supervc-10
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Seems odd to me. I didn't think there was any time where a train would be moving under its own power without lighting!
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Yellow warning panels - reflections?
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MarkWiles
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To be honest, what is the problem with both lights and yellow paint? I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that trains with yellow fronts are putting passengers off travelling, and given livery and branding are about getting people to use a service, I can't see why the trendy marketing wonks are being encouraged to remove yellow fronts from new trains just because they can. Once you are on board the interior colour scheme is more important, the yellow front is not a consideration.
I can't help thinking that at some point some walker will get mown down by a non-yellow fronted train on a footpath crossing where low sunlight has rendered the lights less visible, and a black painted front is lacking contrast against the background scenery, and m'learned friends in wigs will be quick to latch onto the lack of yellow fronts being an issue even if everything else was correct. There are a lot of rural foot crossings and farm crossings with only the user's eyes to protect them, and the yellow front can be an important additional aid for non-professionals when having to cross the line.
I can't help thinking that at some point some walker will get mown down by a non-yellow fronted train on a footpath crossing where low sunlight has rendered the lights less visible, and a black painted front is lacking contrast against the background scenery, and m'learned friends in wigs will be quick to latch onto the lack of yellow fronts being an issue even if everything else was correct. There are a lot of rural foot crossings and farm crossings with only the user's eyes to protect them, and the yellow front can be an important additional aid for non-professionals when having to cross the line.
K.o.R
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I have seen trains coming through Portsmouth with no lights on at all on more than one occasion.
It doesn't seem to be a problem in France. You don't hear news stories every day over there about track workers being killed because they didn't see the train.
This graph is from 2017 and shows how people have died on the railways that year. Bare in mind that the French rail system in general is less safe. Naturally, trespassers are killed the most. Then level crossings, then the passengers themselves. And in 4th, with much less deaths than the other three, railway workers (although this does not just include track workers).
At night, when most deaths should occur, yellow fronts are pointless. Unless it is a moonlit night, you won't be able to see the yellow, but you'll definitely be able to see the blindingly bright LED headlights with ease. On trains with worse headlights, keep the yellow. As somebody said, you could see it before the old incandescent lights. But new trains? Get rid of it. There's no point in the yellow front anymore.
alxndr
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I was heavily skeptical about this when it was announced (I may even have posted in previous threads about it) but I'm starting to think that I was, perhaps, being a bit hasty in my judgement. I'm yet to work around non-yellow fronted trains, but I do find that I notice the more powerful lights before the yellow now.
From a distance you can't see the yellow behind the bright white lights anyway. Previously it was the yellow you'd see more. I could tell from a distance whether it was a First blue liveried HST or a GWR green liveried one as the arrangement of yellow on the front was different (GWR green being the fractionally more visible one as a larger block of colour).
From a distance you can't see the yellow behind the bright white lights anyway. Previously it was the yellow you'd see more. I could tell from a distance whether it was a First blue liveried HST or a GWR green liveried one as the arrangement of yellow on the front was different (GWR green being the fractionally more visible one as a larger block of colour).
irish_rail
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Oh yes France , where you can just walk across the tracks at gare de lyon and the drivers don't wear any uniform whatsoever when trackside. A real Bastian of safety. UK has safest railway in Europe for a reason
Fincra5
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Depends on the train. For example 313s, its all a manual Switch (Off - Tail - Head/Marker - Marker) in a radial switch. 377's you can set manually to the same positions or have it set to "Auto" where the Headlights/ Markers will illuminate when the drivers key is on and switch to tail lights when the drivers key is turned off.
But you can't rely on not checking. Some drivers don't use Auto Lights (a lot at Eastbourne Depot for some reason) and others, like myself, do.
I used to do this too, when I knew there was a HST arriving at Kingham on the long approach from the Hereford end I would always try and see the livery. But that's not the point.
In my opinion, we should have kept yellow ends when brighter headlights came in. Do the Class 800s on GWR have the same headlights as the TPE 802s? If so, TPE should paint their units' yellow ends on ASAP as on GWR headlights and yellow ends can work. And that's not from a aesthetic point of view; it's the point of view that it is physically possible to paint yellow on the front of a train with bright headlights.
-Peter
I tend to agree - it's just another step away from the integrated network feel. If I started making a fuss just because I hate the way trains have been painted I'd have been boycotting the railways since network south-east days.
