When they were first delivered, they had dual control stands, so it didn't matter which way the loco was facing, as the engineer would always be on the right. It was much more flexible for them, as they only had a handful of homemade cab cars.
Im assuming the train would get to the end of the line, and the loco would simply run around the train and couple back up to the other end for the trip back.
Sometime during their NJT lives, they had the other control stand taken out (the one that would allow LHF running) and the SHF control stand is the only one remaining.
Someone has to be on the firemans side to call signals when a Geep is running Long Hood Forward with just one control stand. On a work train, thats not a big deal, but on a revenue passenger train, you are taking a crew member away from working the train, thats why they don't like do to it often in pass service.
On the RR, "believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see"
John, aka "JTGSHU" passed away on August 26, 2013. We honor his memory and his devotion to railroading at railroad.net.