I don't know if a majority of railroads ran their 1st generation high-short hood engines long hood forward or not, but there were quite a few of them. EMD's GP-7 demonstrators were set up to run short-hood forward, but could be ordered to run long-hood forward. Great Northern is another railroad that did, up until I believe the GP-30s arrived in the early 1960's. On the other hand, neighbor Northern Pacific ran their engines - including their Alco RS-3s - short hood forward. (Most railroads ran RS-3 engines long hood forward, even if their EMD GP-7 or GP-9s ran long hood forward.)
p.s. New York Central's Canada Southern had some Canadian built GP-7 and GP-9 engines that ran short hood forward, even though all other NYC early GPs ran long hood first.
