Headlights mounted for the crew

[Andrew Falconer]

If the Headlights were mounted right for the crew to see clearly in the dark, where would they be on the locomotives?

Which locomotive models have the headlights mounted for the best visibility in dark and hazy condtions?

Andrew

[tomikawaTT]

Good questions!

I'm sure that every railroad mounted their headlights where they did because they assumed that the chosen location was the best for the purpose.  The fact that there were so many variants indicates to me that there was considerable difference of opinion on the subject.

Note that in the waning days of steam, the PRR swapped the headlight and turbogenerator, which raised the headlight by about a foot.  Why?

Most mallet and simple articulated locos had headlights mounted on the front engine frame, but the D&H mounted theirs in the middle of the smokebox door...

Current Japanese practice for box-cab electrics seems to favor two headlights, at the extreme corners of the roof above the outer edges of the front end windows.  DMU and EMU control cars follow the same pattern.

Only an engineman who had experience running many different locos (from several different railroads) at night can give a reasonably informed answer.

Chuck

[Anonymous]

I have read that the ATSF and now BNSF prefer low mounted headlights to eliminate the glare of the short hoods.

[rogruth]

I have been told that the Pennsy switched the headlight and turbo positions to make the turbo more accessible for repair. I do not know if this is true but it makes some sense.

[NS SD70M-2]

You mean ditchlights.

[enr2099]

IIRC the Canadian roads, CN and CP had the headlights mounted on the nose to lessen the glare  of falling snow(or rain on the wet coast). The CN 8000's only have the headlights between the numberboards because they were tacked on to an NS order so CN could get them cheap.

[rrboomer]

My vote goes to nose mounted headlights.

[Andrew Falconer]

How much reflection on the short hood do high mounted headlights create?

There would have to be black foam rubber on the low short hood to minimize refections.

Andrew

[nbrodar]

The reflection is not off the low nose.  The glare comes from the headlight bouncing off rain/snow/fog/etc, and back into the cab.

Low headlights eliminate most of this.  However, low mount lights can blind crew members standing on the front platform, and give them a nasty "sunburn".

Nick

[Rodney Beck]

Given a preferamce of which to have they would have to be on the nose, glare from fog is bad with the high mounted headlights and that also goes for snow, the snow is not as bad durring the daylight hours but as soon as the it gets dark you can go bug eyed.

 

Rodney

[NS 2557]

IIRC the Canadian roads, CN and CP had the headlights mounted on the nose to lessen the glare  of falling snow(or rain on the wet coast). The CN 8000's only have the headlights between the numberboards because they were tacked on to an NS order so CN could get them cheap.

 enr what do you mean by they were tacked onto the NS order did NS pay for these locomotives or do they have similar features in comparison to the NS 70-2's 

[NSlover92]

Note that in the waning days of steam, the PRR swapped the headlight and turbogenerator, which raised the headlight by about a foot.  Why?

Chuck

They moved the generator to keep cinders and stuff from the stack out of it. This made it easier to maintain. It wasn't a issuse of headlight position. But, if one thinks from moving the headlight up about a foot, you gain that much more of a sweep of the light. (Although not the reason for doing it, this is another advantage.) Mike

[Andrew Falconer]

In a BN thread there is a mention that the BNSF Railway management is being practical and moving headlights down so that the crews have improved visibility. 

Low mounted headlights might not be superficially pleasing to certain railfans, but it certainly will help the crews in low visibility conditions.

Andrew

[f14aplusfl]

IIRC the Canadian roads, CN and CP had the headlights mounted on the nose to lessen the glare  of falling snow(or rain on the wet coast). The CN 8000's only have the headlights between the numberboards because they were tacked on to an NS order so CN could get them cheap.

 enr what do you mean by they were tacked onto the NS order did NS pay for these locomotives or do they have similar features in comparison to the NS 70-2's 

Economy of scale. The most ocommon example, which applies here, is purchasing. The bulk buying of materials through long-term contracts. Locomotive manufacturers can order the materials they need at a lower cost cause the material provider can offer a lower bid and therefore the manufacturer can either keep the cost savings as profit or offer a lower cost to the railroad. Also keep in mind, the manufacturer may have offerred the locomotives at a discount price. The aviation industry, Boeing and Airbus do it all the time and I imagine that EMD and GE Transportation Systems does the same (well GE Avaition definately does, but that's another story ). And often, the larger the order, the bigger the discount.

