Adding Lighting to Accessories

Here us how I added lights to my accessories.  It worked for my 027 postwar toy trian layout.  There are 20 so, small homemade flood lights on some buildings and several homemade flood lights 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.

Charlie

Looks great.  Yeah, I like to keep the overhead lights low and only have lights on the layout.  Areas where that may always have human activity need some type of exterior lighting IMHO in order to look realistic.

@texgeekboy posted:

I have the TMCC version of the Culvert Loader and Culvert Unloader.  They work great.  However the light in the house only comes on when there's a train where the culverts get loaded/unloaded.  I'd like to add some lamps onto or around the station.  I will want to connect them to the power already coming to the accessory.  I know many have done something similar.  Can you recommend a light to use?  I did it for the icing station, a goose neck lamp, and it doesn't stay in its place very well.

For realism, I guess goose neck lamps attached to the shed is preferable to free standing light posts?

Well, there's a whole lot of options out there, and it's really a matter of selecting the option that best matches the esthetic of your layout and your lighting needs. For instance, Charlie's DIY spotlights are not only inexpensive but match well with a postwar toy train esthetic IMHO, even though they're not too close to any particular prototype. You can purchase gooseneck lamps from Western Scenic as part of their "Just Plug" product line, which are good if you'd prefer to use plug in components and avoid soldering. BTW, problems with securing the added lighting fixture can usually be solved with a strategic dab of hot glue IME!

One of the "go to" methods for adding area and building illumination are LEDs, available in both strip and bulb form. You'll need to match the voltage and current requirements with the available power source, but there are many inexpensive ways to provide and regulate that power at need. One of my "go to" light sources has been a batch of small (3mm IIRC) warm white LEDs with incorporated resistor that will operate on accessory voltage, AC or DC. They can be used inside buildings, as sign spotlights, or under a shed porch roof, to name a few uses I've come up for them. Here's a couple I used inside transparent tube sections atop two columns in a trolley station on the el track (a couple of LED street lights are also visible in the park behind and below the station in the background):

Thanks @Steve Tyler.  That is a very nice looking station.  I'm very comfortable with soldering LEDs/resistors together.  I've used a lot of string LEDs to illuminate car interiors.  I guess I need to look into a hot glue gun to solder the goose neck lamps inside the building.  I found some manufacturer, wehonest I think, that has a threaded component for the inside of an exterior gooseneck lamp where you can tighten it shut with a nut.  However, Evans Design has some lamps with all the proper connections for power from Lionel transformers for dummies like me, but their lamps don't have the need thread/nut stuff.

@texgeekboy posted:

Thanks @Steve Tyler.  That is a very nice looking station.  I'm very comfortable with soldering LEDs/resistors together.  I've used a lot of string LEDs to illuminate car interiors.  I guess I need to look into a hot glue gun to solder the goose neck lamps inside the building.  I found some manufacturer, wehonest I think, that has a threaded component for the inside of an exterior gooseneck lamp where you can tighten it shut with a nut.  However, Evans Design has some lamps with all the proper connections for power from Lionel transformers for dummies like me, but their lamps don't have the need thread/nut stuff.

I wouldn't be too concerned about something as hard-core as nuts and threaded attachments. The weight of most lights, even ones in an O scale fixture, is relatively light, and usually if you secure the leads in place (like I said, a dab of hot glue will usually do!), the light and fixture are usually pretty secure. CA will also do, but takes a bit longer to set up and is harder to 'break' if you need to readjust the fixture (a brief exposure to a heat gun will easily soften hot glue, by contrast).