Post 19 8-26-2016 revised 4-17-2022
Layout Lights, Building Lighting and Mini Christmas Tree Light Use
All buildings have lights in the ceiling like real buildings not on the floor. My childhood layout buildings had 4 watt or so Christmas tree 110v lights. I use small 12v mini Christmas tree lights for building lights. These 12v Christmas tree lights are replacements only for stings of 10 bulbs and each bulb draws only 0.4 watt per bulb. I cut up mini Christmas tree light strings and use the pig tails and sockets for the building lights. The 12v mini Christmas tree lights, being incandescent, give a warm color light like lights in the 1950's that I model. A small staple or plastic loop is usually used to suspend the light socket in the ceiling. I hook up the building lights with plastic wire nuts to pig tails coming through a hole in the layout to allow quick and easy building removal. I can find replacement 12v mini Christmas tree bulbs, in packs of 6 for about $1 before Christmas at Walmart and fifty cents after Christmas if they have any left (or eBay). The 6v mini Christmas tree bulbs, for 20 bulb light strings, are also useful as I hook them up, two in series, when two bulbs are needed.
Mini Christmas 12v, 0.4 watt, light bulb and socket in ceiling of building, held by a plastic loop.
A Lighted Church Building
I have two 12 VAC transformers for lights. Each type of lights has its own on/off switch. One for Building lights and slide switches for other lights like round house, yard lights, flood lights, street lights etc.
There are three Rail road yard lights. They are Marx Yard light towers around the turntable and Round house and the coal mine with a on/off switch.
Homemade Yard and Flood lights from Plastic Christmas Bells and Plastic Balloon Sticks
There are 20 so, small homemade flood lights on some buildings and accessories. The homemade flood lights are made from 1 inch diameter or so Christmas plastic bells, and poles are made from hollow plastic balloon sticks (from party stores which we have lots of in the big party town of Baton Rouge, LA) and 12 v mini lights (grain of wheat size with pig tails) from Radio Shack.
The base is a 1/4 inch slice of a 3/4 inch dia. wood dowel (wooden broom stick !). All accessories like saw mill, drum loader, milk car platform, barrel loader, cattle pen, etc. have a pair of these flood lights. The flood lights have a on/off switch for each layout board.
The yard and flood lights are a must for night and dim light train operating. They were very useful when the train board was on the floor near with room lit only by the near by Christmas tree.
Room lights – I have an incandescent dimmer switch on the front side of the train board with outlet on the side of the train board that I plug, one or two cheap 5 foot floor lamps, with shades that can tilt, into. This allows me to turn off the room lights and use these for room area lights. Then if I want to operate trains in dim light or without any room lights I can dim or shut down the room lights. We love to run night trains.
In my new second story train and video/audio room I still use one floor lamp by the TT and RH. I have another floor light by the new board addition. These floor lamps are not as good as when the layout was on the floor because they are closer to the train board since it now 35 .5 inches above the floor. I use the floor lamp at the new addition for a reading lamp also.
I also have all incandescent lights for ceiling lights in the train room. Two are pairs of flood lights over the layout and they are on a dimmer at the wall. I like the color of incandescent lights. I did not bother with expensive, modern, efficient lights and opted for cheap and easy to dim lights as I do not use the ceiling lights much unless trains are running at night. I have seven windows in the room for most daytime running and they have blinds on the south, east and west windows to keep the sun out and prevent fading.
Charlie
