As the missus was pursuing the Christmas decor sections of Michael's and Menards, I found myself looking at the various strings of holiday mini-LED lights and started to wonder how/if they might be applied to some existing rolling stock. Always looking for a fun train project, I decided to give it a try and this is what I came up with…
What I learned:
- Some strings use three batteries, some use two. Two-battery boxes will fit completely into the wells of far more cars than three-battery boxes.
- Shorter is better. Most of these strings run between 3 and 15 feet. For placement on or in an O-gauge car, 3 to 6 foot strings are optimal. If you do have some string and lights left over, the low battery voltage is safe enough to clip off the part you don't need. Either way, it takes time to fudge all the wires just right.
- The thin wiring is easy to bend to hang lights over the side, but glue dots on the back help them stay in place better and they're easy to remove after the holidays.
- Pay attention to the light spacing. More spacing between lights gives you more flexibility, but it also means more wiring to hide (if you want to hide it).
- If you do want to hide the wiring and battery boxes, but still have access to the On/Off switch, you'll also need to be creative on payloads. Loved the "crushed candy cane" filler I found at Michael's for the realistic cargo look, but digging through it to find the On/Off switch is a pain (though it's a great holiday substitute for a regular coal dump load). For the other two, I just cut platform boxes out of thin cardboard with a hole for the power switch, glued on some white felt to simulate snow and decorated accordingly.
In the end, I made three lighted Christmas cars for less than the cost of a new piece of rolling stock. Let's see your DIY Christmas creations!
redrockbill
