Lights on NSW Steam Locomotives by Colin Hussey.

All engines were fitted with 2 marker lights on the engine & tender. These were of a metal box type, with a single light globe inside. A turn down type lever was located on the outside of the light, in order to turn the marker light off.

A square, brass handle was under the box which was turned to bring a red shade across the bulb when required. Red lights were always set on the rear of the engine, in which direction the engine was travelling when working as a light engine, to & from a depot & on to its train.

Red lights all round were shown on shunting engines in all yards, as per diesels.

When working trains, the marker lights on the end attached to the train were to be turned off at all times. When double heading, all marker lights on the 2nd engine were also to be turned off.

During the steam era trains working out of Sydney to country destinations were to use a combination of the marker lights, & headlight on the front of the engine (leading) to indicate the line in which it was heading to. This also applied to Passenger trains out of Sydney terminal with 40 & 46 class engines. But was abandoned in the late 60’s, also it was not mandatory for steam engines to display these lights after the abandonment of destination type lighting.

The reason why this applied only to Steam, 40 & the 46cl was that the headlight had a separate lower wattage bulb when in dim position, as against a diesel that had twin sealed beam lights that were brighter than most steam headlights on full beam.

Northern line trains. Headlight on dim, with one marker light only turned on, on the fireman’s side.

Southern line trains. Headlight on dim with one marker light only turned on, on the driver’s side.

Western line. Headlight off, with both marker lights turned on.

(The above lights were also used on the Sydney Suburban electrics. With the Illawarra line sharing the same destination light codes as the southern line. The Bankstown line had two whites in a vertical line on the drivers side)

These light arrangements remained whilst the loco was on the trains. If there was an engine change along the route, the new engine usually adopted the marker light all on situation.

On single lines where steam operated, & hand changing of staff tokens were taken whilst the train was in motion, marker lights were to be turned off & only the locomotive headlight, with the light turned to dim, inside station limits. This was because the marker light level on the engines smoke box was generally in line with the signalman’s eyes, & the reflection from the marker lights could cause a temporary blindness, & had been known to cause the signalman to drop the staff.

The marker light shade was constructed out of convex type glass in 2 or 3 ridges, making for a magnifying affect of the light.

Although, I do remember seeing both the 40 & coal burning 59 cl with all marker lights on. The reason for this would probably be because these engines had there marker lights placed high on the front & certainly would not have had the same affect as the other engines, that protruded out from the smoke box.

While this was the regulations, it was not always enforced, & much depended on the location, as was the case in other safe working issues. On the Main North between Singleton & Werris Creek, the signalmen would step back & not change the staff if a train was seen with the marker lights turned on. Usually the marker lights were turned off at Singleton on the down, as there was a single line electric staff sections that provided no opportunity to turn the lights off on the run.

On the western lines beyond Bathurst it did not seem to be an issue. However, on the west, signalmen would step back, & refuse to exchange the staff if the train appeared to be going too fast, above the allowed speed. On the North, the signalmen would not exchange the staff with marker lights on but, did not care about what speed you were doing. When I first went to Werris Creek in 1969, I soon learnt that taking the staff, with a cane hoop at 50mph on passenger trains was common. Some drivers could do it at faster speeds. Many a time I had welts of bruising on the arm from this.

On Single Lines, when trains were placed in a loop to allow another train to cross it from either direction, when the train was in clear of both ends of the loop, the fireman was to turn crossing lights on the front of the engine in the following manner, & the guard was to place the same lights on the rear of the train.

A white marker light was to be displayed on the side of the engine/van of the clear running line, & red marker light on the side of the engine/van to indicate the loop or line being occupied.  IN the case of a Light Engine the fireman is to turn the lights on the front & rear of the engine.

This meant that on the Northern line where the marker lights were turned off, the fireman had to turn on the marker lights, to show a crossing indication, & the headlight was to be turned to the full off position.

If a train was too long for a loop, two (2) red lamps were to be displayed on the engine & van, & the train meant to run through was to be stopped at the point of the train showing the red lights, & advised of the situation, & then to bring his train to a stand in case of the line being fowled.

The crossing lights were a requirement on all trains working over single lines right up to when WB working was introduced.  After WB working came into operation, only normal white marker lights were displayed on the front of the trains locomotive.

At first this caused a lot of concern to enginemen, as after years of operating under a system that had proved safe, there was suddenly no indication of what was going on.  Initially nothing was in the regulations to cover it, & as there was no way that the driver recieved the "in the loop" clear green hand signal from the guard or signalman, thus no crossing lights could be shown or 2 red ones put on, drivers of passing trains, would bring there trains to a stand to determine the problem, as per the regulations.

