steam engine marker lights

[lmackattack]

how did steam engines use their marker lights? What color were the front and sides of the lamps. I am doing some fiberoptics and want to add the lights up front

 

[UP2CSX]

The small lamps mounted on the front of a locomotive are properly called classification lights. There were some differences between railroads but, in general, a regularly scheduled train did not illuminate the class lights. An extra train, running by dispatcher authorization rather than timetable, displayed white lights to the front. A regularly scheduled train that was too long to handled as one train ran a second section. In this case, the locomotive displayed green class lights to the front. Opposing trains then knew the that train was not complete until they saw the white lights of the second section. In steam days, class lights usually had a white lense and green lense and the position of the lamp was changed depending on what indication should be shown. Later steam engines had class lights with only one lense with a green transparent disk inside the light that would rotate up if a green light needed to be shown.

 

[lmackattack]

thanks jim!

 

[GN.2-6-8-0]

I'm assuming this was for passenger trains only ,freight consist wouldn't run in multible sections would they?

 

[UP2CSX]

Actually, they did, at least out West. It wasn't unusual for trains to be blocked in 100 car consists during the fruit rush, all bound for the same destination. These trains were all timetable freights and, if there was a power crunch, they'd sometimes have to run a second section when they rounded up more power. They'd run as second sections with the green flags or marker lights on both the SP and UP. An occasional Farmer John train would also run in two sections before the holidays. I'm sure it wasn't common in most places but second sections of schedule freight trains did occur.