Ditch Lights - Front Only or Front and Rear?


A

Alien

New Member
Is there any guidelines as to whether US locos have ditch lights on the front only or whether they have them on the front and rear? Does this vary between operating/owning company? Is it on the basis of the locos typical duties e.g. likely to be used on local services (with one loco)? I am particularly interested in Montana Rail Link and BNSF for my own modeling interests but would be willing in keeping the thread open to include any railroad for the purposes of general discussion.
 
Where they are required the rules dictate when they would be used. If a loco only travels hood forward it would only need them in the front. Most I've seen have had the ditch lights on front and back.
 
I would guess (& it is only a guess) it would depend on if the particular RR has the capability of turning the loco at the end of it's duty/run - otherwise I would imagine apart from the likes of Amtrak which run double ended trains that they would be on both ends of the loco.. Certainly most, but not all of the photo's of loco's that I have, have them at both ends, so maybe it is RR specific!

Hope this helps, although it probably won't lol...
 
The ditch lights are required if you wish to run over 20 mph over road crossings. Since most railroads want their trains to run over 20 mph typically on an engine intended for through freight (faster speeds) service you would have ditch lights on the front only, since the engine will normally be travelling with the front facing the direction of travel. On an engine used for switching industries on the line of road (an older 4 axle engine for instance), there may not be a place to turn the engine, so they'd probably have the ditch lights on both ends. There may also be engines normally assigned to work train service that would only have them on one end and engines used normally in yards working a hump may not have them at all. Since they're an added expense they're only gonna be put on an engine when/where it's normally gonna be used. In an unusual circumstance requiring the engine to be run without ditch lights you just can't exceed 20 mph over road crossings but you can run line speed in between crossings.
 
I don't see it in here but most of the NS Dash9's have ditch lights on both ends of the locomotives. I guess this is just in case there becomes the possibility the leader needs to be cut and the other unit is trailing with no place to turn it. Not a fun ride to say the least but you do what ya gotta do in an emergency.
 
MRL 290 has them on both ends but most of the other road power, SD70ACes and SD45s have them on the front. I think some if not all the GP9s and GP35s like 404 and 405 have them on both ends.
http://mrlblog.qstation.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/01-MRL-Power-Missoula-MT-9-26-09.jpg

I can't think of any 6 axle BNSF locos I've seen with ditchlites on both ends but some of the smaller 4 axle locos do. Several of the GP39M/E rebuilds have them on both ends. 2758 specifically because I built a model of that loco and my reference photos showed ditchlites on both ends.
 
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