Overhead lighting

[CP5170]

I am about to start building my last (I hope) layout. Previously, I installed the flourescent lights in the aisleways not over the layout. This layout is an around-the-room configuration. I was thinking of doing it the same way again as it appears that the sunlight is always coming from the same direction when you look at the layout.

Your thoughts, please and thanks...Ken

[bogp40]

Really need to know the room/ layout configuration and ceiling height, as these have a lot to do with the type and position of the lighting.

[CP5170]

Sorry Robert.

The room is rectangular in shape 12' x 22' with a ceiling height of 8'. I will be installing a suspended ceiling which will reduce the height to 7'6".

The layout is in the design stage but essentially it is a dog-bone with the loops at the same end of the room. Because of the door, they will be offset by 3'. The centre section will be 30 - 36" deep which gives me an aisle down the centre of 6'.

I read an earlier thread where someone suggested putting the flourescent fixtures down the centre for working and having coloured pot lights over the layout so that one could adjust the lighting for time of day. I was not thinking of being that elaborate although I liked the idea.

I am not into photography but do intend to have weekly operating sessions.

Thanks...Ken

[jhugart]

I'll be updating my thread somewhere else around here, but here's what I know about lighting from my theatrical background and layout lighting attempts.

Fluorescent lighting is soft, not crisp, when it comes to shadows. If your goal is to emulate an overcast day, this will do the job well. You can't dim such lighting unless you install special ballasts, and even then it isn't as smooth as the dimming you have with incandescent lighting.

Track lighting, whether line- or low-voltage, is nice in that you have a wider set of choices. You can use fixtures that let you pivot and tilt the light source, so you can put the light where you want it. You can use a lamp appropriate for the effect: halogen for a sunlight effect, or a compact fluorescent for overcast. Placing the track is pretty straightforward, even on a finished ceiling. And incandescent fixtures are dimmable.

In theatre, you aren't lighting for realism, but for effect...much like in model railroading, we generally don't do mountains and terrain between stops on the line to actual scale. You are trying for something representational, or impressionistic, not realistic.

In theatrical lighting, you generally try to light from at least two different directions, usually about 45 degrees up from horizontal and 45 degress to left and right of the subject. This eliminates shadows for the audience, so they can always see the subject. But you can gel or color your lighting to have a certain effect. For example, your 'sunlight' may be a warm light coming from the subject's left, while you may have a diffuse, cooler light (think of a shadowed area on a sunny day) as a 'fill' light on the subject's right. The fill light is usually overwhelmed by the sunlight, but in the sun's shadow, you get the fill.

What I've installed -- though I'm still programming it -- is four sets of lighting tracks: east lighting, west lighting, full daylight, and blue 'night' lighting. The blues are at the back wall, pointing towards your feet; the daylight is above your head, pointing to the base of the wall. This accomplishes the sunlight/fill-light effect. The east and west lighting is a single, yellow-colored lamp at an extreme angle, to mimic a rising or setting sun source.

The strip lights are on X10 dimmers. (I won't take more space describing X10...suffice it to say that it is like DCC for your home electrical system and lighting.) A computer can control the dimmers remotely, according to a program, so I can cycle through the lighting for a whole day automatically, while I operate trains.

So far, so good!

[hminky]

Ken,
Here is my attempt a directional lighting, so far it has worked well. It is based on John Armstrong's , the late dean of trackplanning, theories.

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/4x8/lighting/

Hope that helps
Harold

[Anonymous]

To CP5170
I have an almost identical situation coming up next spring when our new house will hopefully be completed. Could you contact me via e-mail with a rough layout of what y ou are planning.

Thanks
*** Foster
[e-mail]