Thanks to the dedicated team at the Colorado Railroad Museum, Denver & Rio Grande Western #5401 has for the first time in decades the classification lights installed. These are the single lights on each side of the headlight. The purpose of classification lights was to help identify the train on which they were displayed. The lights could be displayed with three colors; white, green and red. White indicated an "extra" train not shown in the timetable, which back in the day before modern electronic train control, was the primary way for getting authority to move a train. If a train was listed in the timetable, it had the authority to operate according to its printed schedule. A green light indicated that while the train displaying the lights was a regularly scheduled one, a second section was following behind it. This might have been done for passenger trains which needed an extra train for the peak demand.
Red indicated the end of a train. Classification lights were phased out in the early 1990's although many older engines still have them in place. D&RGW 5401 was built in 1980 and kept its original DRGW paint scheme through the merger with Southern Pacific and later with the Union Pacific. It was donated to the Colorado Railroad Museum in 2010. If you click on the locomotive number you can see what the nose looked like before the team began backdating her to the original 1980s configuration.
From a hint of "Bee" (NKP 765), colorful "Bees" (KCS), "Bees" w/ "attitude", to "Bees" that "sting" your eyes, in their own way they have "Bee" on display! Equipment that "Buzzes" with Yellow & Black colors! ("Bees" can still "Bee" entering this "hive"!)
