Throttle Hogg Wrote:
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> Way back at the time of the 1970 BN merger, merger
> partner Burlington Route had headlights mounted in
> the noses of most of it's low nose units, after a
> few years it was found that trainmen were getting
> severe burns from bumping into the nose mounted
> headlights and a program was started to move
> headlights up between the number boards. (And the
> BN ordered F-45's were ordered with headlights
> mounted between the number boards rather than in
> the nose door as they were in the GN ordered
> F-45's.) This was fine until the BN merged with
> the Santa Fe and a program was started to move
> headlights from between the number boards back to
> the noses in an effort to reduce glare and improve
> night vision.

The GN F45's (GN427-440 to BN 6600-6613) had high headlights as did the GN ordered BN delivered 6614-6625. The BN ordered F45's 6626-6645 had low headlights.

The GN, NP and SP&S all had high headlights and CB&Q and C&S had low headlights prior to merger. After the merger all BN ordered locomotives had high headlights except the aforementioned F45s.

The CB&Q and pre BN C&S had four headlights, the top being red and white oscillating lights on EMD units. When BN removed two of the headlights they usually left the low normal headlights. However I am currently looking at a photo of an ex CB&Q GP35 (BN 2539) with the low lights removed. The photo is dated 7/9/74. All CB&Q and pre-BN C&S GE units had high headlights and low oscillating red and white lights.

Much later BN began changing to low mounted headlights and removing the high headlights. While this might have been Santa Fe influence I'm not sure. Santa Fe standard had been high headlights and I don't know at what date either railroad started moving headlights in existing locomotives.

In my experience the high headlights shine farther down the track which compliment the ditch lights. The nose mounted headlights are better in fog or snow but light up almost nothing that the ditch lights don't cover. I've never been burned by low headlights but they are blinding when trying to board a locomotive. Ideally I'd like to see four headlights with a low/high switch to allow the engineer a choice for different conditions. This would help the problem of lights burning out en route too.