Ditchlights To Be or Not To Be

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

A year ago, when I got into this hobby once more, I bought whatever locomotives caught my fancy. Now I have become ever more anal for accuracy. Why is that that so few modern day HO offerings have ditch lights? Athearn Genesis and some of the Altas series have them, but just about everyone else is without. Is it solely a cost issue? I tried looking into the kits that you can do up to provide ditch lights but most are out of stock or seem too complicated to fiddle with.

If I am running multiple units, I now stick one of my units with ditch lights on point. But with Athearn RTR putting out some nice quality models–P42DC, AC4400CWs–it really is a bother that there are no ditch lights on them.

2

Been ther and done that brother…I am now using fiber optic strands for ditch lights…i’ll mount a white light LED behind the motor and then use 1.5 mm fiber optic strands for the headlights and .75mm strands for the dith lights…i’ll cut them to fit in the locomotive shell, flare one end with a candle, insert them in the headlights and the ditch lights and then use heat shrink tubing to hold the bundles together against the white light LED…they look pretty good too…

this picture you can barely make out the fiber optic ditch lights but they are there…(click to enlarge)

this picture you can see the fiber optics better…it is an old locomotive and doesn’t have ditch lights (GP 35’s never had them in the old days)

…chuck

3

The Athearn RTR P40 does have ditchlights - they are built into the nose beneath the markers.

4

I should rephrase: working ditch lights.

5

Kato has working ditch lights on the HO SD80MAC, SD90MAC, AC4400CW, 9-44CW, and SD70MAC. Athearn has them on most of their modern Genesis engines (SD70M, SD70MAC). Atlas has them only on the 8-40CWs. For some reason, manufacturers just don’t put any ditch lights on anything older than an SD70. What about today’s SD40-s, SD50s, SD60s, Dash 8s and countless othe Geeps and 4 axle units with ditch lights?

6

I have an N scale Kato SD70MAC
It does have the ditchligihts , looks really cool with them. I only wi***hey would alternatly flash on and off.

7

Simple solution - model an era BEFORE there were ditch lights [:D][:D][:D][:D]

–Randy

8

Good point 4884bigboy–a lot of “legacy” motive power out there and the model companies are quick to do up modern liveries but not ditch lights. Shame.

9

But? How many people model 1992 and later? Would the number of those modelers justify putting working ditch lights in locomotives built prior to 92? Are you willing to pay the extra cash for the working ditch lights?

10

It’s not too hard to add working ditch lights to DCC equipped locos. just a couple miniatronics bulbs, and a tad bit of soldering, and you’ve got it. Program it like the book says to, and they’ll stay on steady until you punch the horn button, and they alternate. Click on my Railimages link, nothing I have came with ditch lights, but the Dash-8 has them now. The SD40-2 does also, but I don’t have a pic yet.

Greg

11

Good point jcmark–I realize I am in a small minority of modelers who do present day. That is a whole other topic about demographics but I have always wanted to do the present day to take advantage of new real world technologies.