NS probably paid for them and CN either paid there share to CN or to NS (and NS paid EMD). This means like you said, most likely CN and NS SD70M-2s has similar features with the exception of the paint scheme.

[Lord Atmo]

noselights are hopelessly ugly. helpful or not

and if BNSF claims it eliminates the glare on the nose (it's not a "short hood" anymore. that was only a name applied to the high hood diesels), then why is it NS still orders all their power with cablights and never has problems with nose glares? this doesnt appear to be a serious problem. several other roads still order units with cablights 

[climaxpwr]

I used to work for the NS, no matter where the headlight was it was awfull in heavy fog, something common in the middle of the night in Indiana.  You dont really even see much fo the nose in the new GE units.  The EMD's usualy had glare shields on the short hood headlights, ie the little visors on the bottom of each bulb.   We would actualy switch off the ditch lights in heavy fog, set them so they only came on for grade crossings. Even being down low they made the glare worse than without them.  Try watching for signals at 50mph in pea soup fog!   With those nose mounted low headlights, you have to watch where you put your hands or what you lean against, them things get hot, even on low beam.   The one problem with the ditch lights on the NS was the shops didnt really pay attention to how they were aimed when they welded the mounts to the pilot deck. One would be pointed skyward and the other in the ditch 20 feet in front of the unit.     Cheers  Mike

[Andrew Falconer]

The misaimed Ditch Lights means that the shop employees must not be familiar with Canadian ditchlight practices or even automotive headlight applications.

The headlights must generate as much heat as light. It is amazing that the headlight do not have their own cooling system.

Andrew

[f14aplusfl]

The locomotive design engineers were probably analysed heat transfer from the headlights (or ditchlights) to the locomotive body to make sure that they don't affect the locomotive body (cause damage to the hood/cowl when in use). This will undoubtly be more imporant in the future if they go the route of composites and such to make locomotives "lighter."

And they do have their own cooling system provided by nature.... convection.

[Southwest Chief]

The locomotive design engineers were probably analysed heat transfer from the headlights (or ditchlights) to the locomotive body to make sure that they don't affect the locomotive body (cause damage to the hood/cowl when in use). This will undoubtly be more imporant in the future if they go the route of composites and such to make locomotives "lighter."

And they do have their own cooling system provided by nature.... convection.

This heat issue has me wondering about Amtrak P42s and a very recent rebuild.  Take a look at a standard headlight on a P42:

197 Headlight (pre rebuild)

Notice the "glass" in front of the headlights.  And now the new rebuild 197:

197 Headlight (post rebuild)

Note the new "open" headlight.  I can see why 197 needed a rebuilt nose, but why change the headlight?  Possibly due to heat?  P42s do use a lot of composites.

[f14aplusfl]

Maybe. Is this something Amtrak is doing class wide (save a few cents on plastic covers)? From the pictures of what I've seen they still have the original design plastic covers. Also if these covers were fine before (without issues of melting/cracking/etc...) they should be fine now. Certain pastics do make excellent insulators.

But the thing is it looks like 197 hit something and the shop guys may not have been able to attach the new headlight cover either due to the repair work under the cowl.

 

[Southwest Chief]

Not known for sure yet.  Waiting to see if this modification shows up on other P42s.

The new headlight design might simply be for easier bulb replacement. 

Over the years Amtrak has devised maintenance simplifications for the P42s.  One easy to spot modification is a replaceable nose...typically called "bolt-o-nose".  This was done due to the frequent nose damage these units get from grade crossing incidents.  A lot easier to replace a whole nose then it is to do body repairs and metal fabrication.

197 has the new bolt-o-nose, but it's the first known bolt-o-nose with an open headlight.  Is this system wide?  We'll just have to wait and see when and if other units get this new open headlight nose. 

Back to the main topic though, it's interesting to note Amtrak went with nose mounted headlights on the P40s and P42s.

[f14aplusfl]

Well all of the diesels that I know of (passenger wise) built for Amtrak have nose/nose level mounted lights. On the P32/40/42 it doesn't look like that there is much space to mount it above the cab anyway.

 I wouldn't be surprised about maintenance simplification... Amtrak is always short of the dollars so anything to save them a few bucks without compromising safety I think is a good thing.

[zapp]

I also prefer to run units with hood mounted headlights, instead of on the cab, but UP hasn't asked my opinion either, so we still have cab mounted headlights.

