I’ve been doing a bit of research in preparation for further “accurizing” my HO scale California Zephyr cars and locomotives and I’ve run into a few questions concerning some lights that none of my usual sources have been able to answer for me:
My Genesis FP7 and F7B both have backup lights on the fireman’s side of the rear door (F7B also has a backup light on the front end). My Genesis F3A, and two F3B’s do not have these backup lights. Is this prototypical, or is this due to the fact that my F3’s are from the early 2002 run? If they are supposed to have these backup lights, does anyone know of a source for the appropriate light fixture/bezel (it can be brass or plastic).
2)In looking at pictures of various CZ cars, I have noticed that some have red marker lights on either side of their diaphragms. Were these original to the cars, or a feature of the additional cars bought in 1952, or added later? Were they only present on the rear of the cars, or on the front as well? Under what circumstances were they illuminated? My Broadway Limited cars, which are otherwise bristling with details, are lacking these particular lights, which makes me wonder what their prototypical story is. For a picture showing the lights in question, here is a recent ad for the Silver Thrush: http://railswap.org/osc/classifieds/index.php?page=item&id=1936 . One of the lights in question can be seen just to the right of the diaphragm at the rear of the car. I’m just about to embark on a major lighting upgrade on my cars, so if I need to add these markers I’ll put them on the to do list so it all gets done at once.
Thanks Mike! I actually found your thread on the Atlas forum a while back and that’s what started my interest in adjusting and adding lighting. It’s been a great resource as I’ve been planning my own adjustments.
The one broken image that I would really like to see is the improved drumhead and markers on the Observation car. The description in your post gave a good sense of what you ended up with, but I would love to see it. I’m planning on adding separate LEDs for the markers that are run from the original marker light circuit. Then I am going to run a separate circuit with a TCS FL2 decoder to have a separate working red mars light and white backup light in the main rear light fixture. I found some very small red and warm white LEDs that will fit nicely in that limited space. I just need to decide whether I want to mount them directly on the shell or workup a fixture that attaches to the interior so disassembly remains easy.
Glad to be of assistance. Note that at the end I wrote this about the resistor value for the drumhead: “On the drumhead, I used 1000 ohms in place of 330, but it could really stand to be dimmer yet, like 2700 ohms, maybe?”
I am not going that detailed (as of yet) but making some adjustments to some items. One thing I would like to add is the upper rear tail light on tje observation car. Do you have any idea where one might be found. I realize that I might have to adapt it to fit my 72ft. Athearn cars?. Hope you can point me the right direction. Thanks in advance to Mike or anyone that might have a source for me.
I doubt you want to invest in a BLI dome/obs for a donor car, right?[(-D]
Personally, I would DIY this. Either build it up out of styrene or get a nice sized chunk of it, probably from Evergreen. They sell some pretty big stuff special order most likely as your LHS won’t have it unless they do large scale of something.
Depends on what you’re trying to copy, which is why I brought up building it up. It can be tricky, getting two side panels to match, but may work best.
The light itself could have a ridged ring, maybe a F-unit headlite type thing. Needs a styrene tube to hold the LED, if full size, or act as conduit if it’s a SMD LED to fit inside the lamp.
I looked in the PSC catalog and nothing really. BLI aside, I have an old Con-Cor shorty obs with a high mount tail light, but there’s not much there and it will always look like that, unlike something you work out.
