Southern class 313 query

[pompeyfan]

Can anyone confirm wether southerns class 313 are receiving HID headlights? I think I noticed a 313 earlier with a bright blue headlight...?

 

[nxea321446]

id like to see the 313s fitted with 377 style headlight clusters

 

[Southern313]

Yes they are. Part of a small modification they are going through at the moment. They stay on whenever the unit travels through gaps whereas the old headlamps simply went off for the period of time the unit was off the juice, so there is one plus! Other minor mod is a new light in the cab showing if the MA is running.

 

[455driver]

Other minor mod is a new light in the cab showing if the MA is running.

So the opposite to the 455s where the light comes on when the MA fails!
Brilliant.

 

[Fincra5]

Would be far too easy for you drivers if everything was the same

 

[pompeyfan]

Ah thanks for clearing that up, I wonder what the gain is from doing it? Illuminating the lineside better or earlier detection for p-way crews...

Another quick question, what's the MA?

 

[swt_passenger]

MA will be Motor - Alternator.

(Produces AC from DC, a rotating machine, modern technology would be an inverter.)

 

[A-driver]

So the opposite to the 455s where the light comes on when the MA fails!
Brilliant.

If that confuses you then I probably shouldn't tell you that southerns 455s have a light which is on to tell you that the MA is running...so the opposite of a SWT 455.

 

[Southern313]

If I remember rightly from the brief posted in the notice case these new headlights are supposed to be more reliable and therefore cheaper in the long run compared to the old filament ones (some of which you'd have been better putting a tealight in the front) Added bonus for us is they do light up the line side a lot better. Within the headlamp there is a mirror (probably a more correct term for it) that directs the light both left and right, to me it looks like a couple of Second World War searchlights that have got stuck overlapping!