Video taping a lay-out

[Anonymous]

I taped my digital camera to a Lionel flatcar and ran it around a little track setup I had. It was pretty interesting. I made a couple of mistakes, including derailing the train when it started when the camera hit the transformer (the camera is about 1.5" wider than the car) and then another time I was videotaping the train zooming at the camera and at the last second going around a curve and the train hit the camera full on. And the camera lives on...
Reed

[SP4449]

Hey, RocknRollExpress, [tup]

I saw one of the "Rail Vision" rigs on a HO narrow guage layout at a train show. It was done in great period detail: old buildings, sharp curves, grades, tunnels, etc. The tv set was placed where the public could watch the progress of the train. It was an outstanding effect which made you feel you were on board the train. The camera was mounted on a flat car and pushed by the loco, not a big deal since the public was concentrating on the tv set. The ones that wanted to see how it was done and went around to see the layout, ignored the "non-prototypical" car/locomotive arrangement.

Good luck! [^]

[leighant]

My dad did it in 1955 with a 5 pound spring-clockwork-operated 16mm movie camera on a Lionel flatcar. Several seconds from engineers point-of-view, then looking back from just a little off center at cab and train behind. Fun footage. Underlighted with slow 1950s model Kodachrome at 25 ASA exposure index if I remember correctly.

[Javern]

i mounted a mini cam inside a box car, works great

[eastcoast]

I have seen the "Rail Vision" product before and have thought about
getting it. To my agreement, use a flat or gondola to pu***he camera
unit around the layout.

NOT TOO FAR OFF TOPIC;

I have been video journaling my layout progress on the current layout
since it's beginning. VOLUME 1;East Coast Railways- "The Building of
an Empire" is completed. It shows taking a bare room , painting walls,
laying a floor, building benchwork and installing it to the room and finally
laying all of the trackwork. I have test runs and as a grand finally, all three
tracks operational with trains running their very first assignments.
I am now working on VOLUME 2-" Operating an Empire, the SCENERY",
hoping to continue on to additional volumes. REALLY NEAT PROJECT !!!!

[Anonymous]

I'd also agree with Lupo about using a flatcar. I've seen this done in G scale by a friend of mine who was looking to promote his store - he used a standard camcorder on a flatcar to film a trip round his garden layout, then played the results alongside his stand at shows - was a great success.

Regarding the 9V battery, I recall reading recently that some of these PP3 batteries are actually made up of several smaller batteries packed in a single casing - the smaller cells are known as "AAAA"s - if you can find one of these and disassemble it, you could spread the weight around the car to improve stability. I must stress that I've never tried this, so can't comment on how well it would work. There shouldn't be any risk of coming into contact with battery chemicals as the individual AAAA cells are sealed units. Just a thought!

[DonaldAgne]

I agree with Lupo that you should mount it on a flat car and shove it around. Power to the camera won't be a problem, since you seem to be running off a 9v battery. Not sure what gauge your layout is, but if it's HO, you should be able to mount the battery flat without any clearance or overbalance problems. If you're in N, you'll probably have to mount the battery vertically on its side, which can cause a tip-over if you run too fast. Which brings up the next point--you'll be surprised at how slowly you need to run to make it look realistic. Be sure to pu***he camera car with a loco that runs well very slowly. This was brought up in another thread on train cameras a few weeks ago. I've taped my layout this way, and it's really run to watch.

[Anonymous]

In the past, was there a loco that you can buy with a camera in it. Is it still around.

[lupo]

instead of wrecking a loco, why not buil the camera on a flatcar or inside a boxcar and shove it around your layout, might look funny from the outside: a locomotive shoving a car around the layout, but in the images transmitted you won't notice that.

in real life lots of frontal shots of running locomotives are made from flatcars attached to the front of the engine

Let it roll!

some more info on these wireless cameras used to tape a layout:
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=22804

[Anonymous]

Has anyone ever tried to videotape their train running through their lay-out? I was cleaning out my desk (at wife's request, she declared it a fire trap along time ago) and I came across a miniture wireless color video camera and transmitter kit I bought a few years back. I was thinking about mounting the camera, which is about 1/2 of an inch square inside one of my locos, and running it around the lay-out taping as it goes. The unit is ideal since it is wireless, runs off a battery and a bonus is it is a color camera. Problem is, it is kind of bulky when the 9 volt battery is attached, and it may make the loco unbalanced, especcially on curves. I am just curious, if anyone ever tried this before, and what the result was before I go through ripping a loco apart and setting it up. Here is a picture of my camera set: