Re: Unanswerable

Years ago when rail communications were far more primitive, before walkie-talkies and loco/dispatcher radios, train crews alerted other trains, station agents, MoW gangs of unusual traffic by displaying special symbols on appropriate loco fronts, along with special whistle signals.

Extra trains, those not timetabled or scheduled, carried white lights or flags.

Scheduled trains, particularly passenger-type, often had so much business that a whole separate consist was necessary, sometimes more than one, following each other. Green lights/flags were shown on all but the last train.

Anyone running a night train welcomes as much illumination as possible. Each railroad, under FRA rules, decides how many headlights.
Notice they usually have sealed-beam double heads, if one burns out in the boonies.

Ditch lights...developed in mountainous, rockslide-prone, curvy-tracked Canada...augment headlights, vastly improve visibility night and day, have a flasher mode to further alert anyone on or crossing a rail line.
For safety, ditch light failure by law demands slow running.

"F" denotes the official front of a loco or car. As mentioned, first generation diesel switcher locos at first ran long hood forward, for cab crew safety reasons, also followed traditional steam loco setup. Eventual short hood running by almost all today's roads made for a confused transition to today's practice, hence the "F" marking.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2009 10:51PM by Abqfoamer.