It's true, the headlights do put off quite a bit of heat. Normally I'll dim the headlight if the conductor is getting on or off, and wait till he gets past the headlight before I flip it back on. I've seen trainmen warm their hands by the headlight in the winter...eh...that's a Texas winter. I don't think it would do a damn bit of good in a "real" winter enviroment like y'all have up north.  

[MONONC420]

I have heard of several railroaders who have gotten burned from standing too close to nose headlights. Coincedintally, the L&N/Seaboard , who used nose lights almost exclusively, evidentally thought the idea of putting anticlimbers on there engines was a bad idea. Now the conrail guys have it good, with anticlimbers the size of texas.

                                   Christian

[Andrew Falconer]

I have had problems with a 100 watt halogen bulb causing fabric and foam to burn accidentally.

Standing too close to those headlights must burn both skin and clothing at full intensity.

Andrew

[Anonymous]

IIRC the Canadian roads, CN and CP had the headlights mounted on the nose to lessen the glare  of falling snow(or rain on the wet coast). The CN 8000's only have the headlights between the numberboards because they were tacked on to an NS order so CN could get them cheap.

 enr what do you mean by they were tacked onto the NS order did NS pay for these locomotives or do they have similar features in comparison to the NS 70-2's 

Economy of scale. The most ocommon example, which applies here, is purchasing. The bulk buying of materials through long-term contracts. Locomotive manufacturers can order the materials they need at a lower cost cause the material provider can offer a lower bid and therefore the manufacturer can either keep the cost savings as profit or offer a lower cost to the railroad. Also keep in mind, the manufacturer may have offerred the locomotives at a discount price. The aviation industry, Boeing and Airbus do it all the time and I imagine that EMD and GE Transportation Systems does the same (well GE Avaition definately does, but that's another story ). And often, the larger the order, the bigger the discount.

NS probably paid for them and CN either paid there share to CN or to NS (and NS paid EMD). This means like you said, most likely CN and NS SD70M-2s has similar features with the exception of the paint scheme.

Don't forget tooling/engineering. More locomotives with the same tooling drives down developement costs. The materials are important but I think the tooling and engineering that goes into the parts is what drives the cost up because man hours are expensive. If you change the design, some one has to work out the issues, build the stamping/pressing or similar equipt, and then the changes must me installed differently.

[wjstix]

I know that in F-units where there were two headlights, the lower one was almost always the main headlight, while the upper one was used for a Mars light or something similar...so apparently, lower is better??

BTW in a few cases, an F-unit was involved in a mishap and had the upper headlight damaged, and the railroad simply plated over it and kept just the lower headlight. Made the engine kinda look like a face whose nose had been cut off.

[THayman]

IIRC the Canadian roads, CN and CP had the headlights mounted on the nose to lessen the glare  of falling snow(or rain on the wet coast). The CN 8000's only have the headlights between the numberboards because they were tacked on to an NS order so CN could get them cheap.

 enr what do you mean by they were tacked onto the NS order did NS pay for these locomotives or do they have similar features in comparison to the NS 70-2's 

Economy of scale. The most ocommon example, which applies here, is purchasing. The bulk buying of materials through long-term contracts. Locomotive manufacturers can order the materials they need at a lower cost cause the material provider can offer a lower bid and therefore the manufacturer can either keep the cost savings as profit or offer a lower cost to the railroad. Also keep in mind, the manufacturer may have offerred the locomotives at a discount price. The aviation industry, Boeing and Airbus do it all the time and I imagine that EMD and GE Transportation Systems does the same (well GE Avaition definately does, but that's another story ). And often, the larger the order, the bigger the discount.

NS probably paid for them and CN either paid there share to CN or to NS (and NS paid EMD). This means like you said, most likely CN and NS SD70M-2s has similar features with the exception of the paint scheme.

Despite what this might have saved in cost, it didn't save the crews any hastle...just think, these units are used mostly on the west coast...now, you're on the side of a mountain, heavy snow storm, cab mounted lights...how much can you see?

 You'll notice that CN's new order of SD70M-2's, the 8800 series, were done as an individual order, and all have nose mounted lights...the crews have spoken.

[Lord Atmo]

Made the engine kinda look like a face whose nose had been cut off.

yes! someone else who sees faces on locomotives

look at my sig image. that's why noselights look terrible 

[bogie_engineer]

Regarding the headlights under a clear cover on P40 locos, GE has a patent for that locomotive that includes a description of ventilating the headlight enclosure with traction motor air for cooling the light bulbs and cover.  I don't know if the locos were actually built with that feature but anything other than glass for the headlight cover would likely melt if not cooled.