Headlight intensity

[Christmas]

I'd be interested to know what drivers think of the very bright headlights fitted to most new trains.
Do they cause safety issues when approaching a station or signal with a train on the opposite side with headlights shining?
I know that they are permitted but the intensity seems to be far too bright, especially when it is dark.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

I thought the headlight on the secondman's side was dimmed slightly, or am I imagining this?

 

[_toommm_]

I thought the headlight on the secondman's side was dimmed slightly, or am I imagining this?

It is at night/dawn/dusk, with the opposite in daylight.

 

[martin2345uk]

The lights on the trains that run the Gospel Oak to Barking line are dazzlingly bright to my eyes when passing them at night!

 

[driver9000]

The older style day/night single lights are fine for oncoming brightness but the current megabright day and night twin lights can be awful although the night setting is dimmer than the day setting. I especially find the class 68 to be particularly bad coming towards me at night.

 

[Christmas]

I thought the headlight on the secondman's side was dimmed slightly, or am I imagining this?

On older stock yes but on the new trains like the 385s, 68s, 800s it's like staring at the sun!
I'm concerned about drivers being dazzled by oncoming trains that they may themselves have an incident.
Regarding the day and night setting, many drivers clearly ignore this instruction and have their lights on 'full' at all times. Very selfish.

 

[karlbbb]

Do the headlights not have a beam pattern in the same manner as a car? That is, with a cutoff pattern that prevents blinding oncoming vehicles? Or is it just the equivalent of "main beam" to give the most distance and visibility as possible?

 

[voyagerdude220]

I think that the main headlights on 195s appear to be much brighter compared to ones on older stock such as 150/156s etc.

 

[Christmas]

Do the headlights not have a beam pattern in the same manner as a car? That is, with a cutoff pattern that prevents blinding oncoming vehicles? Or is it just the equivalent of "main beam" to give the most distance and visibility as possible?

They don't appear to have anything like this. But of course the point of train headlights have never been for drivers to see where they are going, they are for P-way and S&T, any track workers, to see oncoming trains.

 

[edwin_m]

They don't appear to have anything like this. But of course the point of train headlights have never been for drivers to see where they are going, they are for P-way and S&T, any track workers, to see oncoming trains.

Lineside signs are retro-reflective, not separately illuminated, so headlights are needed for drivers to see them in the dark. They should know them anyway from route knowledge, but if that could be relied on absolutely then they probably wouldn't have bothered to provide the signs in the first place.

 

[Geoff DC]

The old truck driver's trick of closing one eye when dazzled by bright headlights and then opening the other once the hazardous light has passed means you keep your night vision with the other eye.

 

[43066]

I'd be interested to know what drivers think of the very bright headlights fitted to most new trains.
Do they cause safety issues when approaching a station or signal with a train on the opposite side with headlights shining?
I know that they are permitted but the intensity seems to be far too bright, especially when it is dark.

Far too bright generally. 700s and some freight locos seem particularly bad for this (quite a few 66s seem to have been fitted with new light clusters).

Do the headlights not have a beam pattern in the same manner as a car? That is, with a cutoff pattern that prevents blinding oncoming vehicles?

No, it’s a constant beam. Albeit older trains have night lighting (drivers side fully lit, second man’s side dimmer*). Modern stock is equal intensity both sides but with a dimmer night setting.

*this doesn’t work very well on four track railways like part of the route I sign, where you have Slow slow, fast fast layout, with trains on the up fast dazzling trains on the down slow on the “wrong” side, and vice versa.

 

[Christmas]

The old truck driver's trick of closing one eye when dazzled by bright headlights and then opening the other once the hazardous light has passed means you keep your night vision with the other eye.

This sounds like a great tip GeoffDC, I'll try it when I'm out in the car as modern car headlights are just as dazzling as trains.
There's still plenty of skeleton boards and non-retro-reflective boards dotted all over the country, and of course just as much missing signage!

 

[skyhigh]

It is at night/dawn/dusk, with the opposite in daylight.

Not on new trains. They are both the same brightness.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Nov 2022 ==

Do they cause safety issues when approaching a station or signal with a train on the opposite side with headlights shining?

