Talk:Train lights

Make it more world wide.
I have tried to include some British stuff. The classification/marker lights which is currently talks about only applies to the USA and Canada and not the UK. I Like The british Rail Class 483 (talk) 20:52, 23 April 2023 (UTC)


 * It was so poorly written I had no choice but to revert it. Please also review WP:RS and don't ever use Quora or a forum discussion as a reference, because neither is anything close to a reliable source. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:55, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * @Trainsandotherthings I will rewrite it better. I Like The british Rail Class 483 (talk) 06:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You basically wrote the same thing full of grammar errors. I have taken the liberty of rewriting. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 11:52, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the article is now a mess. It used to be just North-America-centric without saying so. But now, some parts of the article are specific to North America, some parts of it are specific to other places, and most of the parts don't say which locale they're talking about.
 * By the way, the lack of "true headlights" in the UK is not "despite" their use in the USA. It's because of the completely different set-up of British railways. Railway lines in the UK are, by law, protected by fences, so there's less need to see the track ahead at night. Dricherby (talk) 19:33, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
 * As mentioned above, UK law requires railways (other than tramways and certain light railways) to be fenced. Road vehicles have headlamps both to be seen and to see by. Unlike car drivers, train drivers don't need to steer around curves or watch for hazards, so don't need to illuminate what's ahead. An oncoming train will be on a different track, so doesn't need to make itself visible. In the days when semaphore signals were commonplace in the UK, their aspects were displayed at night by means of an oil lamp shining through a piece of coloured glass. Oil lamps are not as bright as electric lamps, and the coloured glass reduced the brightness further. A powerful headlamp could easily overwhelm the relatively feeble signal lamp, creating a potentially dangerous situation.
 * Trains in the UK typically had one or more lamps at the front so that signallers and station staff could distinguish one train from another - the lamps were arranged in various positions around the front of the locomotive, and sometimes had coloured glasses - usually green or purple, but never red. At the rear there would be one or more tail lamps, which always had red glass. Hence, the direction in which a stationary train was next going to move could be identified by the colour of the lamps - red: away from you; anything else: towards you. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:10, 4 August 2023 (UTC)