Early morning passengers travelling from Bydemill – my 7mm scale, Edwardian era Great Western Railway layout – will no longer have to wait in the dark, thanks to a pair of GWR platform lamps.
I acquired these from Duncan Models in the UK, which offers lamps in a number of styles. They’re unpainted white metal castings with a hollow core and acrylic lamp insert. They come with pre-wired pico LEDs, ready to be connected to a 12v power supply. (I used a 9v supply I had on hand and it worked fine.)
I painted them with Vallejo acrylics, which I matched as closely as I could to a colour chart included in the book Great Western Railway Structure Colours 1912-1947. While installing them on the layout, I added a switch on the fascia so I can light them up as needed.
(At some point, I’d like to enhance Bydemill with more sophisticated layout lighting control and have these come on automatically in the morning and evening. I have some thoughts on how to do that – it’s already on the to-do list.)
A friend has shared information about a simple electronics kit to make the LEDs flicker like the gas lamps they’re supposed to represent, so I’ll upgrade my installation at some point. I like that these are gas lit as they provide a readily apparent reason for having a twin-tank Cordon.
The Model Railway Show 