Wig-wag ditch lighting on the C&EI

I am a novelist, author of Yonders, Illinois (and some other books on motorcycling, but in Spanish) and I am describing something that I remember. It was in the early or middle sixties and I saw a passenger train on the C&EI coming form the north into Hoopeston, Illinois. I remember it had a roving, side to side light, I friend from Hoopeston who knows trains said he remembered it too and called it a wig-wag ditch light. Could this be true. My memory of it is vivid and it was something I had not seen on the C&EI or any railroad before. I don’t want to describe something in the new novel I hace begun unless I can be resonable sure it existed.

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One of several types of ‘Mars Light’ or ‘Gyra Light’. Some railroads even mounted them on the roof of diesels aimed upward to draw attention.
Ditch light is a later development and the name, I believe, derives from Canadian railroads that had side-aimed lights to help see rock falls in the ‘ditch’.

There were many variations. Some had a fixed light source and a reflector oscillated. Some were red, or white, or both:

ATSF_mars by Edmund, on Flickr

If the train went into emergency the red light would automatically illuminate.

Some roads used red oscillating lights at the rear of trains. The Mars light traditionally had a horizontal figure 8 pattern whereas a Gyralight was generally a simple ellipse.

Cheers, Ed

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It sure looks like the C&EI had Mars lights on at least some of its diesels.

You could always email the C&EI Historical Society to verify.

Rich

Source: ceihs.org

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I’m surprised that Ed (gpullman) has not chimed in here.

Rich

Go back three days… (first reply!)
:wink:

I love the look of Mars Lights. I camped out at
Roosevelt Road in Chicago at the Amtrak coach yard and watched a bunch of the Burlington commuter trains passing through with their Mars Lights on and illuminating the overhead bridges with the ‘wash’ of light. Really neat to see at night.

Cheers, Ed

Was that specific to the C&EI?

Rich

Kind of tough to decipher from a still photo but this F7 has its Mars Light illuminated:

Momence Monday by SE Delmar tower, on Flickr

That’s about all I can offer on the C&EI.

Cheers, Ed

With the information given by the OP that’s about all I can offer. Sorry.

Ed

Good enough. Thanks, Ed.

Rich

From observations over the years. Most carriers that used ‘Mars Lights’ on their locomotives placed them in the traditional headlight housing and then put the actual headlight on the door on the front of the engine. I imagine the operating apparatus of the Mars Light used too much space to allow the nose door to be properly opened.

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Those are interesting observations. I am accustomed to thinking that the Mars was was usually placed directly above the headlight. I am not familiar with any other configuration.

Rich

Because the normal position of the headlight on E’s, F’s, FA’s, PA’s - without Mars Lights is the ‘high’ position.

Ahh, that makes sense.

Rich

Here’s a view you won’t find very often. The ‘business side’ of the Gyra light assembly. Obviously there’s extra bracing and wiring which precludes hanging everything on the door:

SLIDE08-PRESTON-COOK by John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, on Flickr

This assembly happens to be on an Alco PA-1.

Regards, Ed

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One of my favorite memories is riding through a lightning storm in a UP dome car across Kansas and watching the Mars light and the yellow strobe light on the lead E unit rounding the curves.
Mark

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But did the C&EI diesels have Mars lights in the early to mid 60s? That is the question.

Rich

It has been pictured! It is so.

That’s what I thought. Thanks.

Rich