Diesel Loco Lights: Shunting, LE, Stabled

[5BarVT]

I have separated the front and rear lights on most of my locos.  Now I need to know how to use them properly.

Timeframe is 1970 (ish), so just at the end of the ‘52 rule book or the start of ‘72 rules.

Reading through, I have seen reference to shunting trains onto the opposite line (in the context of allowing another train to pass); of having a white or red light when propelling depending on the direction of the line; and of the colour of the buffer stop lamp determining the colour of the light to be left illuminated on the outer end (i.e. the end away from the blocks).  I also know the engines “employed exclusively on shunting at stations and in yards” display white and red at both ends.

But I’m still uncertain about the sort of moves I will be using on my layout.  I’ll illustrate with my plan and similar real like examples that I knew.

 

1. Paddington in loco hauled days: some of the incoming locos would follow the departing train down, go out behind a shunt signal, and then back onto their next outward working.  I assume that they would display white front and red rear down the platform and out to the shunt signal.  But what about coming back in on top of the train?  Back in those days I’m fairly certain it was done from the Country end cab, even backing down on top.

My equivalent is on the Down Main Platform, out behind signal 2/3 and back in to stable on 18AT, and running round a train on the Up Platform Line.

 

2. Loco Stabling at Reading: between the relief lines there was a double ended siding which often held the Reading Pilot (usually a class 47) and some vans, and also a Spur at the country end which was used by the locos for the Poole trains.  I’m (again) fairly certain that the Spur has a white light so assume the loco too would display a white light at the London end and nothing at the country end.  What about the loco in the centre siding? Red at each end?  Nothing at the end with the vans?  But what if the vans were removed from the other end (unlikely as it would generally be the pilot loco doing it!)?

My equivalents are: (a) the loco stabled on 18AT.  I think that the two sidings between the Main Platforms should have white lights.  Assuming that to be the case, white at the Signalbox end and red at the buffer end (because it’s not a dead end siding)?

(b) A unit stabled against the blocks on the Up Middle Siding: I assume white at the box end and nothing at the blocks end.

(c) A second unit stabled straddling 31AT and A23T: white at the box end and red at the other end?

 

3. Propelling on the branch: because it’s between boxes, I assume that lights would be changed to reflect the direction of travel i.e. red on loco as it’s at the back.

 

4. Shunting vans at Reading: In the late 70s the pilot loco was used to transfer vans between the centre Relief Siding and Platform 3 running out onto the Down Main and back in.  I think that white on the front, noting on the train end of the loco and tail lamp on the vans is consistent with the rules.
 

My equivalent is a trip loco, (or that involved in propelling vans off the branch).  I think white at the front and nothing at the train end (I don’t do lamps on vans) also applies.

 

Any comments, especially from Rules persons with a knowledge of what worked in real life, greatly appreciated.

 

Paul.

Edited 17 hours ago by 5BarVT
Fingers missed!

[The Johnster]

Paging Mike Stationmaster, Mike Stationmaster to the topic, please...

 

Til he gets here, and bearing in mind my memory is not perfect and the 1970s were half a century ago:-

 

.Yes, shunting locomotives working in yards or station limits carried a red and whitle marker light front & rear, but I can't recall which was to the right and which to the left.

 

.Light engines on running lines carried a single red marker to the rear, or a red oil lamp if they were being towed dead.  This was extinguished when the loco was coupled to a train; the default layout situation of two tail lamps blazing away with the train attached is a fiction.  For double or triple heading, a single tail lamp marker on the rear loco is used.  There was not a standard location for the switch; 47s for example had it in the rear cab so I was accustomed to climbing up to turn it off when picking up a train so that the driver could finish his tea in comfort, but on 37s it could be switched off from the other end cab so the driver did it. 

 

.Multiple units carried a single oil tail lamp at the rear; again, two lit red marker lights to rear is also a fiction for this period, and there were no lamps lit between coupled sets.  Mu head lamps were the two lower markers and any headcode/destination blind backlights.

 

.At the time, there were different designs of diesel (and electric) loco fronts and lighting layouts.  The WR's hydraulics all had backlit 4-character headcodes as did most other locos, but had red and white markers for shunting, which were used as well, but extinguished when running.  The default head lighting on all locos was the backlit 4-character headcode box, or marker lights on earlier locos without such boxes. 

 

.Mike will know the date, but headcodes were dispensed with (IIRC in conjuntion with the introduction of TOPS).  They were replaced with an '0O00' code and then, progressively, with the 'two dots' code, ultimately with the headcode box plated over and two white marker lights provided. 

