos were of the rear cab configuration.
So early diesel switchers and hood units had the cab at the rear and you had to look over or past the hood to see where you were going. But - when the first low nose diesels began appearing, most railroads went with them. But suppose you're the N&W, and for safety you'd rather your crews run long hood forward. Or maybe for convenience, you want to be able to run either direction without having to turn the locomotive around. If you have a low nose with a nice big windshield, most crews would probably prefer to have the nice wide window to see out of, than the extra 30, 40, 50 feet of protection provided by the long hood. The high nose in effect takes away the wide window, so visibility stinks in either direction
So "they won't object" because it really doesn't make much difference.
In practice however... the N&W ran their locos both ways, all the time, everywhere. All of their dual control locos could and did run lead facing either way. Photo evidence is that in virgin N&W territory - Portsmouth, OH and east - long hood forward operation was *favored* but certainly not mandatory. In the western territories - former Nickel Plate and Wabash lines, short hood operation was favored because the employees of those lines did it that way. Also, the considerable fleets of locos inherited from these roads were all single control short hood forward and couldn't run any other way in the lead. But even when the dual control N&W locos ran in those areas, they seemed to be short hood leading 75% of the time and I have the photos to back it up.
I am less familiar with Southern practice, but my observations are that they tended to operate long hood forward 80 to 90% of the time. Many of their locos were long hood front and single control, but a few - like the GP30s - were short hood front.
The merger of the two roads in 1982 was interesting. Southern was still purchasing new high nose locos up into the late dash 2 era, and they also had the only high nose GE dash 7s ever built (not counting the BN cabless units). N&W had gone to low noses, and eventually short hood fwd by the merger, and in the end the N&W's spartan style won out, but the Southern long hood front practice continued for some years. I honestly don't know at what point the NS became totally conventional short hood front, but by the time they were getting GP60s in 1992 it was a done deal. Even so, they held out on other things (such as the ugly safety cab) and had for a time the only spartan-cab SD70s (IC and Conrail later got some), and to this day the only spartan cab Dash 9s ever built. But alas, they capitulated and Darth Vader took over.
Andy
Too bad they were on a 4 axle kick before the merger.