I also find it a bit disconcerting when I'm on a platform that some electric unit sneaks up on me from nowhere with its headlights hidden below eye-level. Hopefully somebody has done the research though and established that it's all fine.
MarkWiles
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I wasn't so much worried about the track worker who has to undergo full training - I did the old PTS certificate when they were introduced, and there is a lot of management time devoted to track worker safety which has paid off. After all just a few years ago we were routinely killing track workers to the extent they barely registered a few column inches in the local chipwrap, yet the other week when there was the sad deaths of two workers in Wales it even got a mention in the House of Commons, which if nothing else shows the constant vigilance and training, plus management efforts in health and safety at work, must be having a measurable effect.
My concern is the non professional who finds themselves trackside. The farm worker on a rural route who has to use a farm crossing. Someone using a footpath crossing in an urban area where there is no warning provision or telephone, in an area where lighting is everywhere. Or the family using one of our local footpath crossings where headlights can be obscured by lineside hedges. In these cases a yellow front IN ADDITION TO lighting can be a valuable additional safety feature, helping a train to stand out against the dark natural environment, or the urban background. These footpath crossings and farm crossings are very common and the users are not PTS trained. Of course the yellow end won't be visible at night, but equally lighting can be diminished by bright sunlight, or confused with roadside lighting. I know from using local level crossings here in Wales the yellow front of the local 158s is often seen before the lights due to hedgerows, but the point is not that lights are better than yellow paint, or vice versa, but that for the sake of a pot of paint, both are even better - and that lighting isn't the be all and end all.
One final thing - Irish trains have always had better lighting that their UK counterparts, with roof and cab mounted spotlights being fitted from the 1960s onwards. Yet Ireland and Northern Ireland started painting the fronts of their trains with a yellow warning panel from the mid-1990s onwards and all Irish trains have both high intensity lighting and yellow fronts on both sides of the border. Why would Ireland mandate yellow paint on the front when their trains already had headlights that would put many a lighthouse to shame if it wasn't seen as a useful, belt and braces feature in a country which also has a large number of unmanned user worked farm and foot crossings?
alxndr
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I think maybe you've missed the point that I was trying to make, perhaps I wasn't very clear.
My point is that yellow ends do work and was easily noticed, as evidenced by being able to tell the livery from a distance, but with the Class 800s it's not the yellow that's noticed at all. I probably wouldn't even be able to tell from a distance that the front was yellow behind the headlights.
Unless the headlights fail the yellow is no longer necessary (and honestly, I really did think I'd be the last person to say that when the news first came out).
Great post, and welcome to the forum by the way Mark.
I am in no way qualified to talk about this but this is somewhat similar to the Jubilee line trains refurb. Handrails were changed from yellow with a dark turquoise background to light grey with a white background and although they appear to be much less visible and almost blend in, there were some sort of stats to show the new colours are actually more contrasting. I can't remember where I saw this so it may be complete waffle but I'll try to find it.
Anyway i have no experience on the track so I couldn't speak from it but perhaps it's a similar case of colours actually being just as visible or not having a major difference according to the statistics/science of it but then actually being much harder to see in reality. Wasn't there something about the yellow being worse with bright headlights as it doesn't contrast them as well? I personally don't see what harm a yellow front does, and lots of new stock appears to have kept it.
Anyway i have no experience on the track so I couldn't speak from it but perhaps it's a similar case of colours actually being just as visible or not having a major difference according to the statistics/science of it but then actually being much harder to see in reality. Wasn't there something about the yellow being worse with bright headlights as it doesn't contrast them as well? I personally don't see what harm a yellow front does, and lots of new stock appears to have kept it.
The same debate all over again... surely if yellow front ends were that safety critical all the trains in Europe would have them. If there are safety issues in the UK with or without yellow front ends while there are none in France (where the front ends are black), surely something must be wrong with track worker safety in the UK, going much deeper than just the colour of the paint on the front of a train.
But then again the UK being such a nanny state certainly doesn’t help in teaching people early on about danger. Associating track worker safety primarily with the front colour of a train certainly is choosing the simple solution and putting the issue elsewhere.
But then again the UK being such a nanny state certainly doesn’t help in teaching people early on about danger. Associating track worker safety primarily with the front colour of a train certainly is choosing the simple solution and putting the issue elsewhere.
Bull****.