 

.Class 35 and 52 locos had their running numbers set up in the headcode boxes after headcodes were discontinued; this could presumably have been done on the E30xx AL series electrics and Class 20s as well but I don't think it was.  I'm fairly certain it was never done on Deltics.

 

.Only dmus and locos used on the Central Wales line (and I think some routes in Scotland) had headlights* to illuminate the track ahead, until the introduction of HSTs, which used two headlights when running above 90mph and one below.  Traincrews relied on the block regulations and the signals to bang around at high speeds in the dark, sometimes in thick fog; you couldn't see ahead of the loco more than a dim illumiation of about half a dozen sleepers.  Nerves of steel we 'ad, boyo, nerves of steel.

 

.With only the dim 25W filament bulb backlighting of the headcode panel to show an approaching train at night, Per Way & S&T technicians working out 'on the line' relied on lookouts for warning, and these had to be on the ball, especially where there was a lot of peripheral lighting to pick the dim headcodes out of.

 

.I occasionally passed steam positioning runs at night, and found that the white oil lamps on those locos before the fitting of hi-viz headlamps were considerably brighter and more effective than either headcode backlighting or bulb marker lamps, especiallly as they flickered a little; very distinctive and surprisingly easy to pick out at a distance.

 

 

*Story was that, instructed to fit high-powered headlamps to 120 power-twins and a batch of 37s for use on the Central Wales, fitters at Landore were given some money out of the petty cash tin, so they went over the road to a petrol station with a car accessories selection and came back with the requisite number of Lucas 75-watt car-rallying floodlights, and cobbled up brackets & step-down 24v-12v regulators to fix them to the dmus and 37s themselves.  They could be dipped for oncoming traffic, but not much of that was encountered on the Central Wales's single line sections, not by anyone who survived anyway.  They were very effective, looking directly at one would leave smouldering ruins where your eyes had been; I had one of the powertwins on the 23.05 Bristol-Cardiff, one of my link jobs, one night and the driver turned it on in the Severn Tunnel (they weren't supposed to be used except on the unfenced sections of the Central Wales, but I wasn't supposed to be in the cab either come to that, we did a lot of things you wouldn't get away with these days).  The amount of river water coming in was, um, quite worrying...

Edited 16 hours ago by The Johnster

[5BarVT]

32 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Paging Mike Stationmaster, Mike Stationmaster to the topic, please...

Full marks for identifying them member from my description!  Hopefully he’ll be along soon with chapter and verse.

 

32 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Mike will know the date, but headcodes were dispensed with (IIRC in conjuntion with the introduction of TOPS).  They were replaced with an '0O00' code and then, progressively, with the 'two dots' code, ultimately with the headcode box plated over and two white marker lights provided. 

 

.Class 35 and 52 locos had their running numbers set up in the headcode boxes after headcodes were discontinued; this could presumably have been done on the E30xx AL series electrics and Class 20s as well but I don't think it was.  I'm fairly certain it was never done on Deltics.

1st Jan 1976 as far as I recall.  1Onn common on Westerns after that but all Hymeks had gone by then.

 

34 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I had one of the powertwins on the 23.05 Bristol-Cardiff, one of my link jobs, one night and the driver turned it on in the Severn Tunnel (they weren't supposed to be used except on the unfenced sections of the Central Wales, but I wasn't supposed to be in the cab either come to that, we did a lot of things you wouldn't get away with these days).  The amount of river water coming in was, um, quite worrying...

I wasn’t supposed to be in the Crossing Box as a schoolboy in Nottingham when the DI chucked me out!

It isn’t river water in the tunnel, it’s a freshwater spring.  Back then, I was told 20mins before trains can’t run if the pumps stop.

 

Paul.

[br2975]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

.Mike will know the date, but headcodes were dispensed with (IIRC in conjuntion with the introduction of TOPS).  They were replaced with an '0O00' code and then, progressively, with the 'two dots' code, ultimately with the headcode box plated over and two white marker lights provided. 

 

.Class 35 and 52 locos had their running numbers set up in the headcode boxes after headcodes were discontinued; this could presumably have been done on the E30xx AL series electrics and Class 20s as well but I don't think it was.  I'm fairly certain it was never done on Deltics.

.

The requirement to display reporting numbers / headcodes disappeared around 1975, so whilst the remaining  'Westerns' eventually had their running numbers wound up in the headcode box, most Cl.35 Hymeks had gone by then, and few, if any ran with the loco running number displayed in the headcode box.

.

