New look GNER HST

Boy racer styling!

eat

Boy racer styling!

I wondered why the driver was sporting a Burberry baseball cap...

Adam

Looks bloody hideous to me!

Have to agree here, it looks bloody awful!

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Craig O'Brien gently breathed:

I like it.

The FGW fleet have been undergoing this mod for some time now, yet the only difference you'll see is when they are lit. Maybe this is a way for GNER depot staff to readily ID the modified one's more easily?

I and two fellow colleagues of EWS like it too.

Are the LEDS bright enough/able to be directed to act as the main driving lights, or are they just there for visibility?

Headlights aren't for the drivers benefit, they are for trackside workers to see a train coming at night and get out of the way before being squashed!

No they haven't. FGW have done a like-for-like replacement of the marker and tail lights with LEDs, but the headlights are the same. GNER had replaced the tail lights with LEDs a few years back, but the new mod is a complete replacement, with new headlights and combined marker/tail LEDs.

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 16:25:16 +0100, Daniel Bound wrote in , seen in uk.railway:

[...]

So they tell us. Which is why they now fit headlights which are so bright that they reflect back into your eyes off lineside foliage making it difficult to see, and which (at best) distract or (at worst) effectively blind drivers of oncoming trains for minutes at a time, meaning that those drivers can't actually see trackside workers who haven't reacted to the oncoming train.

The headlights now being fitted are dippable in the rest of Europe, to minimise the risk of distraction. In the UK, where we are supposedly so much more concerned about safety, they ain't.

And in the UK drivers complaining about the intensity of the lights are told they don't know what they're talking about. After all, what would a train driver know about the effect of train headlights? They only drive the damn trains, after all.

Am I bitter about this? Yes, I am. And so are a lot of other train drivers.

"Ross" wrote

Agreed absolutely I await the first instance of a major incident where a train driver claims to have missed a signal because of the intensity of these lights. I wonder what the response would be?

John.

worst)

Totally accept what your saying, but the lights were in drastic need of improvement.

Older headlights in bright day light are virtually invisable, the (ever decreasing sized) Yellow End is more noticable.

158's? Terrible! The grime on the front lens doesnt help.

The 3rd cyclops lamp is a waste of time on 170's. The glare from the orange destination indicator is better.

Dipped headlights sounds like a great idea, so I guess that rules them out then.

Oh no, It looks bloody marvellous. Hope the rest of the train benefits from an upgrade.

Would polaroid glasses help ? Certainly would if the headlamp beams were polarised at 90 degrees. Regardz, Baz

Any chance of somebody posting photos to a.b.p.r. ? Cheerz, Baz

[big snip]> Totally accept what your saying, but the lights were in drastic need of

I agree, but the "intermediate" type - much brighter headlights fitted to the original holders - were noticeably brighter (too bright in the case of some units, 153.325 being a case in point).

The new group standard headlights, as per Voyagers and Freightliner

66s, are simply appalling.

That's only a marker light, although I really don't know why they started using them unless they were copying the European standard lighting pattern.

Hey, I'm the cynic here. ;-)

In article , Ross writes

Um, that used to be the case, yes. But it's my understanding that at some point there was a change of philosophy, with - in particular - the headlamps being bright enough that retro-reflective signs could be used instead of lighting them all.

Consider it done! I have resisted the temptation to add furry dice and blue neon lights under the fueltanks!

Adam