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Beam Of Light From A Train

G

Gordon Cameron

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Jan 30, 2018
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3
Not a philosophical experiment on the nature of velocity but still puzzling... tonight around 20:30 hours while walking home through Carnoustie in Scotland a train went hurtling past with an intense beam of violet light shining out of its roof, bright enough to light up the quite low level clouds as it passed. I cant find any reference to the phenomena anywhere does anyone out there have any knowledge of it?
 
Gordon Cameron said:
Not a philosophical experiment on the nature of velocity but still puzzling... tonight around 20:30 hours while walking home through Carnoustie in Scotland a train went hurtling past with an intense beam of violet light shining out of its roof, bright enough to light up the quite low level clouds as it passed. I cant find any reference to the phenomena anywhere does anyone out there have any knowledge of it?
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Some trains do quite a bit of electrical arcing for some reason, which is more noticeable at night. Could it have been something like that?
 
Definitely violet? Not blue?

Ice on the overhead power line can create some quite spectacular effects.
 
The only problem with arcing is that part of the line isn't electrified.
 
Seen this on facebook - it seems the train was also seen in the Aberdeenshire area
Richard HampsonIt was definitely being projected upwards from a train carriage. Watched it go over a bridge in front of me in Stonehaven heading south at 7:50pm. No idea what it was for but nothing to do with the big moon that was in total other direction
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https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=fubar news
 
Along a stretch of non-electrified track, the train runs off a diesel generator (on board the train). Maybe that was it?
 
On American railways, a blue lamp (or sign / placard) represents a 'blue flag' situation in a rail yard, where some person X has posted a blue signal to mean 'don't move or change anything until I negate the blue signal'.

The 'blue flag' protocol is strictly observed for safety reasons.

I wonder if one or more cars in the train at issue were flagged with blue illumination for some analogous signaling purpose.
 
I doubt this railway / blue light story has any bearing on the sighting, but it's an interesting little mystery of its own ...

This November 2014 lighting site article:

http://luxreview.com/article/2014/11/can-blue-light-make-britain-s-railways-safer

... mentions blue lights being installed on UK commuter rail platforms as a deterrent to suicides.

The practice was apparently adopted to copy installations in China and Japan that seem to have dramatically cut the number of suicides.

Unfortunately, the article provides no explanation for why blue light deters suicides, nor how the Chinese / Japanese came to suspect it did or might do so.
 
This incident appears to have had masses of witnesses.

What about a misaligned anti-leaf laser system? They are being tested eg in the Netherlands (perhaps also in Angus? I'd never considered lasers being used in Aberdeenshire or Angus, but maybe the time is ripe....)
link_qDrybttdKgNp2dWfcTkikT2iKmYeQkQu,w1200h627.jpg
 
Ermintruder said:
This incident appears to have had masses of witnesses.

What about a misaligned anti-leaf laser system? They are being tested eg in the Netherlands (perhaps also in Angus? I'd never considered lasers being used in Aberdeenshire or Angus, but maybe the time is ripe....)
link_qDrybttdKgNp2dWfcTkikT2iKmYeQkQu,w1200h627.jpg
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That would only work if it was the right kind of leaves on the track :)
 
Another description. Makes me wonder if it was someone playing around with a high powered spotlight
Lindsay RockIt was a normal train it past us as we waited to cross the carriageway into fourdon. There was 2 beams coming from a carridge could see it perfectly coming out of the window. The beams were very high and large coming out of the window. No idea why. Was freaky as it started moving towards us as we seen it for a good while till it passed us.
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https://www.facebook.com/FubarNews/
 
Not the answer here but if you are ever on a platform on a electric route look at the
track in the areas were the engine unit stops the power earths back through the
tracks and the high starting power tends to burn the tracks. I have often seen
blue flashes light up the sky from the lecky trains but not a continuous beam.
 
Gordon Cameron said:
Not a philosophical experiment on the nature of velocity but still puzzling... tonight around 20:30 hours while walking home through Carnoustie in Scotland a train went hurtling past with an intense beam of violet light shining out of its roof, bright enough to light up the quite low level clouds as it passed. I cant find any reference to the phenomena anywhere does anyone out there have any knowledge of it?
Click to expand...
I can answer this one as this is my field of employment and I live locally! You saw the Network Rail New Measurement Train which, as the name suggests, carries out all sorts of measurements and tests to check the condition of the railway infrastructure. The light is part of the Plain Line Pattern Recognition (PLPR) system which uses LIDAR technology and a very, very, very high speed camera to automatically check for damaged or missing components in the track to a very high level of accuracy and also surveys dynamic clearances to fixed structures around the railway - hence the lights on the roof and below the solebar. The data it collects is used to check for track faults and plan maintenance work. The NMT is one of several different Infrastructure Monitoring trains which run round the network - it carries out a cyclic pattern of inspections and passes through Carnoustie every 8 weeks on a run from Heaton (Newcastle) to Aberdeen and return. I've been on it a couple if times, it's very interesting to see in action.

