Why did UK steam locomotives not have headlights/headlamps ?

[brian777999]

Why did UK steam locomotives not have headlights or headlamps ? I never see any lighting on the front of the locos in my books. The steam locomotives in most other countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States all had them.

Even if it was not a regulatory requirement, surely it would have proved useful to see the line ahead at night ?

[EddieB]

They did have headlamps - but the lamps were more to identify the type of train (replacing the discs carried by day) rather than to illuminate the way ahead.

[spamcan61]

There's not much point being able to see the line as there would be virtually zero chance of stopping before an obstruction anyway. I assume headlights overseas were more to warn folks of an approaching train at night, given that the UK is unusual in having all lines fenced, hence this was considered less of an issue here until recent times.

[PhilH]

I can never see the point of putting a headlight on a train, no matter how powerful. It's not like you can stop the things very easily.

[PeterR]

Hi.

 

Its a somewhat complicated answer - 'generally' we have fences on the sides of our railways so no need for headlamps, also our railways (in steam days) had lots of signalmen so the trains were passed through them all the way up the line, so the position of any train was known, don't forget that the signalmen had a telephone sytem as well.

 

What we did have are classification lights to show what type of train is was.

 

The countries mentioned tended to use train dispatchers which are not the same as signalmen and if required trains had to stop at depots to find ou why they were required to stop.

 

Also our long training period, and the associated papaerwork to verify that 'Mr XYZ' had passed his full drivers exam and was 'signed for' on a route ensured that the drivers knew the line as in the days before mass lightuing everywhere had good vision (and it was checked) with the fireman adding his part of 'looking out' as well + the guard be it goods or passenger trains. There are many stories of the massive, and exact, knowledge , to the signal, of the drivers, even telling the fireman to look out at a virtuall specific time as such & suh a signal and tell him (the driver) what it showed.

 

I don't claim that the above is perfect, but it does explain some of the reasons!

[Weekday Cross]

I tend to agree with the idea that UK railways were generally fenced in, so people should not be wandering along or across the tracks. Most crossings were gated too. In countries where there were no fences, then headlights would give some warning of the approach of a train.

 

UK railways were very early on the scene, so we may have just got used to the idea of not needing headlights before decent headlights were invented. The kind of headlights we are used to today were simply not available in the early days. Even road traffic had only fairly primitive lighting in the old days, so it would not have illuminated the road very far ahead.

[Stubby47]

As a slight tangent, am I right in believing that the railways were fenced in, not to keep others out, but to denote the border to which railway employees (originally Navvies) were limited ?

 

Stu

[Guest stuartp]

As a slight tangent, am I right in believing that the railways were fenced in, not to keep others out, but to denote the border to which railway employees (originally Navvies) were limited ?

 

Stu

 

 

Correct. The various Regulation of Railways Acts required the line to fenced against trespass onto the adjoining land, and to protect livestock on the adjoining land. Some light railways, notably the St Combs branch, had exemptions from this written into their Light Railway Orders though.

 

The onus only changed in 1996 when the Railway Safety (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations (I think) shifted the onus onto preventing trespass onto the railway.

[The Stationmaster]

One point which has not been mentioned is the nature of the network and the greater rail traffic density in Britain which resulted in a fairly early need to know what a train was and - in many instances of headcodes - where it was going. This meant that some quite complex headlamp or maker codes had become well established by the 1870s. Such codes were far more useful on our sort of network than a headlight was ever likely to be; all it could do was possibly show a Driver what he was going to hit just before he hit it (but trains even hit things in broad daylight without the Driver knowing about it beforehand, yet another argument against headlights).

 

As for Drivers knowing the line on a steam engine it was as much by feel as anything else (or smell on parts of the GW mainline out of London) and frequently Driver's didn't have much idea of things on a route which didn't concern them - as I heard in very colourful form one Sunday morning when single line working and were about to setback a Class 1 train through a crossover at a small wayside station, the Driver hadn't got a clue there was a crossover there let alone its location and he'd been working over the route both firing and driving for the best part of 30 years.

[bike2steam]

Another consideration is that when railways started all British land was owned by someone, in America, and Australia most of it wasn't, just open plains. Headlights were more to be seen where there were no fences, than to see, which would have been pointless with speeds over 50MPH.

.

[meil]

Another consideration is that when railways started all British land was owned by someone, in America, and Australia most of it wasn't, .

 

 

I think the North American Indian and Australian Aborigine might possibly take a different view

 

 

[EddieB]

Yes, definitely there is a link between unfenced trackage and headlights, as well as operating methods. I'd also suggest that headlights were widely used in countries where there was a strong likelihood of livestock or wild animals straying onto the tracks - and there seems to be a strong correlation between headlights and cowcatchers.

 

Aside from Australia, Canada and the USA, other countries that used headlights usually also fitted cowcatchers - for instance most of sub-Saharan Africa, Malaysia, Thailand, Russia, Finland, Turkey and much of the Balkan peninsular. Quite a few European countries had unfenced tracks, but appear not to have adopted headlights (or cowcatchers) - for example the German/Austro-Hungarian standard was two headlamps at the base of the smokebox. One exception was Norway, which was a strong user of headlights, but without cowcatchers.

[Leicester Thumper]

The only engines to my recollection on the Mainline which ahd Headlights in the UK steam era were the Lickey Bankers.

 

dunno if they ever used them though....

