Have a look at this:
http://rapidotrains.com/c-details1.html
Rapido Trains offers battery-powered lighting that stays consistent no matter the variations in track voltage. The same units equipo their "Continental Line" cars and look pretty realistic. They are turned on and off by a magnetic wand that comes with each unit.
Martin
Québec City
jecorbett wrote:I think lighting for passenger cars is overkill. The reason I say that is because it is much more prominent in model railroading than the prototype. Think about it. For most of the night, the cars go dark so the passengers can sleep. On my recent Amtrak trip, there was just enough lighting to allow passengers to move safely to the restrooms. If you model in the summer, as I guess most modelers do, it stays light almost until the time the cars go dark so there is a small window when there would be much light at all and even then I don't think it would be as bright as what we see in typical lighting kits. The only way to do lighting realistically is would be to control on/off as well as a dimmer through a decoder. That is a lot of extra expense for what I believe is little benefit. Yes it is dramatic to see a night scene with fully illuminated coaches go by with detailed interiors but ask yourself how realistic it is. I'm going to save a lot of money and let my passengers sleep at night.
je:
I like your realistic approach. Unfortunately--though I can only speak for myself--once the 'lighting bug' hits, it's like trying to give up smoking, LOL! When I started putting my 1950 "Royal Gorge" train together, I decided--"Oh, what the heck, I'll buy a lighting kit for one coach." Looked pretty good. Oops--NO PASSENGERS! Back to the LHS for some Preiser and WS passengers. Looked FABULOUS! Back to LHS for more lighting kits and more passengers--the ball was rolling and I went nuts. Mike at my LHS (he's kind of like my Mentor on a lot of stuff) furrowed his brows and said, "You really going to run the whole thing LIT during the day?" I just grinned and said, "I've got lots of tunnels."
Prototypical? Not by a long shot. But once the 'bug' hits--OBOY!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
The 'domes' generally were not lit at night. There were floor mounted 'edge' lights after dark. Keeping the dome completely lit up after dark would make viewing poor. Think about dimming your house lights so you can see out the windows in the evening.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
If this helps........
On my last trip on Amtrak (FL to NY) the flourescent lights stayed on in the coaches until just after 9p.m. The floor lights remained lit, and some passengers that were reading or conversating in their seats had the small overhead "map lights" on.
The Heritage Budd lounge car remained fully lit. When the attendent closed the snack counter at the 10p.m hour, the car still remained fully lit.
Looking from the outside, due to the tinted windows, streamlined passenger train interior lights are not "super eye-frying bright". The effect I've seen reminds me of walking into a room with a dimmer switch equipped incandescent lamp, and turning the brightness down 25%.
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
Just finished putting several dozen passengers in my Pioneer Zephyr last night. It does make a big difference in appearance. The lighting in the Zephyr is fairly bright.
Tilden
Mikeymbca wrote: jecorbett wrote:Yes it is dramatic to see a night scene with fully illuminated coaches go by with detailed interiors but ask yourself how realistic it is. I'm going to save a lot of money and let my passengers sleep at night. You make a compelling point. One possible compromise is to remember that the observation/dome and/or diner cars are almost always fully lit. At least that was the case on a VIARail trip I took last summer. So you could either drastically dim the lights in the coach cars and use full strength lighting in the dome car, or you could only place lighting in the dome car; it creates (IMHO, anyway) some of the dramatic effect of an illuminated coach, while being less expensive and more prototypical in effect.
jecorbett wrote:Yes it is dramatic to see a night scene with fully illuminated coaches go by with detailed interiors but ask yourself how realistic it is. I'm going to save a lot of money and let my passengers sleep at night.
You make a compelling point. One possible compromise is to remember that the observation/dome and/or diner cars are almost always fully lit. At least that was the case on a VIARail trip I took last summer. So you could either drastically dim the lights in the coach cars and use full strength lighting in the dome car, or you could only place lighting in the dome car; it creates (IMHO, anyway) some of the dramatic effect of an illuminated coach, while being less expensive and more prototypical in effect.
I guess that depends on the company. On my Amtrak trip last summer, the obs/lounge went dark at night. I know because several of us who had trouble sleeping in the coach seats, tried the bench seats in the obs/lounge. Wasn't any better. For older railroads, you would probably need a little research to determine the lighting conditions.
AntonioFP45 wrote:TStage,Thanks for the heads up! Question: In your opinion, does the lighting resemble incadescent or flourescent?
TStage,
Thanks for the heads up!
Question: In your opinion, does the lighting resemble incadescent or flourescent?
Antonio,
I haven't tried them yet. But I was curious myself about the same thing. I would prefer it to look incandescent, if possible.
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
AntonioFP45 wrote: Remember though, that however, DCC decoders have come down a great deal in price. Modelers with tight budgets can simply do one car at a time. A friend of mine suggested that with jumper wires one decoder can control the lighting in an entire passenger train.
Remember though, that however, DCC decoders have come down a great deal in price. Modelers with tight budgets can simply do one car at a time. A friend of mine suggested that with jumper wires one decoder can control the lighting in an entire passenger train.
