Any Brit railfans out there? Snopes yesterday had a new entry, Ghostly Moth Saves Train A British Express train carrying Queen Victoria was speeding through the night when the driver spotted what he thought was a figure in a black cloak waving its arms in the light of a “powerful headlamp spearing the black darkness ahead.” Of course, he brought the train to a grinding halt and then discovered a few yards beyond a washed out bridge. Turned out there was no figure, it was a moth that stuck to the glass on the headlamp at just the right moment to cast its shadow ahead. The Queen, on being told the tale remarked, “I’m sure it was no accident. It was God’s way of protecting us.”
Now, the article does not address the veracity of the story, calling it an “all-purpose supernatural yarn that can be [used] as a confirmatory tale for those who believe in Jesus. Or angels. Or protective spirits. Or skeptical thinking.” Only thing is, so far as I know, European locomotives, and British ones in particular don’t have headlamps as such, “spearing the black darkness ahead.” Having protected rights of way and guarded grade crossings, they do not have the need as do their American cousins, to see that the way ahead is clear. Instead they have at the head end dimmer lights, one to three arranged various ways to show the train’s class. Plenty bright enough to be seen as the train rushes by in the dark, they are no where near strong enough for errant moths to cast shadows.
At least that’s what I believe. Not being an expert on British rail practices, I can’t say for sure. So what say you who are? Supernatural thoughts aside, is there any chance at all for the tale to be true?
And if they were strong enough, and a live moth could perch on one, the shadow cast would be highly diffuse and thus most unlikely to be interpreted as “a figure in a black cloak waving its arms.” This is easily demonstrated by putting a small object near the lens of a powerful flashlight.
I was going to agree with Xema until I read the the Snopes account. I’ve been around guys who own WWII era search lights. They’ve played around with them trying to project the batman image. It takes 2 things to make this work and that’s a reflective surface and a large covering over the lense. Otherwise the object would have to be close to the element.
The engineer found the moth at the bottom of the light which means it was able to get inside. That plus the era meant that it was certainly an open element lamp. The source of light would have been a burning element (arc lamp or gas/mantle). In addition, there would need to be something for the image to reflect off such as fog. This was present in the story. The image would have been reflected in front of the lamp regardless of how powerful the light was. I would imagine the lamps would have been similar to that of the period so that would have been lights found on ships, canal boats, or nautical reference buoys. While they may not have been as powerful as modern train lights they would have certainly illuminated the front of the train.
Ah, but the Victorian-era locomotives’ lamps were neither an arc lamp nor gas mantle. The wiki link Westrogothia shows built after that era (link) and the outer two lamps are oil-burning. The one in the middle is a high intensity lamp added later.
As I said in the OP, I am not familiar with British Rail lamps, but these appear to be plain ol’ wick lamps, burning kerosene or lamp oil. Our railroads used similar lamps on locomotives and switch stands which I am familiar with (own one, in fact) and I would say it is not capable of throwing a noticeable beam into a foggy night, moth or no moth.
Now, those are with colored lenses, red or green, but I doubt a clear-lensed lamp would either. I’d experiment, but foggy nights are uncommon around here.
Doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s vented (versus a sealed beam). As long as a moth can get inside the lamp the story is possible. Moths are attracted to light like…a moth to light. My mother’s porch light did not have any visible vents but moths would work their way around the glass inserts. They’re tenacious in that regard.
Anyway, a big moth inside reflector housing would cast a fluttering shadow in front of the train if there was fog to reflect it.
Doesn’t matter what type of light it was as long as it was pointed forward and was vented. Anything flutering inside the light would project an image against the fog.
