Front Headlight Always ON


C

cajon

Active Member
A post on another forum brought up the question of why have the rear headlight come on just because the locomotive, consist and/or train is backing up. This is really just a model RRing thing and not done in the real RR world. And in the real world doesn't the front headlight always have to be on as a warning of your presence to opposing traffic? That was my experience as a RR conductor for 7 years and as a railfan watching switching before and since. My system is NCE and haven't been able to figure out how to have the front headlight on all the time. My DCC locos are Athearn. Atlas, BLI and P2K. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Now Bellflower CA!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
When I was an engineer 28 years ago, the headlight always had to be on the way the engine was traveling. When we were switching both headlights were on dim all the time. We always used dim because a bright headlight would blind other engines in the yard. If you should hit someone that would be conductor, brakeman, passerby etc. at the hearing their going to ask you if the headlight was on. This doesn’t mean every engineer will compile with this. I seen hundreds rules broken while I was there that resulted in accidents, which was one of the reasons I left. Too many people didn’t comply with the rules and sooner or later their going to get you in trouble.

George
 
cajon said:
A post on another forum brought up the question of why have the rear headlight come on just because the locomotive, consist and/or train is backing up. This is really just a model RRing thing and not done in the real RR world. And in the real world doesn't the front headlight always have to be on as a warning of your presence to opposing traffic? That was my experience as a RR conductor for 7 years and as a railfan watching switching before and since. My system is NCE and haven't been able to figure out how to have the front headlight on all the time. My DCC locos are Athearn. Atlas, BLI and P2K. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Now Bellflower CA!
Click to expand...
With most DCC decoders, you can change how the headlight works. Download the manual for each decoder, you'd be surprised how many things that can be changed.
 
We also had to dim the headlights for traffic when following along a road.
I left the headlights on traveling both directions as we never (very seldom) met another train so most of my 1:87 locos do the same. That's using digitrax but NCE should have a way as well as stated?
 
Yes, there is a way to always have the headlight on. You will just need to change the CV value to "always on". You may also need to do some function remapping to get the front and rear lights on the same button. You could also set up the front headlight to be bright in forward, and dim in reverse. I personally have one of my F-units set up to be dim when stopped, and bright when the locomotive starts moving. Most of my SD45's have their lights set up to always be on, unless I tell them to be off. It's quite amazing what you can do with a decoder.
 
Hey Adam, what value and what cv did you use for your F unit? (dim when stopped) That sounds like just the thing I want for mine!
It's likely right in my Digitrax manual, I just never found it.
 
I don't understand half of it. Can someone read the digitrax page and repost it in plain english and tell me which value to put for which CV? (preferably NOT in hexadecimal)
 
Dim the headlight in the stopped position, and make it bright once the locomotive starts moving.


As for typing up the whole manual...I don't think it's that hard to figure out, just have to read the words ;)
 
Does digitrax support the option to dim the headlight with a function key? How about bright forward headlight, and dimmed rear light? Would that require an extra lighting function?
 
My NCE DCC system is a Power Cab. All the Athearn engines have NCE D13SRJs, BLIs: 1 has the stock DCC/sound, 2 have their sound + NCE N14IPs, P2Ks all have P2KSRs or their DCC/Sound. Leaving anything else out? Would like to set up the locos to always run w/ headlights always on & not worry about backing movements at all. Would like the headlights to dim when stopped though. Also not real interested in hard wiring the lights if the headlights are always going to be on thru setting up the decoders right. Thanks for everyone's suggestions so far.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
For the NCE, try programing CV 120 to value 32. Then if you do want to dim the headlight, you can press F4. If you don't ever want to dim the headlight, then CV 120 should be a value of 0.

As for the BLI and P2K decoders, I have never messed with the settings on mine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top