I'm "collecting" Burlington E's to pull various trains.
And, of course, one MUST look at photos to get things
right. It becomes obvious that elephant-style setups were
very common during my time of interest.
And so I found this topic.
I have thought about the matter and have two possibly
useful contributions:
[Theory]: a flat end of a car or locomotive facing the
direction of travel will have high wind resistance at
speed.
An A at the front of the train has no flat end exposed
(as described above).
An AA in the standard configuration has one flat end
exposed--the first trailing car.
An AA elephant style has no flat ends exposed.
For further arrangements of A's at the front of a
train, the only way you can have no flat end exposed is
running elephant style.
I hope I have described this properly. Anyway, I think
it not inconceivable that elephant style has the least
wind resistance of any unit arrangement of A's. Thus
saving fuel. Which is money.
The other contribution is pulling units out of the
storage area for service. If all are facing the same
direction, any unit is ready to be set up for elephant
style running. You can pull any unit or any set of units
out, and they are all lined up, waiting for MU connection.
No turning.
That's kind of efficient, too.
Ed
Edward Sutorik