Adding Lights to Dummy Locomotives

Good topic, I’ll look forward to some how-to’s also.

No big mystery how to add lights, provide power and wire them up?

Now, the trick is if you expect them to be command controlled.

Many dummy locomotives can have pickup rollers easily added, then it just becomes an exercise in actually installing the lights desired and providing power for them.

In order to provide recommendations, it would be necessary to have specifics as to what dummy locomotives you have and exactly what kind of lighting you are contemplating.

If you have MTH engines, there is an electrification kit available for diesels. It comes with pickup rollers, lights and a 6v constant voltage board. One kit for 4 axle and another for 6 axle diesels.

Thank you GRJ and John for the suggestions. I am looking to apply lights to some MTH dummies so the kit you described, John H, would be great. For other engines, however, where can one go to get parts like pick-up rollers to mount to trucks?

You can get pickup roller parts from Lionel or MTH.  Again, it depends on the specific dummy as to if it has the proper casting to allow easy mounting of the rollers.  Some are easy, some are a PITA.

You can run a power wire from a locomotive, JST microconnectors are small enough to hide.

I saw a thread on here where someone was using battery operated led’s to light a caboose.   You can always go battery.