In Crewe we never put “lamp cleaner” in the job description, but half the time that’s what you were. Driver comes in muttering that his beam’s dead, you’re out there with a screwdriver and a bit of rag, rain soaking your shirt cuffs. The paperwork always made it look routine. It never was. One night I tried to dry out a sealed unit on a Class 47 with nothing but blue roll and a hairdryer someone had left in the mess room. Got it running. Barely. The driver never knew how close he came to running blind.
Old hands liked to talk about acetylene lamps. I didn’t envy them. Explosive, temperamental, made you smell like a gas leak. Before that, oil lamps with glass that blackened if you so much as looked at them. My generation got “modern” electrics. Better, yes, but not magic. You still had to wipe, polish, check the housing. A dirty lens steals light. Same on trains, same on cars, same everywhere.
Now I stand in Barcelona watching AVE sets hammer in, two beams like aircraft landing lights. Rodalies units less flashy but the glow hits the tunnel walls long before the brakes squeal. I still notice. Sue rolls her eyes. She says normal people look at timetables, not bulbs.
The Seat out front proved my point. Fifteen years of Spanish sun and the headlights had gone yellow, cloudy, useless. At night I felt like I was holding a torch with dying batteries. Sue said they were fine until she drove it herself and realised she could barely see the kerb. The answer wasn’t a scrapyard hunt, it was proper headlight restoration www.clearviewlights.co.uk
Funny how the job repeats itself. On the railway, clean lens = safe run. On the road, clear lights = you spot the pedestrian before it’s too late. Doesn’t matter if it’s a two-ton diesel or a battered Seat — the principle’s the same.
Books talk about horsepower, about speed records, wheel arrangements. They rarely talk about light. But look close and you can chart history in beams: oil, acetylene, electric, halogen, LED. Each step let trains run faster, safer, longer into the night. It isn’t glamorous. Nobody in the press ever photographed a lamp fitting. But ask any driver whether he trusts his headlight. You’ll get the truth.
And me? I still trust a clean beam over any glossy paint job. The Class 47s in drizzle, the AVEs at Sants, the Seat with its lenses scraped clear. Different machines, same rule: keep the light sharp or don’t bother moving.
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