Western Railroad Discussion > Oakway irony

Did you ever nootice hoow EMD built the SD60 with rings where the class lights would goo? Isn't it ironic that a loocamootive that was probly delivered w/ditch lights (OK, I'm probly wrong aboot that; leave me aloone!) would have the option of class lights? Doon't you think?

If I'm not mistake Conrails SD 60M's SD 70's and SD 80's all came with ditch lights and class lights.

EMD (Oakways) Delivered with class lights, no ditch lights.

badiron wrote:

> Did you ever nootice hoow EMD built the SD60 with rings where
> the class lights would goo?

The SD60 was introduced in 1984, when most locomotives were still
being built with classification lights. A year or two later,
several railroads started removing the lights. The Oakway SD60's
were built in late 1986, so it makes sense that they would still
have the "rings" for where class lights were meant go.

> Isn't it ironic that a loocamootive that was probly delivered
> w/ditch lights (OK, I'm probly wrong aboot that; leave me aloone!)

They weren't built with ditch lights. Most US railroads didn't
start applying ditch lights until the 1990's, and the lights didn't
become mandatory until about 1997, over a decade after the Oakways
were built.

> would have the option of class lights? Doon't you think?

Class lights and ditch lights serve entirely different purposes.
Ditch lights provide illumination and increase a locomotive's
visibility. Class lights indicated if a train is an extra,
unscheduled train (white), if there is a second section following
(green), or if the locomotive is on the end of a train (red).
So it's not that ironic. Conrail and Amtrak both received
locomotives that were built new with class lights and ditch lights.

Well, the Oakway SD60's were not delivered with ditch lights, but they were built with class lights. There was a nice article about these units in the July-August 1996 issue of Diesel Era magazine.
And regarding the reply about Conrail locomotives, the SD70's and SD70MAC's were not equiped with marker lights. And actually, the rest of the CR units that you see with red lights don't have class lights. The red lights are marker lights and thats what Conrail used on its locomotives (though some were equiped with regular class lights). The marker lights are 1 color only. Class lights have 3 colors, those being green, red (or is it yellow)and clear with there being a small lever to switch from lens to lens.

Bryan

Thanx for the (as always) accurate info Evan; I always thought the Oakways were built later in the 80's and into about 1990 and that ditch lights came along sooner. I was looking at a pic of EMDX 9089 and the rings in the nose (think about that...) reminded me of the story someone posted of an SP loco w/one red and one green class light during holiday season. Since basically *all* freights are extras since Amtrak, the hogger saw no harm in it. That was in the 70's and I remembered it as being not long after that (ten years or so before the Oakways or ditchlights) that classification lights began to disappear, from SP locos at least.

Conrail started receiving units in the early 80s with just the red marker lights instead of classification lights. Among the earliest CR fleets with the red lights were the B36-7's, C36-7's, and SD50's. Both NS and CSX reportedly have started removing these lights and, alas, clumsily plated over their mounting holes. And when they started eliminating them years ago, Santa Fe and CSX weren't much classier about plating over the class lights on their locomotives. (It wouldn't be so bad if the plate-overs were done with care!)