Dan--
Page 61 of Dean and Hanna's book states in a caption of a Ted Wickson photo--
"Guelph Junction...April 1960...1410, an FP9A outfitted with icicle breakers
and highway grade crossing safety headlight on the rooftop, heads Train 21 on
its way to Detroit from Toronto."
So Dean and Hanna cite the purpose of this light as being for "safety" i.e.
visual conspicuity at public crossings.
Note also that power normally assigned to "The Canadian" found itself working
other trains out of Toronto as well at this time.
Steve Lucas.
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "danieldellunto" <danieldellunto@...> wrote:
I think this night photo might clear up some misconceptions about the
intended use and angle of light/field of rotation coming from the
roof-mounted gyralights.
http://www.images.technomuses.ca/searchpf.php?id=57604&lang=en
The light beams wouldn't have been able to rotate along the line of the
carbody if they were making double circular patterns in the sky. It would
also pose the problem of blinding oncoming trains in meets. They were
probably for the "ooo, ahhh" factor for dome riders, and any additional
benefits from lineside people being able to see the train better would be
coincidental. Using them to spot icicles seems, at best, rather silly. Heck,
they might have gotten smashed by icicles a few times since the middle part
of the front icicle brakers is open.
The way I see it, if CP needed more lights for their locomotives for
increased visibility for the engine crew, they would have likely installed a
fixed light above the cab or a second light(or a gyralight) in the nose door,
or even removable ditch lights that CN was using on some of their trains out
west for more visibility.
Has anyone checked the Dean & Hanna CP roster book on this?
Dan
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Michael Salfi <mikesue.salfi@> wrote:
Just a clarification please, and I did see them in operation many times from
the dome car as I mentioned previously. The clarification, to the best of
my knowledge, is that each light oscillated in a circular pattern, and since
there were two lights, it appeared as a figure eight in the night sky,
rather than both lights moving in a figure 8 pattern. From an operational
point of view, it is much simpler to get a light to oscillate in a circular
pattern rather than a figure eight.
I am thankful I received a response to my actual question in the fourth
thread of this message, that they are, in fact, removable. In that thread,
John referred to ithe Mars light as a gyra light.
For a wikipedia explanation see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Light
Mike