It’s interesting to see people considering the UK railways as safe when there are track workers working on zero hour contracts (with another death not long ago, being another one where the colour of the train wouldn’t have changed anything).
Did they (intentionally) integrate it or does it just look like part of the livery?
Because I don't see yellow on the front of Stagecoach buses.
Same with Greater Anglia's FLIRTS; it looks like part of the livery rather than being a requirement.
Although it has recently dawned on me that yellow fronts aren't particularly about seeing the train from very far away.
Most yellow fronts are dirty anyway, but some GBRF 66 headlights are so bright, you can see them from a good few miles away - you can't see the yellow front.
But I wonder if yellow fronts is more for visual of only a few metres away?
If so, the argument then says why don't buses or trams have yellow fronts?
Most yellow fronts are dirty anyway, but some GBRF 66 headlights are so bright, you can see them from a good few miles away - you can't see the yellow front.
But I wonder if yellow fronts is more for visual of only a few metres away?
If so, the argument then says why don't buses or trams have yellow fronts?
Oh. Sorry! In all fairness, yes, standing at Kingham, I can see an 800 on the approach earlier thanks to the headlights rather than the yellow ends.
-Peter
Juliet Barvo
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Day/Night/Marker/Off
Deepgreen
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Black is actually less reflective than any other 'colour'. It's the cabs' glossiness, angles and window/other glass positions which cause reflections.
Deepgreen
Established Member
Yellow fronts work(ed) for hundreds of metres away. Without dazzling headlights, which have obviously made determining any colours immediately behind them impossible anyway, they were very effective against what is mostly a darkish background. Rail vehicles are unique in being un-steerable and unstoppable in the short distances that buses and trams are. Modern buses and trams use headlights anyway.
I've no particular axe to grind over yellow fronts, but, as an established safety measure, why abandon it to the altar of design, when so few people notice or care about the look of their trains' fronts, except perhaps for the provision of a clear destination indicator (which have, perversely, largely become so dim now that they cannot be read in daylight!)? Scenarios where all lights on a train fail will be rare, but they may occur, and a yellow end may be the difference between seeing a train or not. It's not as if it's a costly feature to perpetuate.
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If you are on the platform then by definition you are in a place of safety. You shouldn't need warning of the approach of a train because you shouldn't be near the platform edge.
The high-intensity headlamps/marker lights or whatever they are called now were supposed to be dipped so that they could not dazzle an on-coming driver - something that I think has got lost nowadays. Their function was to alert people on the ground, so of course they won't be very visible to someone standing on a platform.
I was thinking more along the lines of yards, depots and sidings where headlights are not used... (and driver has forgotten to turn on marker lights). A big yellow blob (whether day or night) is a lot easier to see in your peripheral vision when you are on the ground than that of a dark blob.
It costs nothing extra to have yellow on the front so when it comes to "belts and braces" why not have them? Its simply a case of style over function removing the yellow.
No they won't be very visible to someone standing on a platform, that's exactly what I said.
cjmillsnun
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Umm it does cost extra. It's another can of paint. I'm a fan of yellow ends but there is a cost, and in the case of the penny pinching, profit maximising world of today (not singling out the railways here - it's every industry) every extra bit saved, even if only pennies, is a bonus for the shareholders.
Intellectual98
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345s are automatic, and they scream bloody murder if you try to move and they aren't working or have been switched off.
I think it’s probably safe to assume any unit without a yellow front will be brand new units from here on out which will have automatic headlights. So no risk of any forward movements without white lights as key on means either marker or headlights on and key off means tail lights on unless overridden for degraded working purposes.
Yes, I agree, but the point is that you don't really need to see them. Especially if you are keeping away from the platform edge. It's more important not to dazzle the drivers of oncoming trains.
If that happens it is a near-miss and needs reporting and a form 1, but I would hope it doesn't. I can't imagine it being overlooked by any of the drivers I have been with.
If the driver did forget to switch on marker lights then the train will have it’s full headlights on in the depot rather than no lights/tail lights. So in a way you could say that’s a fail safe and probably already been thought about when the decision was made.
I’m more thinking it’s the case of driver forgetting to change from marker to full headlights when they have left the depot which is a potential issue. But then again modern trains have computers which will throw numerous warnings about lights not being set coming up as serious red faults so will be attended to by the driver. Failing that maybe even the marker lights and high level white light is set so that even they are enough to be seen safely white a yellow front?
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