Strobe Lights

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I was in Green River, Wyoming for the second time in a week and i noticed a locomotive with yellow strobe lights on the cab, what is the point of strobe lights on the locomotive??? PS. this is UP territory

Thanks

2

I have recently noticed that here in North Kansas City at the 10th street yard the locos that are equipped for remote control have been fitted with yellow or white strobe lights. Could that have been a remote controllable yard engine?

3

The remote control locomotives out here have a yellow light on top of the cab, one on each side. I have not paid much attention to the type of lights, but I seem to recall they are imitation rotory beacons.

What are the locomotive numbers?

4

They’re strobe lights, and, when flashing, indicate that the locomotive is being operated remotely.

A brakeman seeing these should realize that it’s futile to give hand signals toward the right side of the cab [;)].

5

Here’s a quetion regarding strobes…

Several years ago, many locomotives had strobes or rotating beacons on the cab for added visibilty. Now it would appear that ditch lights have replaced them as a means of increasing visibilty at crossings and such. Do any non-RCL locomotives still use cab mounted strobes or is it now purely and indication of RCL status? Seems like it would aid situational awarness in a yard switching, poor vis (snow, rain) or night time urban branch work.

6

Not sure how all Locomotives are set up when it comes to strobe lights, but on the ones I worked around had the strobe lights set up so when you had the reverser forward or backwards, the strobe would be running, but when centered, would be out. The neat thing about this was a conductor doing work close enough to the engine( at night, you could see quite a long distance on flat ground) , could really tell if a tired old engineer who called Centered" over the radio was really set and centered before going in between [:)].

7

The strobes are so the locomotives can be seen at a distance. The blinking attracts attention. That is why they put them on school buses and some garbage trucks. The idea is to make someone look and be aware of it. The blink in the corner of your eye will tend to make you look in that direction and notice whatever it is better than a steady light. Blinking ditch lights are designed on the same theory. Also radio and cell phone antennaes. A steady light tends to be less noticeable.

8

Do all railroads have flashing ditch lights in the US?

Here in Canada ditch lights don’t flash.

9
10

UP’s ditch lights don’t flash.

Metra’s do; the flashing is tied in with the ringing of the bell.

I haven’t observed NS and CSX units recently, but Conrail’s flashing ditch lights also were tied in with the bell as well. Sounding the horn would start them flashing, but that’s only because sounding the horn also activated the bell. They kept flashing until the bell was turned off.

(It used to be fascinating at Porter…when a CR train was coming at you, the first thing you’d notice was the flashing ditch lights, then the horn. Just because light travels faster than sound…)

11

I thought ditch lights were required to be flashing in the US when approaching and crossing grade crossings.