Western Railroad Discussion > Low Lunar Signal

This post is for the earlier question about lunars.
Last summer while at the east end of Trego siding along the Black Rock Desert, they were storing loaded and unloaded pipe flat cars to be unloaded in Gerlach, Nevada for the Ruby gas pipeline.
At the west end of Trego siding there were about seven loaded cars, the local took several, not all, west to Gerlach.
Several hours later the local returned with unloaded flats stopping at the east end of Trego.
With a trainman on the ground the power switch was thrown for the siding and the dispatcher gave the local a low lunar to back the unloaded cars into the east end of Trego siding, where the local left them and headed back east toward Winnemucca.
First time I got a photo of a lunar indication.

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Love that third shot! Very nice

They are not really white. There is a blue tint in them, hence "Lunar".


Nudge

spnudge Wrote:
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> They are not really white. There is a blue tint in
> them, hence "Lunar".
>
>
> Nudge


Or at least they aren't supposed to be white. :)

I've see a couple lunar signal's that could only be described as white!

Kevin Morgan
Arvada, CO
ColoradoRailfan.com

I can assure you though, the lens the light passes through is bright blue.

Pump

And for those of us of a certain age...I remember adding bluing to the rinse water to make white clothes whiter!

(Old) Bruce



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/11 18:38 by BCutter.

Recall reading somewhere that the lunar indication shades toward blue to prevent confusion with a signal with a broken lens. Is this right?

Winston Hill

winstonhill Wrote:
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> Recall reading somewhere that the lunar indication
> shades toward blue to prevent confusion with a
> signal with a broken lens. Is this right?
>
> Winston Hill

I've read that also, most recently in a book on signaling. It would make sense, since the color of a typical incandescent bulb would be yellowish white.

BCutter Wrote:
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> And for those of us of a certain age...I remember
> adding bluing to the rinse water to make white
> clothes whiter!
>
> (Old) Bruce


Boy, are you showing your age. I know exactly what you mean.

JDE

colehour Wrote:
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> I've read that also, most recently in a book on
> signaling. It would make sense, since the color of
> a typical incandescent bulb would be yellowish
> white.

Remember, signalling started with oil lamps, which are even yellower than incandescent lamp bulbs. And they had lunar signals in those days also.

Look at the first photo and the color of the headlights and then the Lunar you can see what there talking about a light blued lens does to the color of the signal.

<<<<<I know exactly what you mean>>>>

Me too.

spnudge Wrote:
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> They are not really white. There is a blue tint in
> them, hence "Lunar".
>
>
> Nudge

Used to work with an S.P. Brakeman that would call "Green, with a little touch of blue in it" just after he came back up after a half hour on the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th unit in the consist. Always good to have a fireman when this guy worked with you on the head end.

SOB