In the books The Age of Steam, by Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg; and, The Pacific Coast Company, by Gerald M. Best.
How about dual headlights - 1800 style.
That’s something ya don’t see every day that’l start conversation about your loco.
(which is not the same thing as, about how you’re loco)
The Age of Steam, page 31, I think, it’s not numbered in this printing, bottom of 3 photos.
Photo from New Haven RR of what’s likely a 4-4-0, its consist 4 passenger cars, taking water from track pans at Putnam, Connecticut, in an undated but probably 1880s image.
It has 2, yes, two, of those big boxy oil burning headlights on bracket above extended smokebox.
Caption makes no mention of that or the whys or wherefores of it being done.
Hey, found book on Google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=bY9Jxci46TkC&dq=the+age+of+steam+by+a+lucius+beebe+and+charles+clegg.&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=k6UWdWKhTo&sig=QlyllO2LVHlCzMPfs3Onv_MhEc8&hl=en&ei=D2WlSourCJPknAfQ5MGfBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
and, yep, photo is in there on page 31.
The Pacific Coast Company, page 133, top photo of 3, Port Townsend Southern loco No. 6, which appears to be a small saddle tank type, with a combine in tow, at Port Townsend in winter 1897. Caption does comment on its “unusual dual headlights” but says nothing beyond that. Its headlights have the round instead of box type casing.
Again, the stuff ya find.
Different subject, John H. White’s book American Locomotives, tells of a probably antebellum (I forget and am too lazy right now to go look it up) loco with its drivers painted white with powder blue striping and red counterweights.
Wonder what else is out there in the “Prototype for Everything” category?