Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning

Since we're going to be having operations after dark on both Labor Day and Member's Day weekends, it's time for another exciting aspect of historical accuracy: oil-fired lanterns and marker lights!

Railroading started, of course, long before the invention of the electric light bulb, and oil lamps continued to be used for hand lanterns, switch stands, signals, and so on for many years afterwards because they were much more reliable.  It's impossible to predict when a battery is going to die or a light bulb will burn out.  But as long as you have an easily-checked supply of fuel, wicks, and matches, you can keep an oil lamp burning forever.  With modern technology, of course, electric lights are so reliable that no one on the railroads would think of going back to the hassle of maintaining oil lamps -- except us.

Luckily we have a good supply of authentic marker lights for use on our interurban cars, as seen here.  These are Adlake marker lamps designed to fit the brackets installed at each end of the cars.  (I also have an IC hand lantern that belonged to my uncle's father-in-law.)  Each marker has two Fresnel lenses, and each lens has two movable color filters, red and green.  Thus each light can show either white, red, or green.  Some of the mechanisms for moving the filters are jammed, however, but I have it arranged so each lamp shows red on one side and white on the other.  That's all we'll need for our operation.

Color filter control

The font and burner, with the control knob on the far right.

The top is hinged.  The chimney is in two parts, easily removable.

On the CA&E, for instance, the markers generally only had to be changed at an end of the line, where there was always a convenient platform and plenty of time to rearrange things.  For our operation, however, things are a little less convenient.  You do NOT want to get off the train in the dark at Kishwaukee Grove.  Anyway, the solution is to have marker lights at each end, and rotate them 90 degrees when changing ends.  We'll also have a headlight at each end.

For fuel, we generally use lamp oil which is readily available at hardware and home stores.  I really don't know what the difference is between this and kerosene, but they wouldn't be selling it if it wasn't safe.  And wicks are also available -- evidently there are plenty of people who like old kerosene lamps with glass globes, similar to railroad hand lanterns.

In operation, the main challenge is to keep the flame trimmed.  If it's too strong, it can set the residue on the inside surfaces on fire, which isn't good.  Even a small flame can be seen at a long distance with these Fresnel lenses, as long as you're near the axis.  Of course, you don't want the flame to go out, but these lamps are designed stay lit through a hurricane, I think.  And there were no hurricanes in the forecast for McHenry County last time I looked.

But as I've said before, nighttime operations are always a blast.  Be there and say hello!