Ditch lights

The US rule was implemented March 1996 and gave railroads until December 1997.  Roughly a two year period.  Railroads would have been updated as they came in for inspections, unequipped engines after 12/97 would have had to have been trailing units.  They could be used without ditch lights, but not lead, or would have to be used in yard service.

Since the FRA doesn't do this in a vacuum, there had been hearings and meetings and discussion about this requirement for years before the rule was implemented.  A lot of these rules changes are trailing, rather than leading indicators.  The railroads are already doing it so the FRA changes the rules to "catch up" with industry practice.  Railroads could have been receiving new engines already equipped or upgrading engines prior to 1996.  For example, I Googled "1994 locomotive images" and about half the engines had ditch lights.

Ditch Lights

I believe that Canadian rules were about a decade earlier in the eighties. So if you have any foreign visitors they should be lit up.

Certainly (whether by rule or not) by the end of the 1980s you pretty much saw everything with ditch lights (on Canadian railways).

Depends on the railroad

The original purpose of the extra headlights on Canadian engines truly was to help see rocks, etc, that had fallen into the ditches.  So the ditch lights were aimed downward and outward a bit.  This started in the early '70s.

On American engines the purpose of "ditch lights" was always grade crossing safety, by making the front of the train more noticeable to motorists.  Their ditch lights pointed straight out and were really just extra headlights.  CSX and SP started adding ditch lights around 1990-91.  BN tried flashing strobe lights mounted on the front pilot for a few years.  These only came on when you blew the horn.

After New Years 1998 in the US, if the lead unit did not have working ditch lights on the point of the train that train could not cross public grade crossings in excess of 20 mph.  So engines that only have ditch lights on the front can still lead if running in reverse but they can't exceed 20 mph.

Scott Chatfield 

The B&H Subdivision of the CPR ...

Standardized on Ditch Lights (Wagging wherever possible) in 1968, just because the Superintendent likes them and they help with spotting errant stegosaurs in the ditches.