Re: Those beautiful headlamps

david rutter Wrote:
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> I do not recall there being a clear
> discussion here of why this was, or whether those
> railroads had a clearly defined standard with
> rules and adopted measurements for the
> headlights….Were they all home made or supplied
> by Baldwin?

Either! Locomotive headlights could be supplied by the builder, built by the railroad itself, or bought from a third-party supplier and installed after delivery. Railroads had their own preferences. The latter case was particularly common during the 19th century, and locomotive headlights were a fairly big business with numerous competing firms. The forum-darling D&RG used standard gauge-size headlights on most of its narrow gauge locomotives ordered during the 1870's and 1880's, 23 inch reflector being common. Dedicated narrow gauge headlights of the period usually had about 16 to 18 inch reflectors. The large headlight is quite noticeable if you look at a photograph of something like a D&RG class 42 next to the E&P "Eureka," locomotives which are of basically similar size and type.