Lights on Guard’s vans We were asked to put rear lights onto some guard’s vans this month. Apparently guard’s vans had three rear lights in a triangular pattern. On a normal single or double track line all three would be red. However on a four track line, if the train had been turned onto the slow line then the guard was supposed to change the right hand lamp (looking from the rear) to white. This was so that a faster train approaching on the fast line would know the train ahead was on the slow. Many a guard did not make this change and were awoken by the angry whistle of an express train driver who had needlessly applied his brakes !
Similarly if the goods train was on the fast line the left hand lamp would be changed to white so an approaching train on the slow line would know the situation.
Here are two of the three vans showing two configurations. These lights are unfortunately expensive as they have very fine wires for easy concealment and there is a fair amount of installation work. They are designed to work on a DCC layout and are on all the time but if required a decoder could be added to control the lights singly or as a group. Anti-flicker circuitry is installed. The lights stay on for about 30 seconds after losing power. They would also work on a DC layout but their brightness would depend on the speed of the train.
It was not easy to photograph the vans - trying to get the lights to show other than in pitch blackness was a bit tricky. They do show up well in a normally lit room
