"Flipping" the long hood forward engines?

[Hans]

Hello all,

I'm new to most of the payware addons, but have been around playing MSTS on and off over the years.

The area I grew up in was dominated by Conrail when I was young, and I recently purchased the Conrail engines pack. I realize that it's historically accurate, but the large number of GP's and SD's that run with the long hood leading has been kinda new to me, and I find myself wishing for more options that run with the short hood leading.

Is there I way I can convert one of them, for example let's say SD9 #6916, to run with the short hood leading, or is this beyond what I can easily pull off as an average user?

[Gaetan]

easy to flip with shape file manager but is more difficult for setup the eng files
for use the right view and smoke exit etc...

no forget also flip the FAnim shape Hans

Gaetan

[Hans]

Hey Gaetan!

Originally I did try flipping the shapes, but I didn't remember to flip the FAnim so I wound up with some glitches...Thinks like radiator grilles and the hood running right through the cab!

However, I'm using these engines in Open Rails and I just learned a new trick this afternoon.

I don't quite have all the bugs ironed out yet, but it appears that within Open Rails is it quite possible and quite easy to create a second 2D cab view that allows the engine to have BOTH an "long hood forward" and "short hood forward" cab view without any changes to the Shape files.

Now my GP7's, GP9's, and SD9's are all 'dual control stand' locomotives that can run either way. So far the only problem I have encountered is that although the engines project a headlight beam onto the terrain, sometimes when using the "reverse" cab view, the 3D model itself doesn't light up where it should to show the headlights.