Re: Indicator Lights on Sydney Trains (1980's).

["Dave Proctor" <thadocta@spambait.dingoblue.net.au>]

Dan wrote in message <884jvj$jjh$1@the-fly.zip.com.au>...

>** Another mystery that baffled me when I catch trains in the 1980's = the
>S,M,H,F,B-sets used to have 2 or 3 small lights alight at the front besides
>the 2 high beam lights at the top. What they really used for??? And is it a
>myth that it was used to indicate a destination ie. 3 lights means the
train
>goes to East Hills as my father told me (hopefully he is wrong)?

There were never high beam lights on Sydney trains up until the introduction
of the K-sets.

The lights were indeed marker lights that indicated the line the train was
to travel on. From memory, they signified the following:

left/right - western line
left/middle/right - East Hills line
left/bottom - Bankstown line
middle - goods road (Chullora, Enfield, etc)
right/bottom - Eastern Suburbs line
left/middle     } Main South and Illawarra
middle/right   } Main North via Epping
(I could never remember which was which)

I don't know why they discontinued this system - a surprisingly large number
of people knew what they meant, and it worked a lot better than the Tangara
destination signs ever did.

Dave