Dept. 56 Buildings

Bob:

I have 60 Dept56 buildings on my permanent Christmas layout.  I used white duct tape to tape the wires down to my plywood/OSB table top and then covered the wires and duct tape with two layers of poly quilt batting as a snow blanket. I then sprinkled fake snow over much of the batting.

I cut a slit the batting behind each building with a razor blade in order to feed the bub and clip into the hole in the building.

You will need to place the bulb-side or back of each building away from view and there will be a few areas where you will need to drill a hole through the table top for the plugs and wires.  I used as many 3-light, 6-light, and 25-light cords as possible to get away from having a plug for each building.  You can find multiple light Dept 56 cords on e-bay.

The C7 warm LED bulbs work well except that the light is not as warm as a standard incandescent.  I changed out the bulbs with LEDs on every house that was going to be difficult to reach for an easy bulb change.  The C7 LED may be too long for some of the smaller buildings where you will need to stay with the standard bulb.

'Hope this gives you a few ideas.

Howard

i have alot of lemax buildings,same scenario with cords and plugs.i cut the plug ,feed it through the platform and wire it to a buss bar ( terminal strip) then run 1 cord and plug to a surge protector strip and plug it in.works great ,not a problem close to 10 years ,now.i have approx.12 buildings.i also use c7 led bulbs,from china believe they are called corn cob bulbs,they vary ,in how many led chips they have,depending on how bright you want them in ,work great.forgot to mention,i got the buss bars at home depot,heavy duty,and they can be cut to length.

rich

I usually replace the lights with LED's (12-18 V) & run them off of track power or accessory.

I don't have any Dept 56 buildings on my layout, but I do like Spence's idea of converting them to low voltage LED's.

Bob, we have over 230 D56 buildings installed on our main layout. When I started this project in 2006, D56 offered a plug and light system using jacks. It made the lighting project so much easier. The jacks use thin wire and drilling a small hole through the benchwork to access the power unit makes a clean and easy installation.

The more modern D56 buildings have the hole for the lighting in the bottom of the piece, not in the back or on the side. Also, other than Snow Village, most D56 buildings are made in porcelain.

Let me know if I can help.

Brian, I'm pretty sure I'll be contacting you when I get to the point of placing my buildings.  The current total is 17.  Nowhere near yours, but I think they will add to my layout.  Initially, it was to be devoid of buildings, but, that has changed.  Bob

To my knowledge, Dept. 56 items are NOT 1/4 inch scale.

That was helpful.

Hi Bob - If you need a grocery store, you can find these on ebay.

  Click photo to enlarge.....

I have been collecting D56 "Snow Village" buildings for many many years.  My wife and I would collect a house or 2 when we went on vacation.   The Snow Village buildings look great with S scale.  Just a little too small for O scale, I think.  When I use them with O scale I raise them up a little with 1/2" plywood or homasote.

I use christmas tree light strings and bulbs for lighting.  It comes out to using about every other socket.  I put a piece of electrical tape over the unused sockets just in case I have to mess with the string of lights.  Don't want to put my finger in a live socket.  LOL  The houses I use have a hole in the bottom as well as the back.  If one does not have a hole in the bottom I will use the wire that came with the house and run it thru the back hole otherwise I wire them thru the bottom with the christmas lights.

Rick

A couple of Department 56 options from their website:

Building and Accessory Lighting System (The item Brian mentioned above):

This system can light up to 12 different buildings or accessories or combination. Added technology of finer wiring makes hiding cords simple. You can also buy extra power cords.

6 Socket Light Set w/ Bulbs:

Replace six single light cords with one switched cord.

Thanks Brian. Just what I was talking about.