There has been a recent thread about hood units with high short hoods, which brings to mind a period when we had a number of them on the Santa Fe. Here's a little everyday railroading from that time, now over 40 years ago:
In the 1970's, N&W endured a months-long strike by its Mechanical Department employees. As their locomotives were still subject to Federally-mandated scheduled inspections, they were in a real spot, trying to use supervisory forces to both maintain and inspect their fleet. Santa Fe was short on power, and made a deal to take some N&W diesels, use them as trailing units, and perform required maintenance and inspection. The actual units were rotated back to the N&W and we got all kinds of high hood second generation EMD units from GP30s through SD45s, and even a few GP9's. Rarely was an N&W unit used in the controlling position, as they did not have ATSF radio channels, so, when this was (rarely) done, all that was available was the Head End Brakeman's handheld pack set radio. It was extremely unusual to have an N&W unit leading in long hood forward configuration.
During those months, I made one long hood forward trip. I was called as Engineer for a 3-unit helper at San Bernardino, shoving the rear end of a drag freight to Summit, and then running light to Victorville. The Victorville wye was out of service that day, so we had to return by changing ends on the consist. The controlling unit was now an N&W GP38 facing west (long hood forward). TheN&W unit had dual controls, with 26-L air brake schedule, and it was a simple matter to cut in the controls on the side of the cab that would allow the Engineer to sit on the right side, no mater which end was leading.
The DS had us double-head a drag freight which had lost power on one unit, from Victorville to San Bernardino. We coupled on, made an air brake test, and off we went, up the east side of Cajon Pass, making pretty good speed for an old dog of a train like that one, as we had significantly increased the horsepower of the train. It was hot, and, unlike today, there was no air conditioning in the solid black cab.
In Run-8, going up the mountain, the force of the exhaust was enough to lift the smoke and vapor high enough to be blown away by the desert breeze. However, going down the 25 mile grade on the west side of Cajon Pass at 15 and 20 MPH, in dynamic braking with the engine running at the equivalent of Run 3 and cooling off, the exhaust drifted back and was quite noticeable with the cab windows open. The hot breeze from the dynamic brake resistors also came right back to warm up the cab a little more. 
But that was railroading then, and nobody complained about things like that. We simply blocked the rear cab door open with the broom, and let everything flow through.
I made a couple of other trips with an N&W unit controlling in short hood forward position, but Santa Fe almost always used a home road unit on the point. Once, I had just three N&W SD45s on a train to Los Angeles, and then got the same consist back to San Bernardino. They were not beauty queens, having not been bathed in a while, but they sure did run! We found them to be very reliable and enjoyed having them.