Further information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Measurement_Train

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/10/network_rail_new_measurement_train_ride/
 
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Carse said:
I can answer this one as this is my field of employment and I live locally! You saw the Network Rail New Measurement Train which, as the name suggests, carries out all sorts of measurements and tests to check the condition of the railway infrastructure. The light is part of the Plain Line Pattern Recognition (PLPR) system which uses LIDAR technology and a very, very, very high speed camera to automatically check for damaged or missing components in the track to a very high level of accuracy and also surveys dynamic clearances to fixed structures around the railway - hence the lights on the roof and below the solebar. The data it collects is used to check for track faults and plan maintenance work. The NMT is one of several different Infrastructure Monitoring trains which run round the network - it carries out a cyclic pattern of inspections and passes through Carnoustie every 8 weeks on a run from Heaton (Newcastle) to Aberdeen and return. I've been on it a couple if times, it's very interesting to see in action.

Further information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Measurement_Train

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/10/network_rail_new_measurement_train_ride/
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Excellent and informative post.

Don't happen to know when it is due to run on the west cost main line between
Preston and Lancaster?
 
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Carse said:
I can answer this one as this is my field of employment and I live locally! You saw the Network Rail New Measurement Train which, as the name suggests, carries out all sorts of measurements and tests to check the condition of the railway infrastructure. The light is part of the Plain Line Pattern Recognition (PLPR) system which uses LIDAR technology and a very, very, very high speed camera to automatically check for damaged or missing components in the track to a very high level of accuracy and also surveys dynamic clearances to fixed structures around the railway - hence the lights on the roof and below the solebar. The data it collects is used to check for track faults and plan maintenance work. The NMT is one of several different Infrastructure Monitoring trains which run round the network - it carries out a cyclic pattern of inspections and passes through Carnoustie every 8 weeks on a run from Heaton (Newcastle) to Aberdeen and return. I've been on it a couple if times, it's very interesting to see in action.

Further information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Measurement_Train

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/10/network_rail_new_measurement_train_ride/
Click to expand...

Brilliant - thank you Carse, it had us completely stumped. Now we're going to have to try and catch it again, it looked incredible.
 
Carse said:
I can answer this one as this is my field of employment and I live locally!
Click to expand...
Is this testing in connection with the Scotrail plans for a massive increase in the number of trains and/or stops on that line? Or is that just a coincidence?

Also, somewhere on that highly-boisterous Facebook 'Fubar' page (possibly half-way towards Post No350) there was mention of a Scottish Fire & Rescue Service train. This was being postulated as being a source of very high-speed blue lights on the railway line.

Please tell me this is a real arrangement.

How on earth does it work? Is it like the old roll-on/roll-off open bogies, for putting cars on the sleeper trains? Except with fire-engines?
 
No, it's just cyclic testing (which supplements manual track patrolling which took place more frequently) and no there isn't such a thing.
 
Carse said:
I can answer this one as this is my field of employment and I live locally! You saw the Network Rail New Measurement Train which, as the name suggests, carries out all sorts of measurements and tests to check the condition of the railway infrastructure. The light is part of the Plain Line Pattern Recognition (PLPR) system which uses LIDAR technology and a very, very, very high speed camera to automatically check for damaged or missing components in the track to a very high level of accuracy and also surveys dynamic clearances to fixed structures around the railway - hence the lights on the roof and below the solebar. The data it collects is used to check for track faults and plan maintenance work. The NMT is one of several different Infrastructure Monitoring trains which run round the network - it carries out a cyclic pattern of inspections and passes through Carnoustie every 8 weeks on a run from Heaton (Newcastle) to Aberdeen and return. I've been on it a couple if times, it's very interesting to see in action.

Further information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Measurement_Train

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/10/network_rail_new_measurement_train_ride/
Click to expand...
I've seen council trucks using this light emission scanning device to detect road faults and flatness/bumps. They never bloody fix anything, but it was interesting to be driving behind them while they had the scanner going. Seen it on at least two occasions.
 
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