Lighting System Used On Trains

How do todays lighting system on trains differ from earlier electric ,gas and oil lighted trains in general ?

In the 20th century the cars were lit with electric lights. The cars had batteries which were charged by a generator connected to the wheels. Some short runs couldn't keep batteries charged because of not going long or fast enough. B&M used larger turbogenerators on the steamers, and ran a jumper to the cars. Some of their roadswitchers used in commuter service had extra generators for car lighting. The RS3s had it on the walkway, next to the radiator, on the engineer's side. Rock Island had this too. The EMDs had a squared off end on the long hood. CNJ, and C&NW had this too on some of their geeps.

The big distinction between then and now is that cars described by Engineer Spike, except for those adapted for commuter service as described, were completely self-contained, as long as the batteries held out, and especially if they didn't. If a train was kept standing for several hours for some reason, the batteries would eventually run down, the lights would dim, and the air conditioning, if on, would fade, and there was really nothing that could be done about it. When the train got going, once the speed reached 15 mph or so, the lights would come on again and the air conditioning would come back. On one occasion I was in the diner when the train slowed down, and the conductor announced that a crew member had spotted a boxcar door lying beside the track, and all trains in both directions were instructed to proceed at Restricted Speed until it was determined that nothing else had fallen off something. We crawled along at 15 mph or less for quite a while, until the air conditioning died completely. As soon as the territory was cleared we speeded up, and you could feel the air conditioning come on immediately (it was summer, and really felt good).

Now most everything runs on head end power. This is usually 480v, and is brought down to domestic 120/240. Some locomotives have an alternator connected to the prime mover, others have a small diesel generator, and still others have an inverter.

In the old battery days, some terminals had lines to keep the batteries charged. An example might be a place where a sleeper was set out. The patrons were welcome to stay aboard until morning. Even cabooses had them, since most had battery powered lighting.