i am looking for a way to put ditch lights in a dc locomotive mostly athearn locos like c44-9w and gp38-2's i want to know if there is a way to put ditch lights in these type locos ???
Yes you can have ditch light with DC. However I think that they would work all of the time like the head light.
RAM-
I'm not sure it is as easy as that. Some ditch lights are steady, some flash
and so on. I don't know if one could have a steady headlight and flashing
ditch lights but that would sure be a neat effect.
-- D
Go to the Atlas Model Railroad Forum or the Forum for Trains.com Model Railroader and do a search for ditch lights and you will find many topics covering ways to install them. Some use Led's and some use bulbs. Most in HO DC are steady on and don't flash. Athearn has ditch lights on the SD70m and SD70I that can be purchased thru Athearn parts but you have to drill holes and make groves in the body for the wires.
Bob
I am sure you could have flashing ditch lights, But there would be no way to turn them off and on like a dcc system.
Actually, I think Miniatronics makes a board for flashing ditch lights on DC.
You could put in a decoder set to run on dc and have it programed so the ditch lights flash or come on at a percentage of throttle applied. but then you might get the dcc bug. by the way your loco likely also run tons better with a decoder even while running on dc power.
Check TCS decoders I think the mc2p-sh would do that or close to what you want and they are not much more then a lighting module
NM