Railway Lamps in the 1970s

[michaelp]

I always remembered a distinctive smell from railway lamps, did they burn paraffin or lamp oil or other?

Thanks in advance

[Mark Saunders]

In 1982 I was using parrafin in signal lamps plus also for side and tail lamps!

 

Mark Saunders

[michaelp]

In 1982 I was using parrafin in signal lamps plus also for side and tail lamps!

 

Mark Saunders

 

Thanks Mark, doing a bit more digging it seems some used lamp oil and others used paraffin.

[Right Away]

Ah, the Esso Blue Dealer!

[michaelp]

Ah, the Esso Blue Dealer!

 

I remember it well!

[The Stationmaster]

In 1982 I was using parrafin in signal lamps plus also for side and tail lamps!

 

Mark Saunders

 

Ideally lamp oil should be used as (neat) paraffin has a nasty tendency to become smoky when used in lamps and this soots up the glass/lens reducing the visibility of the flame  One way round that is to put some camphor in the paraffin but it is far better to use proper lamp oil which contains an additive to prevent the smoke/soot problem.

 

If you've ever tried to use paraffin in a domestic oil lamp you will find that it very quickly becomes both dirty and smelly with the chimney rapidly getting sooted up.  That's why although it costs a lot more than paraffin we keep lamp oil for use in our emergency domestic oil lamps.

[rodent279]

Ideally lamp oil should be used as (neat) paraffin has a nasty tendency to become smoky when used in lamps and this soots up the glass/lens reducing the visibility of the flame One way round that is to put some camphor in the paraffin but it is far better to use proper lamp oil which contains an additive to prevent the smoke/soot problem.

 

If you've ever tried to use paraffin in a domestic oil lamp you will find that it very quickly becomes both dirty and smelly with the chimney rapidly getting sooted up. That's why although it costs a lot more than paraffin we keep lamp oil for use in our emergency domestic oil lamps.

Were there any guidelines on the length of the wick, and how big the flame should be, especially in regard to oil tail lamps?

[Mark Saunders]

Were there any guidelines on the length of the wick, and how big the flame should be, especially in regard to oil tail lamps?

 

It was a black art as they needed to be long enough to provide a bright enough light but short enough not to smoke, if there was any instructions for lampmen I never received them!

 

Plus they should burn for a week without topping up the oil!

[Nearholmer]

Stationmaster

 

I'm pretty certain that petroleum lamp oil is refined to remove things that are present in paraffin, rather than being paraffin with additives, and that, rather confusingly, paraffin sometimes does have additives that differentiate it from very similar products for industrial use (not lamp oil) to make it smell slightly less revolting.

 

Historically, of course, lamp oil was by no means all of mineral origin, so it might (or might not) be interesting to know what "early railway lamp oil" was, in the days before large-scale importation of petroleum products: shale or whale, maybe?

 

Kevin

[The Johnster]

We were taught (Cardiff West Box Guard's School, 1971) that the lamps should be trimmed to burn an approximately half inch yellow flame, and that this depended on the circumstances and not a particular length of wick.  The reservoir contained sufficient fuel for approximately 24 hours of continuous burning in this condition, at least in theory.  In practice, the lamps would be shaken about on the brackets and often let draughts in, and on side lamps in particular it was usually advisable to turn the wick up a little if the van was a bad rider (most were; you could tell by how loose the brackets had shaken) to stop the flame being shaken out every 5 minutes.

 

I cannot recall ever having a lamp run dry on me in 8 years or working on brake vans, though, or having to replace a wick, which shows that the train preparers were doing their jobs pretty well!  Train preparation varied from yard to yard, but I would single out Radyr (and this was when Stationmaster Ian was in charge of it) and Llantrisant as being excellent, while Margam might as well not have bothered...  Sorry, any ex-Margam readers, speaking as I found!

[The Johnster]

Signal lamps had. I believe, the same burner and wick mechanism, but a larger reservoir, designed to burn for a minimum of 7 days.

[The Stationmaster]

Signal lamps had. I believe, the same burner and wick mechanism, but a larger reservoir, designed to burn for a minimum of 7 days.

 

Signal lamps officially had a 7 day reservoir but in practice should be could enough for 8 days to allow for the Lampman not getting to a place on time (although that rarely happened.  Western signal lamp interiors also had two parallel horizontal lines engraved on the glass and they were the guide for the height to which the flame should be set.

 

Generally lamps had to have the burners clean (that usually meant 'very clean'), the winder handle for the wick working properly and the wick correctly cleaned and trimmed.  with all of that done properly a signal lamp would d burn for 8 days on a full reservoir.  But if anything wasn't right it wouldn't last seven days and signal lamping in the wind on a rainy night to sort things out was no fun at all although I had the pleasure the following day of getting out Lampman sacked.  It took a few weeks but we then found a superb replacement - an older man looking for bit of steady income alongside his antiques business and who was forever pestering me to get in spare parts and as Reading couldn't supply we finished up getting lamp interiors made locally to the Reading pattern and getting our own glasses cut for replacements.