A new F125 was seen this morning (Friday, October 20, 2017) before sun up, with the large screened COMPARTMENT behind the prime mover all lit up!
Was that lit up a fluke or a new standard?
From the above scene in San Bernardino, CA, the two-unit power will push-pull push the Metrolink all the way to Los Angeles on the San Bernardino Line which is about 57 miles to Union Station.
Look at the advantages of the light.
Might prevent some idiot from running into side of loco or trailing train cars ?
Enables better walk arounds of locos ?
For our rail viewing fans at night it will light up the adjaecent ROW.
Help for loading baggage at night.
Engineer(s) better vision at night when walking off platforms.
Cannot let chargers out do them ? Anyone know which has more light ?
Other?
A source confirms the F125’s run with the behind the engine area compartment lights ON.
The florescent-like look of those lights undoubtedly is from a mild bluish Light Emitting Diodes (LED) lighting
The headlight, ditch lights, and front number boards have that mild bluish look in contrast to the historic incandescent white-yellow.
The above view is from a highly cropped digital photo.
The PRIIA 305 specification requires LED or fluorescent lights for the engine room.
Required is a 30 second off delay following the last detected movement of personnel. So it seems a railroad decision to leave the engine room lights burning.
Regards, Volker
This is something that has concerned me since cars went from sealed-beam to halogen headlights, and now, LED. Remember yellow fog lights? The longer wavelength yellowish light is better at penetrating fog or mist, since the shorter wavelengths are scattered more by the droplets in the fog. The bluish light appears brighter, but I wonder if it may actually be a disadvantage.
I agree, those headlights on the F125’s don’t look very bright during the day, but might be easier to see at night.
I wonder what the engineers are saying about these new hi tec locomotives.
I could have used such lights 48 years ago when I walked back to my coach, going through two E8 engine rooms on the way. The flagman had accompanied to the cab of the lead engine, and then he went back, carrying his flashlight with him.[:)]
The LED headlights the new amtrak electric motors have are pretty bright, day or night.
Maybe it needs to crawl back into the dark ? Anotheer tier 4 failure much like tractors for trailers ?
https://signalscv.com/2017/11/metrolinks-tier-4-locomotive-unveiling-stopped-in-its-tracks/
No indication of what the problem was. Maybe it was the PTC system? Based on the description of being stalled for a long time, then moving, the stalling then moving.
LED are far superior to flourescent lights in terms of brightness and visibility and a considerable savings in energy consumption, not to mention life span. They’re also just as visible during the daytime as at night, and the only reason people are blinded by them is because they probably weren’t installed correctly(if you’re headlamps are adjusted to point downward like they’re supposed to be you won’t have them shining directly in your mirror, that’s another advantage of LED’s, they’re very directional without much bleeding).
I wonder how much snow and ice the LED’s will melt in the winter?
We run them in all our trailers and have next to no issues with snow buildup on the lens covers. They do radiate heat just not as much as a incandescent or even halogen bulb. Also in So Cal snow and ice is not much of problem it is not like they are crossing Donner in winter.
No - but as they are indicative of things to come - at some point that lighting system will be operating over Donner in winter - also operating over the plains at speed in the snow, if there isn’t enough heat the light becomes caked over with accumulated snow.
This might be easily addressed by circulating air or dry nitrogen from the heatsinking on the LED elements across the inside of the transparent cover over the arrays. There is plenty of heat from this power of LED, but the design emphasis so far has been on removing it from the devices as expediently as possible in ways that do not block the light emission substantially.
Be interesting to see how much of a problem this turns out to be, and what manufacturers or owners do to address it in practice.
How the OTR industry solved the heatsink venting problem was simplcity in itself. The housing is the heatsink for us and that for our tailights is riveted to the trailer body itself. In the 5 years we have been running LED’s for brake and taillights on all trailers along with marker lights our drivers actually have reported less problems with ice and snow buildup. Why the mounting area is actually warmer around the light and keeps the snow from sticking as easy.
Traffic signals on our roads are going LED, and in colder climes like Michigan, they are already finding that previously the 100 watt bulb would melt snow off the light, but the LED lights run cool, so snow can gather, obscuring that red or green light.