It did not take the SRA long to realise the problem, & their response was simple, as there was no longer a guard to indicate the position of the trains rear, normal lights were to be displayed on the engines front.  They argued that as most area's were CTC, the track circuit in the main box showed if the points were clear, therefore no need for crossing lights. 

At crossing loops where the fireman/ 2nd person admitted a train to a loop as per the operations at locations like, Burilda, Watermark, & Turrawan on the WCK - Narrabri section, it was his job to signal the driver when the train was in clear before reversing the points to normal position.

As well as the head & marker lights several engines had additional lights for the benefit of the crews.

Cab Lights: On all the older engines with the protal, type cabs, 30cl & 35cl etc, there was a light behind the lubricator, to illuminate the small glass view holes to set the oil flow, on engines without a dynamo, a flare lamp was set behind the lubricator. Lights were behind the water gauges & a cab light. To turn the cab light off, you unscrewed it until connection was broken.

On 36, 38, 57, 58 and 59 class engines, in addition to the normal cab lights, there was a light under the cab roof lip, (ceiling) just behind the main cab frame. I think that the 38’s also may have had a light above the driver as well, that had a separate switch for it.

Other Lights. 38 & 60 classes had a tender light to assist with the sighting of water as the tender filled. On other engines, if you did not own a torch, & no yard light was near, a flare lamp was used. On the photo of 3610 & 3652, note the wiggly lights on the rear engine. This is the flicker from the flare lamp as the fireman walks along the tender catwalk to take water.

36, 38 & 60 class all had step lights on both sides of the engines.. Garratts also had an additional light in the space between the rear of the cab, & the entry into the coal bunker. This was to give a safety light into this area for the fireman to pull the tender slides.

On the oil burning 55 & 59 class, there was a light positioned near the top of the smokestack, to indicate to the fireman the level of smoke.

Garratts also had this light.

During a skim reading of Craig Mackay’s book on the 57 & 58cl, I found a mention made that the 57 were also fitted with such a light. I would assume that this feature may also have been present on 58cl as well.

As a result of this, I went through several of the books that I have that show photos of the big engines. As a result this is not quite as clear cut as one would assume.

My first discovery was of the well known photo that shows high front on view of 5805 at the 1955 Centennial celebrations/exhibition at Central Station. In this photo, a box type light fitting can be seen between the injector clack valves, just behind where the smoke box & boiler were joined..

I then started a search for evidence of other engines so fitted. At the outset it was clear that the 57’s in there early style, appeared to not have the light. It seems to also show that these lights seemed to be only evident from around the 1955 mark.

Photo’s of some of the 58cl set aside at Enfield, & the 2 at Chullora, do not show the lights.

The light on the 58 cl seemed to be very flat on the boiler top, whereas the 57 seemed to be slightly higher on a bracket.

I found the following engines to have the lights in accord with photographs & the date of the photo next to it, in brackets

5701 (1958); 5706 (1958); 5707 (1956); 5708 (1958); 5711 (1959); 5713 (1959);

5714 (1959); 5716 (1958); 5717 (1958); 5719 (1960); 5720 (1958); 5723 (1958); 5724 (1957); 5725 (1958)

5804 (1955); 5805 (1955); 5806 (1957). With the exception of 5805 which shows the light very clearly near the boiler ring, photo’s of 04 & 06, seem to show that the light could be at the front of the smokestack.

As I go through more books I will try & update the list. Judging by the dates listed, it may be assumed that the lights may have only be fitted to engines that received some sort of workshop attention from around 1954/55 onwards, but that IS only an assumption. Whilst it appears that those engines with these lights from photographic evidence were in service during the 2nd half of the 50’s, there is one photo of 5704 in 1960, that definitely shows no such light

The other thing is, that I have not seen any night shots of the big engines to be able to determine any lights other than the head cab & marker lights. Likewise the smokestack light is not visible of a few shots that show the marker lights working in the daylight.

It is interesting that feature although in some ways useful was only added later in their service life. To be only able to see the density of the smoke was not always a good indication of firing practices, as it also depended much on the type of coal used on the engine.

Highly volatile Northern coal with little ash content allowed for minimal ash on the grates, & as a result, it was not always possible to keep a good fire, as the ash went through the grates instead of building up a bed. I experienced this on a couple of occasions out of Broadmeadow. With this type of coal, you usually had to use more to get the bed, thus smoke was unavoidable.