Headlights and taillights

Trains drive on rails, cars on roads – this is obvious. At night and in poor visibility however, dangerous mix-ups can occur. With the increase in road traffic, the frequency of accidents rose, in particular on parallel lanes and tracks, which is why signal lights were introduced in the 1960’s.

Three lights at the start...

Whilst a car is characterised by two adjacent lights when viewed from the front, another third signal is on the locomotive or the leading rail and control cars of trains: It is positioned like the tip of a triangle in the centre above the other two. Together they form the headlight that looks the same in almost all of Europe. The electric signal lights on railway vehicles are regulated in the UIC-Kodex 534 (signals and signal supports of locomotives, railcars and multiple units).

.....red lights signal the end of the train.

The rear view of a railway set is also unmistakable. The last vehicle of a main or secondary train is fitted with the train rear-end signal. According to the ‘Signalbuch’, there are two definitions of what a train rear-end signal can look like:

1. two continuous red lights arranged on a transverse axis at the same height above the buffers, or
2. two rectangular reflective signs with white triangles at the sides and one red triangle each at the top and bottom on a transverse axis at the same height above the buffers.

Electrical lights instead of petroleum lamps

Today the lighting is of course electrical. It’s hard to imagine that this wasn’t always the case. In the early days of the railway and up to about 1980, train rear signals consisted of attachable panels or signal lanterns, so-called upper carriage lanterns. These were mounted on lateral signalling supports on the last wagons so that they could be seen from the front and the back. By doing this, the whole of the train could be observed by the locomotive or by the elevated train driver’s workstation in the luggage wagon. The lamps used petroleum as fuel.