Ditch Lights…when were they mandated? Seems like it was like 1995…can yall help…AND OOHHH MY FIRST STAR!!!
It might have been 1995 but I’m not sure, but great job on your first star! Looking forward for you to get your second star! [swg]
Dave [:D][:D]
By the way its an honor to be talking to a UP engineer. I’m 14 and looking forward to becoming a UP engineer. Do you think that would be a good choice? By the way you don’t work on the sub that goes through Rochelle do you?
Dave[:D][:D]
I think it was the last day of December 1998, a lot of locomotives had
ditch lights long before that though
While this isn’t quite on the subject, ditch lights were applied in Canada first, I think. I remember looking at a British Columbia Railway M630 in Red White and Blue at Williams Lake (a really nice place) in September 1986. It was standing there idling on a train with its headlight and ditch lights on in the bright afternoon sun, and I was just amazed at the sight of all those bright lights. I’ve got a photo, somewhere.
Peter
The US mandate came as a result of the collsion of the MARC commuter and the AMTRAK Washington-Chicago (Capitol Limited?) train just outside of Washington. About 2 weeks after. I don’t have the dates. Rational was so that you could tell if it was a train or not. ??? Really? [D)] That was supposed to have prevented the wreck. What caused the wreck was CSX removing the departure signal from the station stop to save money.
That’s CSX for ya!!! [:D]
From what I’ve read 1997 was the “official year” of the ditch light mandate.
I was doing research on the Santa Fe FP-45 and learned that they were banned as leading units on trains because Santa Fe decided not install ditch lights on them. They were all retired by 2000.