lighting passenger cars

I recently purchased some 1890 style Con-Cor passenger cars which I would like to equip with lights. I know that I have to replace the wheels with metal wheels but is there a generic pickup available I can install and once that is established can I then just connect one or more 14 or 16 V bulbs? The lighting sets I see in Walthers big book seem to all be car specific and much too large for the Concor Cars which are just about 50 scale feet long. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Werner

Reply to
Werner Anschutz
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Lights. Love 'em. Passenger equipment just cries out for lighted windows. I have been able to fabricate axle wipers from springy bronze weather-strip. You want axle wipers rather than wheel wipers to reduce the frictional drag. I cut a fingery piece of bronze to form a pair of wipers for both axles and secured it to the truck with a 2-56 machine screw and nut. I had to paint the car interior a light color to make the bulbs brighter. Make sure the roof is light tight, I had one car whose's roof glowed on the outside 'cause it wasn't opaque enough. I solved that one with a piece of shiny gift wrap ribbon glued to the ceiling of the car. Walther's makes a constant brightness light kit for the new Budd cars. It's a plastic carrier the fits up in the ceiling and carries three bulbs plus the voltage regulator that keeps the lights at constant brightness regardless of track voltage. It will fit the IHC line of 80 foot streamline cars and it might fit your Con-Cor cars, although you want to consider how it would fit under the clearstory. For that matter check the length. They are 10.5" long but could be chopped down to

8.5" Far as I know, you have to invest the $8 to buy one and then see if it can be made to fit. If you want to roll your own lamps, take a look at the copper sticky tape sold for printed circuit board work. You can solder to it, it sticks down to the floor and ceiling and doesn't show thru the windows. You want at least two and three is better, bulbs. Be sure to allow a means of replacing the bulbs. I have a lit Ambroid 1-5000 wood caboose with a dead bulb inside and no way to change it short of demolition of the car into 5000 splinters....

David J. Starr

Werner Anschutz wrote:

Reply to
David J. Starr

I use ordinary kitchen tinfoil - the lamp has to be very bright to shine through that!

Reply to
Gregory Procter

I tried that sort of scheme, but the AA and AAA batteries were too large - still looking for reasonably priced N batteries, but they are still a bit to large in diameter. I used a magnetically biased reed switch mounted at floor height against the carriage wall - running past a bar magnet turns them on or off depending on the pole.

Regards, Greg.P.

Reply to
Gregory Procter

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