Signal oil versus kerosene lanterns

[NW Mailing List]

The files in the links below are a 1929 memorandum sent to agents and operators on the Shenandoah Division, N&W.  It describes the issuance of a lantern appearing in style to be an Armspear with metal fins along the sides, but otherwise similar to the Adlake Kero.  The file named LANTERN1 has the first page of the memorandum and the first page of usage instructions.  The second page of each appear in LANTERN2.

http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/LANTERN1.pdf
http://www.railwaymailservicelibrary.org/ebay/LANTERN2.pdf

Each file of two pages is in color and therefore exceeds 1 mb.

Aside from the instructions on use and the quantity and globe colors issued to stations, several questions come to mind.

1)      If some stations were flag stops, wouldn't they have had an additional green-globe lantern to be used with a clear-globe lantern, or a green+clear globe lantern?
2)      What is the design difference between a "signal oil" and a kerosene lantern?  This seems to be around the time that railroads shifted from tall-globe to short-globe lanterns.  Is that the principal difference?
3)      How different is "Kerosene Oil ... Specification F-22" from the kerosene commercially sold at present-day gas stations?
4)      If this was a "test," what was the test supposed to determine?  Does anyone know the results?  I assume they were favorable since the Adlake Kero and similar hand-lanterns became widely used.

This memorandum is among documents that were preserved from the Boones Mill, Virginia station.  It would be interesting to know when these lanterns were deployed elsewhere on the N&W system.

Best wishes, 

Frank Scheer 
f_scheer at yahoo.com