CSX locos with yellow strobes?

Last week in the South Schenectady yard, one of the engines sitting on the siding next to the Price Chopper frozen foods warehouse had yellow flashing lights on top. What CSX engines have strobes, and what do they signify?

It means that the unit can be remote-control operated.

CSX engines with Auxiliary Power Units (a.k.a. APUs for short) have stobes that show their operation.

My money is on the remote.

My guess was remote operation also, since I have seen UP remote units. Its just that I hadn't seen CSX do this before. What units in the CSX fleet are remote capable? I don't see anything on Bullsheet that says.

EVERY unit on the roster, is capable of remote operation, if hooked up to one of those infernal "sleds". Seems to be older stuff, mostly EMD.
I will agree, with both of you. There are lights for the remotes, and for those auto-start units as well. Auto-start lights near the engine start switch, roof mounted. Remote lights cab mounted, on both sides, from what I have observed. Regards

I know that on some. possibly all the rebuilt CSXT SD50's have yellow strobe lights.

a number of older CSX EMD engines were fit with the APU Auxilary Power Unit which shuts down the engines after 20 minutes or so, and the small 2 cycnilcer diesel engine in back maintains air and eletric charge. These units are fitted with a small yellow beacon on the middle of the long hood, which is activated when the APU is running.
As far as the Radio Control Units, again mostly older EMD power, GP 38's in the 2500 series and sd-40-2's in the 8200 series. These engines are equiped with stobe beacons on the cab roofs on bothsides and when the unit is in remote mode, these lights are flashing.

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:EVERY unit on the roster, is capable of remote operation, if hooked up to one of those infernal "sleds". Seems to be older stuff, mostly EMD.
I will agree, with both of you. There are lights for the remotes, and for those auto-start units as well. Auto-start lights near the engine start switch, roof mounted. Remote lights cab mounted, on both sides, from what I have observed. Regards

The sleds are histiore. The great brains that brought them forth didn't realize that an unloaded flat wouldn't be able to cut flangeways through mud, gravel and ice the same way a locomotive can and does all the time. After a number of really stupid derailments, the sleds have been shunted aside...there's a big collection of them on the rip tracks at Collinwood P1A.

As for the strobes: If the gumballs are STROBES mounted to the angled part of the cab roof, those are to signify remote operation when on. If the gumball is a rotating light, like older emergency-vehicle lights, right over the access doors to the engine-start station on the prime-mover hood...it's to indicate an APU failure.

I guess we're all supposed to drop everything and start the unit before it freezes...NOT!!