LED signals are also brighter than the sun, so it headlights don't really interfere. You also have provision such as AWS and if you're expecting the signal to be a cautionary one you would drive according to that, until you can clearly see the relevant aspect displayed.

 

[43066]

LED signals are also brighter than the sun

Too bright by far at night! The hotspots don’t always seem to work too well during the day, either.

 

[66701GBRF]

Too bright by far at night! The hotspots don’t always seem to work too well during the day, either.

Or during mist/fog.

 

[DaveTM]

Do the headlights not have a beam pattern in the same manner as a car? That is, with a cutoff pattern that prevents blinding oncoming vehicles? Or is it just the equivalent of "main beam" to give the most distance and visibility as possible?

Yes, they are designed with carefully shaped reflectors to direct the light in a generally forward and slightly downward direction so that it is visible to track workers etc without being blinding to oncoming drivers and without wasting light into the sky

That all works nicely until the first time a train interacts with a deer or cow or suicide or etc. Going back to GCSE maths, if the internals of the light unit are dislodged by only 1 degree, then at 100m in front of the train, the beam will be offset by 100*sin(1) = 1.75m. That beam that was designed to stay below the oncoming driver's eyeline is now shining straight at him.

In your car this would be picked up at your annual MOT examination. Going by what I see in front of my cab window, nobody in our fleet cares. Some of our units light up the underside of over bridges nicely!

 

[Driver2B]

I'd be interested to know what drivers think of the very bright headlights fitted to most new trains.
Do they cause safety issues when approaching a station or signal with a train on the opposite side with headlights shining?
I know that they are permitted but the intensity seems to be far too bright, especially when it is dark.

I've never experienced any problems with oncoming trains having headlights too bright, even though some trains on my routes do have brighter LED headlights. As drivers, we don't usually drive on line of sight, so I've experienced many more disruptive and uncomfortable experiences driving on roads with oncoming vehicles having bright lights, rather than on trains.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Nov 2022 ==

Do the headlights not have a beam pattern in the same manner as a car? That is, with a cutoff pattern that prevents blinding oncoming vehicles? Or is it just the equivalent of "main beam" to give the most distance and visibility as possible?

Some newer trains have a main beam fitted. On my TOC, it's not permitted to be used but has not been disabled, either.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Nov 2022 ==

LED signals are also brighter than the sun, so it headlights don't really interfere. You also have provision such as AWS and if you're expecting the signal to be a cautionary one you would drive according to that, until you can clearly see the relevant aspect displayed.

LED signals are very bright and do blind us until we pass the signal. I find it uncomfortable, but due to route knowledge is not a safety risk as I know my routes and do not usually run on line of sight.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Nov 2022 ==

Non-railway workers are often surpirsed to hear that when I drive older trains, in the dark, I can't really see anything in front of my train unless it's lit up (signal, station) or reflective (lineside boards, ie signs). The sight of anything else is less than just the thinking distance for braking (ie, if I saw anything, I wouldn't even have time to move the brake handle before hitting it).

 

[Deepgreen]

Speaking not as a train driver, but as a passenger and ex-railway employee, my view is that they are ridiculously bright (and show no signs of levelling-off). Light pollution is a wider issue and cheap LEDs now make it depressingly easy for everyone to have extreme lighting and pay no attention to the environmental cost. For trains, a fraction of the brightness of modern lamps would be adequate to see reflective signs and to be seen by track workers. It feeds on itself - brighter and brighter lights make people less aware of dimmer (but still perfectly adequate) ones and so the cycle escalates. Even with lights far brighter than current ones (God forbid) train drivers usually cannot stop in time if a hazard is illuminated.

As an aside, I think that road vehicle headlights should be banned in areas with street lighting, and just use marker/side lights, as drivers do not need them to see with, only to be seen. The huge level of light pollution could be cut greatly. Also, of all the types of transport, the railways are where headlight beams can/could be very accurately set to avoid dazzle, but they are not. I also speak here as an astrophotographer with the attendant dislike of light pollution.