[The Stationmaster]

One exception was Norway, which was a strong user of headlights, but without cowcatchers.

 

I don't know about earlier times but on some of the more remote lines in Norway a cowcatcher might be regarded as a bit wimpish - the locos are provided with a high velocity rifle for the use of the Driver in the event of any problems with wild animals getting onto the line.

[Edwin_m]

I think the North American Indian and Australian Aborigine might possibly take a different view

 

Quite possibly, but that's a different topic.

 

More important than the ownership is that large parts of North America and Australia are flat and open, so the bright headlights could sometimes be seen from a long way off and therefore probably averted accidents on occasions. In North America the headlight is extinguished when a train is fully within a siding (loop) track and allowing the driver of another train to confirm this from some distance away is helpful operationally as well as for safety (in traditional train order operation at least).

 

Whereas traditionally in Britain a train was identified by the pattern of headlights, this was usually done in North America by having an illuminated engine number and the dispatcher quoting the engine number in all messages so that everyone who needed to would know which engine was working which train.

[EddieB]

I don't know about earlier times but on some of the more remote lines in Norway a cowcatcher might be regarded as a bit wimpish - the locos are provided with a high velocity rifle for the use of the Driver in the event of any problems with wild animals getting onto the line.

 

I'm sure it also came in useful for bagging an elk for the pot - beats knocking out rabbits with lumps of coal (at which my grandfather was highly accomplished). That said, my only encounter with animals on the track in Norway was a herd of sheep on the Krøderbanen.

[coachmann]

A pitch black night was obviously best for sighting semaphore signal aspects. A powerful headlight beam would have hampered this. I remember where signals at night were not always as clear due to street lights, shop front lights and car headlights.

[melmerby]

The only engines to my recollection on the Mainline which ahd Headlights in the UK steam era were the Lickey Bankers.

 

dunno if they ever used them though....

 

So the crew could see the back of the train when buffering up.

However it has been reported that the crew of "Big Bertha" sometimes didn't use it so that the crew of the "banked" train didn't know what was on the rear and so would put in their fair share of effort climbing the bank!

 

Keith

[MarkC]

The only engines to my recollection on the Mainline which ahd Headlights in the UK steam era were the Lickey Bankers.

 

dunno if they ever used them though....

 

Well, if I recall the story correctly, there was a Headlight fitted to 'The Banker' (Big Emma/Bertha), but not to the pairs of 0-6-0Ts that were also in use. It's said that some crews of 2290 didn't use the light, as it was felt that the train locomotive crew wouldn't work their loco as hard if they knew that the big 'un was pushing...

 

How true this is; that's up for discussion, I think.

[bike2steam]

There probably are a few stories, but the one I heard was that the light was added to Big Bertha, later going on 92079 afterwards, to help drivers, at night, judge the distance to the rear coach better to prevent waking up the passengers with a jolt.

[Leicester Thumper]

So the crew could see the back of the train when buffering up.

However it has been reported that the crew of "Big Bertha" sometimes didn't use it so that the crew of the "banked" train didn't know what was on the rear and so would put in their fair share of effort climbing the bank!

 

Keith

 

I believe it,

 

i mean Big Bertha was a ruddy big engine, more powerful than Duke of Gloucester??

[Pacific231G]

I was always told that it was because on Britain's fenced railways the only thing the crew were looking out for were signal lamps so a powerful headlight would have been less than useful. The main catch with this strikes me as being that in countries like France where in open country most of the railways (apart from high speed lines) are unfenced locomotives also didn't carry particularly powerful headlamps. Perhaps more to the point is that the vast majority of Western European railways were multiple tracked and in that situation an oncoming train with a powerful headlight would make it virtually impossible to see the aspect of a mechanical signal's lamp. Presumably the rather more powerful lights carried nowadays are balanced by far more visible colour light signals.

 

In large parts of North America (and on many of our colonial railways) railroads were unfenced and single track and, perhaps most important, level crossings didn't even have warning lights let alone barriers so it was essential for the train to be seen as well as heard from a greater distance and modern American locos carry flashing lights to use near level crossings. On that count I think the low whistle tones of American locos actually carry far further than the higher pitches used over here though a higher pitch probably conveys greater urgency. In France (and most other European countries) although the track may have been unfenced, level crossings of public roads were generally manned so except on private crossings only railway workers should need to be alerted to oncoming trains. It is just as illegal, therefore not the railway's liability if you get hit by a train, to wander around their unfenced tracks as our fenced variety.

 

Not quite the same thing but I've always wondered why our railways didn't make the same use of white paint to help railway workers find their way around at night as did those in France. There, not only were the ends of guard rails and crossings (frogs) on pointwork religiously painted but so were many other things such as the corners of buildings, door surrounds, and the edges of barrow crossings. Were British stations simply better lit?

[coachmann]

Corners of building and all sorts of things like kerb stones at bus stops and crossing were painted white in the build up to WW2. I grew up with white bands painted on lamp posts and tram poles without realizing what their purpose was! Remnants of paint on corners of buildings could be found all over the country in the late 1950s, so yes, railway buildings and shed yards had blackout aids.

[Jon_Eng]

I can never see the point of putting a headlight on a train, no matter how powerful. It's not like you can stop the things very easily.

 

Activate the emergency brakes and then jump?!

[PhilH]

Activate the emergency brakes and then jump?!

 

What emergency brakes......??