 

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

.Only dmus and locos used on the Central Wales line (and I think some routes in Scotland) had headlights* to illuminate the track ahead, until the introduction of HSTs, which used two headlights when running above 90mph and one below.  Traincrews relied on the block regulations and the signals to bang around at high speeds in the dark, sometimes in thick fog; you couldn't see ahead of the loco more than a dim illumiation of about half a dozen sleepers.  Nerves of steel we 'ad, boyo, nerves of steel.

 

.With only the dim 25W filament bulb backlighting of the headcode panel to show an approaching train at night, Per Way & S&T technicians working out 'on the line' relied on lookouts for warning, and these had to be on the ball, especially where there was a lot of peripheral lighting to pick the dim headcodes out of.

 

.I occasionally passed steam positioning runs at night, and found that the white oil lamps on those locos before the fitting of hi-viz headlamps were considerably brighter and more effective than either headcode backlighting or bulb marker lamps, especiallly as they flickered a little; very distinctive and surprisingly easy to pick out at a distance.

 

 

*Story was that, instructed to fit high-powered headlamps to 120 power-twins and a batch of 37s for use on the Central Wales, fitters at Landore were given some money out of the petty cash tin, so they went over the road to a petrol station with a car accessories selection and came back with the requisite number of Lucas 75-watt car-rallying floodlights, and cobbled up brackets & step-down 24v-12v regulators to fix them to the dmus and 37s themselves.  They could be dipped for oncoming traffic, but not much of that was encountered on the Central Wales's single line sections, not by anyone who survived anyway.  They were very effective, looking directly at one would leave smouldering ruins where your eyes had been; I had one of the powertwins on the 23.05 Bristol-Cardiff, one of my link jobs, one night and the driver turned it on in the Severn Tunnel (they weren't supposed to be used except on the unfenced sections of the Central Wales, but I wasn't supposed to be in the cab either come to that, we did a lot of things you wouldn't get away with these days).  The amount of river water coming in was, um, quite worrying...

.

The headlight set up on the CWL required the headlights only to be used at specified level crossings and accomodation crossings, as mentioned in the Sectional Appendix (cope attached).

.

Similarly, the headlight arrangement wasn't actually a depot cobble, but official BR drawings were prepared - an extract of an official drawing relating to fitting out a Cl.ass 03 shunter is appended

[rogerzilla]

If a diesel is at the back of a train, now extremely common with steam or heritage diesel charters, it shows two red lights, not one.  Same as the back of an HST or other MU.  I would guess push/pull trains with a DVT would be the same.

[The Johnster]

7 hours ago, 5BarVT said:

It isn’t river water in the tunnel, it’s a freshwater spring.  Back then, I was told 20mins before trains can’t run if the pumps stop.

 

There is certainly fresh water from the 'great spring', but most of this is drained from the tunnel cess into the drainage tunnel beneath, from which it is pumped out with the rest at Sudbrook, 6 million gallons a minute's worth.  When I worked on the railway in the 70s this spring water was sold off to Llanwern steelworks, but is now pumped back into the river which seems criminally wasteful; it is apparently perfectly drinkable.  The tunnel itself suffers from an ingress of brackish river water, most of which comes in through the roof, and it was this that was illuminated by the powertwin's Lucas.  It's a horrible place, with everything covered by thick black slime. the product of river mud and years of steam loco soot then diesel fumes.  This muck contains sufficient sulphuric acid to sting if you get any on your skin. and it is highly recommended to not get any in your eyes .  Just to put the seal on the hostility of the environment, there is a permanent howling freezing gale blowing, it's lethally slippery under foot,  and the noise of the great spring drain thundering below you reminds you that you are beneath a river with 60 feet of water pressing down on the bricks at high tide...

 

And this was before the tunnel lining was disturbed by the contruction of footings for the English side tower of the Second Severn Crossing M4 bridge only a few feet away.  The Tunnel (it's correct name in the same way as the Forth Bridge is 'The Bridge', it has no number) is on borrowed time, and one wonders what arrangements are in hand for it's replacement!

Edited 8 hours ago by The Johnster

[Ken.W]

6 hours ago, rogerzilla said:

If a diesel is at the back of a train, now extremely common with steam or heritage diesel charters, it shows two red lights, not one.  Same as the back of an HST or other MU.  I would guess push/pull trains with a DVT would be the same.

 

As the OP's time frame is 1970 ish not in the period in question.

The use of both tail lamps where electric lights are fitted didn't come in till the early '80s

 

The Johnster mentioned 47s tail lights being switched on at the same end, these were a two-way centre off switch, it wasn't even possible to have both on!.

Tail lights being switched from the opposite end was standard on EE locos, all others I'm aware of were switched from the same end.