I loved running my layout at night. Most of the time, I had to work during the day and than come home and make dinner, so that was my train time. In the winter it was dark. Sure, I could put the room lights on, but night running has always had a great draw for me.
I’ve iluminated my passenger cars, and paid special attention to the structures, with interior walls and lighting distributed to give the look of occupied and non-occupied spaces. I’ve installed street lights and working traffic signals.
I found that if I didn’t drop the room lighting to zero, the optical sensors would still work and therefore I could have working crossing lights and gates, a true delight.
I like running my trains at night some times just to remind myself what it’s like in the dark. The only lights I have are the street lights, water tower blinking light and building lights as well as the head lights of the locos…
My layout lighting is LEDs on a dimmer. At the lowest setting the effect is similar to bright moonlight. As I build structures and finish scenes I also add appropriate lighting, and all my locos have working headlights (I’m in the diesel era, though). As for operations, I have a session plan that depicts a 24-hour day, so some of the action occurs at night. The local turns and industry switching all occur during daylight hours, because the small-town industries I’m modeling wouldn’t have been working at night. But there is a mainline local that sometimes performs setouts or pickups at night, and the eastbound San Francisco Chief came through the area I’m modeling at night. A little pocket-sized or “keyfob” flashlight is a useful tool. While nighttime operations can yield some cool-looking effects and an enjoyably different flavour that makes the extra effort worthwhile for me, I will say that it doesn’t satisfy me 100%. The problem is that light just doesn’t scale down the way our models can, and there’s no way to completely avoid unrealistic, overly harsh shadows - particularly on the backdrop. Static flock grass that looks great by day also gets unrealistically shiny at night. So, yes, midnight on my layout’s cool, but not quite as realistic as noon.
The St. Jacobs and Aberfoyle Railway http://stjacobsmodelrailway.com/ (in MR long ago as Aberfoyle Junction) has a major 10 minute night scene. The room lights go down, lights come on in the streets and in buildings, then they go off in appropriate sequence, some come on again briefly, and finally the rrom lights come on again.
We had a backstage tour last month and saw the controller – a large drum with ridges that control microswitches which then work relays and such.
I use blue LED rope lights that were bought in a after Christmas sale. Kept it simple with a switch for white lights and a switch for blue. N scale view of the town of Shelbieville.
My lay out is small, on a closed in porch. I love running and switching at night. I love the Just Plug system from woodland senics. You can see the people eating in the cafe. In the morning, I love to run the passenger train in the sun light. the shadows and reflections are fun to watch. And, its not simulated daylight!
Our club has a “night” mode that we use for our open houses (though it’s on the fritz at the moment) and I love the atmosphwere. Power move: Give an operating newbie an all-black train (say a steamer pulling a rake of express cars) without sound, wait until he goes into a tunnel, then cycle the lights to night and watch him frantically search for his train. Good times, good times!
Ed,Interesting subject… On a ISL the lighting would be sparse on the rail dock side of a industry…Grain of wheat or grain of rice bulbs would be required over exit doors and maybe small security lights along the side of the building as needed.
I must say, you folks have inspired me to take my lighting more seriously.
A couple of personal comments about olden times:
When I built my first steam engine (right there, it’s obviously olden times), I figured it needed a headlight. In goes the grain-of-wheat. So cool. That bulb had (and still does) a built in headlight lens. So, at speed, there’s quite a beam of light shining down the tracks. And onto the walls of the room. A veritable mobile flashlight.
My first “real” scratchbuilt building (as opposed to a little storage shed) was a two track enginehouse with a shop on the side (along the lines of a John Allen/Revell). It was wood-sided with big windows. A corrugated roof. An interior with benches and tools in the shop. AND about a dozen grain-of-wheats in the ceiling. My, that was beautiful all lit up. Oh, yeah. There was also a couple of lights out back up on a pole to light the building’s “out back”.
I, uh, unfortunately made a mistake on that building. I built the framing on the ends too tightly, and most of my engines wouldn’t fit. Tres very bummer. I eventually scrapped it.
Still another remembrance about that building: I built it on a base so that I could have the outback (one track ran through). It extended about another 9". Well, I needed it to become dirt (my FIRST scenery attempt!). Well, dirt’s brown, so I patrolled the house looking for “brown dirt”. AHA! Got it. I found a bottle of dried mushroom powder. I spread some kind of glue on the base and sprinkled on the powder. VERY convincing. At least to a beginner. I put a couple splotches of lychen on for weeds. Looked great. In the winter. Summer (the real one, not the model one) came. We lived in Virginia, which has been known to be hot and humid. &nbs
Great stories! Glad I’d put my drink down when I read about the UFO in the barn or I would’ve splashed diet soda all over my keyboard from laughing.
On the enginehouse, perhaps it was built to Allen’s plan. I think I recall that he built it for the HOn3 Hellengone & [whatever?], then simply relocated it to service standard gauge locos. They fit, but needed to be small. Meanwhile, people built them to spec to make discoveries like yours. Maybe simply a concidence? And I can’t find my John Allen book right now to check my sources…Ahh, remembering the Olden Days means I mostly can’t remember.[(-D]
I swear that’s what it looked like when I ducked my head down to see it. Logically speaking, what else COULD it be: a large glowing orb hovering a couple of feet off the ground?
Nope, I didn’t use not steenking plans when I built by enginehouse, Allen’s or otherwise. Mighta turned out different if I had.
But maybe I really did screw up, because now I have my first HOn3 engine. And the little fella doesn’t have a place to hang out. I coulda stripped the track out, relaid, and he’d have had a nice cushy place, with room for company.
I was lucky enough to be able to preserve my Olden Days enginehouse, which was built from a plan. I just don’t recall which one. I dusted it off, did a little restoration, then used it at Tefft when I installed the turntable there.