Don't people find it boring to operate passenger car trains which don't vary in consist from day to day, or not dropping off or picking up a pullman, diner, mail or baggage-express car during a day's normal operation? Wiring cars together makes interesting operations that much more difficult. Another thought...wouldn't the club car be the last one to turn of its lights at night?
Mark Pierce
I wonder...what would be the typical power draw of an HO train consisting of three powered locomotives with sound and fourteen lighted passenger cars...and how much power would there be remaining if one had a 5 amp power supply for use by this train and others....and the same question goes for a three-locomotive-unit pulling 40 freight cars where each had a single resistor axle for train detection...assuming all are climbing a 2.5% grade. As for details, what would be the power requirements for an individual locomotive (like a Life-Like SD-9) with sound, for an individual lighted car, and a car with a resistor axle. Yes, there must be a lot of variables, but how about a rule-of-thumb. I presently don't have the equipment or facilities to test this myself. Thanks for any input.
ctf1800 wrote:http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=led.strips US$ 7.89half the price and more selection worth checking it out however $25 min.
http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=led.strips US$ 7.89
half the price and more selection worth checking it out however $25 min.
Great! If you run 12v DC.
Richmond Controls makes these lighting devices, as well as shorter ones made specifically for caboose applications. They also make several other lighting effect modules ranging from special lighting effects on locomotives, to scenery lighting. They can also build to spec. This involves any guage you are working with.
http://www.richmondcontrols.com/
I agree about your assessment for lighting time periods on long distance passenger trains. However, for those of us modeling commuter trains, medium distance locals with freqent stops, and subway trains, continuous lighting at night is a prototype norm.
gmpullman wrote: Maybe you can look at these for half the cost. I bought from this E-bay seller before.Quickar Electronics. Lots of handy LEDs for model RR use.http://cgi.ebay.com/12-WHITE-LEDS-12-INCH-12VDC-LIGHT-STRIP-KIT_W0QQitemZ260080897740QQihZ016QQcategoryZ42155QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item260080897740
Maybe you can look at these for half the cost. I bought from this E-bay seller before.
Quickar Electronics. Lots of handy LEDs for model RR use.
http://cgi.ebay.com/12-WHITE-LEDS-12-INCH-12VDC-LIGHT-STRIP-KIT_W0QQitemZ260080897740QQihZ016QQcategoryZ42155QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item260080897740
I'm sure this is a good and useful product . . . but it's not the same.
It doesn't seem to have the "super" capacitor(s) to avoid or reduce flickering.
It's wired with some in series, some in parallel, so if you want to use less than the full 12 inches, I think you'll have a problem just cutting some off.
The Miniatronics unit has 7 very tiny (but bright) LEDs, and each has it's own resistor, so you can literally break off the part that's too long for the particular car without affecting the brightness of the remaining LEDs. That's probably why it's more expensive.
Regarding cabooses: I tried one of these on my new Walthers caboose with full interior and couldn't find a way to fit even a drastically shortened one. I expect there's a way, and I'm new to stuff like this, but by the time I got through chopping it down to try to fit it around the details there was nothing left and it didn't work.
Other than that it looked like a well-thought out approach, and installing the track pickups and everything seemed to go very well.
An update -- the lighting kits arrived today (not bad, Vermont to Florida in 3 days!).
They're pretty much as advertised. And plenty bright. In fact, Miniatronics includes 3 optional resistors to cut down the amount of light, 1.0K, 3.9K, and 4.7K. I initially thought the 1.0 was about right, but removed it. It's still a bit too bright in very low room lighting, but good in fairly high light. I may try a 500 ohm resistor or so, but there's probably no really good compromise between high and very low light levels.
As mentioned rather casually in the review on Tony's site, while the lights don't flicker off when power is removed momentarily, they do in fact flicker from bright to dim, fairly noticeably. This is most obvious, of course, in low ambient light.
I installed these in Walthers Budd passenger cars, so didn't use the pickups included. The Budd cars do pickup from both rails of both trucks, but via contacts between screws on the top of the bolsters and the underside of the car, so it's rather hit-and-miss. Someday, I keep telling myself, I'll put some wiring directly from the trucks to the car body.
These cars have contacts inside for the Walthers light strips, which cannot be soldered to. I stripped about an inch of insulation off the wires, wrapped them tightly around the contacts and soldered the "knot", then applied super glue to hold them to the contacts. So far, at least, this seems to work better, as they flicker less than the Walthers strips did.
These are pricey at $22 ($21 each for 5 or more), but do work pretty well. I haven't decided if I'm going to spend the $$ to do the rest of my passenger cars, but am thinking about lighting a caboose or two.
I saw that, too. Immediately ordered a couple!
Just a couple of weeks ago, I removed all the lighting from my passenger cars -- like they said in Tony's review, the flashing just drove me crazy (though, as a golfer friend of mine says, that's not a drive, that's not even a short putt!).
Saw this on the Tony's Train Exchange web site. Thought some of you might be interested in/reading about it. Here's the link:
NEW Miniatronics Car Lighting Kits
It looks interesting and it appears the cost is ~$22. With LEDs, I wonder how bright the interior will be?
Anyhow, for what it's worth...