Unknown accessory

Telltale?

A tell-tale, also known as a bridge warning, is a series of ropes suspended over the tracks to give warning to a person on the roof of the train that the train is approaching a low-clearance obstacle, such as a tunnel or a bridge. A standard tell-tale design had ropes on 3-inch centers for a width of 8 feet over the track, the bottom of the ropes 6" lower than the height of the obstruction, and placed at least 100 feet before the obstruction^.

Tell tales were used with a couple of Lionel post war items. The operating brakeman car and the giraffe car. They are held in place with with a spring loaded clip that clamps to the track. Did you get one of those cars? The brakeman came with two, the giraffe with one.

Did it look like this one? Lionel made these for use with its giraffe cars and operating brakeman box cars. In this video, only the tell tale from the giraffe car is shown, with the brakeman dropping to the floor before it and arising afterwards. 

That's it!...but what is it called???

The ones I got are orange with white plastic "ropes", but basically the same.

Any idea of the lionel number?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LIONEL...;hash=item4ac636c63d

http://www.tandem-associates.c...24_operating_car.htm

See Gunrunnerjohn's post, above.  A tell-tale is what it's called, in real railroading and in the model railroading world.  They came with various Lionel operating cars over the years, and in various colors.

I can only think of two cars that used the tell tales: the Giraffe car (1 tell tale) and the 3424 Wabash brakeman car (2 tell tales).

Both were remade in various forms in the modern era (after 1970)

As far as I can recall, the postwar poles were always orange, in a couple of shades.

Both cars used the same basic baseplate. the brakeman baseplate had a set of contact rails for the car's special siding shoe. The giraffe baseplate held a cam (separate piece) on the outside of one running rail to make the giraffe duck his head.

The poles were available seperately, as an extra for the brakeman car. I think the part number was 3424-100, "Low Bridge Signal Set". They came packaged in a small orange box that carried regular Lionel decoration. Over the years I think the package included one or two pole assemblies. Or maybe they changed the suffix.