Does this ancient dinosaur not have any headlights? I can’t see a blasted thing in here without the cab light on.
Unfortunately, in the good old days, the requirements for lights were a lot less as you can tell by all the traction in the Northern Transpennine Route. Trim would be able to tell you more but headlights were not a requirement just marker lights which are a lot dimmer in comparison. Obviously now the requirements are different and so the Class 47s that run on the mainline currently have a headlight retrofitted as shown below. (not my images) 1. No headlight 2. Headlight circled in red
The West Somerset class 47 does actually have the retrofitted headlight. It's still more of a bright marker light. I'll just put this here. Not a 47 but a 125mph HST at night! The camera's exposure system probably doesn't help but it's still quite dark!
My dad was a driver on the Trans Pennine route in steam days. All they had on the engine was a couple of oil lamps which were not intended for or capable of illuminating the line ahead. Train crew needed to see signals which were also lit by oil lamps. A big headlight on the engine would make the signals harder to see and would spoil the driver's night vision. In TSW though, the Trans Pennine route does seem very dark at night, it's much easier to see where you are on the Tees Valley for example.
Class 47/WSR have a headlight beacuse nowadays its obligated to have brigher lights then the old days. NTP is based in the 1980's and the WSR is a tourist line at this time. So thats why the 47/NTP doesn't have a (extra) headlight.
Also when it began snowing and collecting on the cars I was reminded of that train from Anastasia only thing missing was the steam engine.
