Sling under coupler just behind coupler head (large diameter cable of course), place crane in front of locomotive, place looped ends of sling in crane's hook, and lift. Somewhere I have a slide of this being done in the early 1970s right outside the Visitation shanty at EE BS Yard with an SD-45 (8900-9300), but don't ask me where it is at the moment. My point was that if you try to do this by attaching to the pilot in any way, you'll rip the pilot off the front of the locomotive. Those four shoe-like things on the underside of the side sills opposite the truck center pins are the official lifting/jacking points. Some RRs added lifting points to the ends of their locomotive (like those eyes sticking out from the fronts of SP F units), and this might be what the OP is talking about. Without any pix, however, it's difficult to tell for sure.