Has anyone had much experience installing interior lighting and marker lights on their cabooses? (No, the one’s on the end of the train, smarties.) I ran across an online manufacturer (Richmond Controls) that makes modules to do just that.
I was wondering if their product was worth the expensive and would their module be appropriate for lighting a 1920-40 NYC caboose? Could I just as easily piece something together myself with off the shelf parts that would accomplish the same thing? Thanks.
Oh, and a couple more questions for the panel. I have to plead ignorance on this. Were there usually two marker lights at the end of a caboose (one on each side) or only one? And how much light was there in the interior of a caboose? Are we talkng one light bulb worth or two (front and back)
tstage, cabooses in that era had two marker lights as a rule, on each side of the caboose, and were lit by kerosene or a blend of lamp oil which burned cleaner than kerosene. Same oil was used in switch stand lanterns and semaphors. At some point, and I can quote exact dates, some rail roads converted cabooses to electrical power for lights. The lights were powered by batteries similar to car batteries and charged by a belt driven generator while the train was moveing. I think I would light the interior either with a grain of wheat bulb or LED and maybe use fiber optics from that light source to the markers. May be a little more trouble but I would also try to power it with a battery for constant lighting. Just an idea is all, Ken
I have made it one of my specialties to have lighted marker lights on cabooses. They add greatly to the looks. When I take them to public shows, almost everyone points out and comments on the lamps.
Something as simple as a lighting kit can always be pieced together. My method for marker lamps uses two 1.5V sub-minature bulbs (I prefer the PFM type with the long insulated leads of stranded wire - I believe circuitron now carries these.). I use “Utah Pacific” brand marker lamp housings and put one bulb in each one. I wire them in parallel with each other and with a bridge rectifier diode configuration. The bridge drops the voltage leaving about 1.4V for the lamps. All that is in series with an appropriately sized resistor. The resistor size will depend on the output voltage the DCC system is set for. I run mine at 14.5V. Since I use 15mA bulbs - two in parallel is 30mA. That means my resistor should be 437 ohms. I like the heat sink type resistors. I mount them to the metal used as a weight for the caboose. That way the entire weight becomes a heat sink. The hardest part is getting the power from the track through the wheels. I’ve used several different schemes from kits to simply using spring wire rubbing on the axles.
To make non-flickering lamps is a bit harder.
Yes. First of all you need to reasearch the NYC to determine if they hung the marker lam
in the Walthers catalog there are marker lights using 1.5 volt bulbs as well as other lights that can be used to light the caboose interior. there is a small circuit you can make using a voltage regulator, diodes, and capacitors that is in an old MR article. the circuit is not that hard to make. it will easily light two interior lights as well as the marker lights. Jeff
The guys at the club I go to have lights in thier cabooses. They put a battery in the caboose and put a switch on the underside. I don’t know what they use for the lights though.
There was an article a while back in RMC about making marker lights using surface-mount LEDs (Richmond Controls sells them, but you can also get them from the major electronics suppliers). I didn’t look at the pre-packaged kits but they probably do a similar thing. You can do this yourself BUT it’s a very delicate process, first drilling out brass markers, then soldering magnet wire to the tiny LEDs. Then the LEDs are epoxied in the marker housing. At this point, if you mess anything up, like blow out an LED, it’s time to start all over again. I have many years of soldering experience and reading the article scared me, but that could be just because I have yet to try workign with any surface mount components. Maybe it’s not as tough as it sounds. But depending on the cost of the Richmond Controls kits, it might be worth the price to ssvae the potential aggravation.
I believe Kato have a ready conversion kit which is only about $15 or $16…I have been trying to resist it because then you have to do it for the whole fleet…
No matter how you arrange it, the brightest light inside the caboose would illuminate the conductor’s desk - so he could do his paperwork. More often than not, that would be the only interior light.
I read the same article. WOW you really have to want these babies and have a clear head to be able to do it. A source for the micro mini leds and others is www.Ngineering.com. Nice stuff of all sizes and shapes.