Is there a common or standard voltage that was used with Steam Locomotive electrical systems?

32 DC.

dave

32 volts Direct Current was also common for passenger car lights and fans. Rural houses with generators also used it. However, General Electric light bulb catalogs from 1930 explained that they had different 32 volts Direct Current bulbs for household and railway use. Possibly the Railway bulbs were Rough Service, or G.E. recognized that the battery charging generator in a 32 volt passenger car would be set higher than the battery voltage.

What wattage are the 32V headlight bulbs?
Doug vV

Here is a good place to start.



AAMSCO

http://www.aamsco.com/Lpage.php?id=RR

100 watt bulbs in yard engines
250 watt bulbs in road engines
This was also the bulb wattage used in early diesels

Mike

Some yachts use 32V lighting, so http://www.go2marine.com stocks bulbs that look like conventional 110V bulbs, but are rated for 36V (and thus tolerate some overvoltage). They come in 15, 25, 50, 75, and 100 Watt sizes. Unfortunately they are frosted rather than clear, so true devotees of olde fashioned lighting may be offended. The go2marine bulbs are made by Ancor and come two to a package for about $7 per package. They are probably not railroad grade, but we at the WW&F Railway Museum have been using them on our steam engine for about 5 years with few if any failures.

AAMSCO, already mentioned, is a good supplier of headlight bulbs and does offer a 32V, 15 Watt clear bulb for gauge glass use. Unfortunately, it is about the size of your thumb and sits rather low in some holders.

Replacing bulbs in an Engine its more then just knowing 32 VDC. You have to know what time of Dynamo your running and how watts is putting out.

Early locomotives on the EBT might only have 500 watt dynamo's. Which means if you use the 250 watt bulb then you have used over half of your dynamo capacity. Also any old bulb will not work. If you look very close at the filement in the bulb its very heavy duty. Reasoning behind it is to take the vibration of the locomtive operating on a daily bases and bouning down the track. Please give AAMSCO a call as they stock this type of product and its designed for the ware and tear of the locomotive service. All else fails I would give Strasburgs Shop a call as I would think they would have them on hand or know who to contact.

Steven H.

One of the issues we faced in 1998 when the Union Switch&Signal Company was in the process of installing a cab signal,ATS system in the 614 was a reliable source of CONSTANT voltage electrical current for the microprocessor or "brain" of the system. It was found that 614's steam dynamos (she is equipped with 3) were fine for putting out sufficient wattage but were prone to fluctuate unacceptabley on the voltage side due to fluctuations in boiler pressure etc. Computers don't like swings in voltage.
Therefore we installed a large set of diesel batteries which became the electrical power source for the "brain" and the steam dynamos keep the batteries charged (through a voltage regulator) and it works perfectly.
There are ways to adapt yesterdays solutions to todays tools!
Ross Rowland

Yes, your mileage may vary depending on the type of dynamo you have. The MO6 model was a replacement for the K2 when radios began to be used, and when more watts were required. Speaking of Watts, Bernie Watts is the go to guy for dynamo questions and stuff in general. He can even make you a new one from scratch.

dave

Anyone care to comment on the electrical requirements of the old carbon arc headlights?

Steven,
Back when I bought our headlights from AAMSCO, they offered only the 250 Watt clear headlamps and the 15 Watt clear thumb-sized water gauge lamp. They also offer a 56 Watt "High Vacuum Lamp," but that's physically too large to fit into our lamp holders. I would love to find a 25 Watt clear bulb about the size of a conventional household 25 Wall bulb.
Our dynamo is a Pyle-National with a 350-Watt capacity. The front and rear headlights are 250 Watt, but the switch that controls them is double-throw such that they cannot be on simultaneously. The water glass and pressure guage lights are 25 Watt, so the maximum draw is 300 Watts.
If you can find a source of 25 watt clear bulbs in A19 form factor, I'm all ears!
Thanks!
-John

to my knowledge they were for use on trolley cars. They take a lot of power - on the order of welding current as you are jumpoing an air gap, not running through a filament.

Somewhere in the stacks I have an old manual on the locomotive carbon arc headlight put out by pyle national. It was very early - from about 1905 if memory serves. This probably relates to the K2 era or before insofar as voltages and amps are concerned.

dave

Hi,
Has anyone looked into using a bank of Hi Intensity LED's in place of a headlight bulb?
Doug vV