How Much Lighting Do You Use to Enhace Your Layout?

TC,

  Brian I actually have always use minimal lighting because our Bear Christmas tree is part of the Christmas layout and lights the layout up even more than usual.  I do use different street lights thru out the layout also, along with the lighted houses, train stations and such.  Because of the Christmas tree lights, I keep other lighting to a minimum, most of the time.  However having seen pictures of your wonderful trim lighting, I am thinking about adding a little to my next Christmas layout also.

PCRR/Dave

Regrettably, we ran out of time before getting to that stage of our home layout and had to dismantle it but I was thinking of some effects that I'd seen here on other's layouts and some of my own.

Strategically placed spot and flood lighting is quite effective as well as the lights normally found on the exterior and interior of buildings is great. I was thinking of placing lights behind structures, hills, rock outcroppings and the like to backlight certain areas for good effect.

I especially liked how several builders had spot-lighted from below their ariel craft in another post here about airplanes above the layout.

I use lighting throughout my layout.  One of my most recent finds is a Chinese importer who provided low DC voltage LED lights in very realistic structures.  Below are two examples of the use of LED lights on my layout.

Brian

I get carried away with light sometimes (to say the least). I have a dedicated ZW-C with two 180 watt bricks that is dedicated to nothing but accessory lighting on the layout.

I'm very close to the limit on it. And my layout is not very big either.It's still a work in progress.

And I still have a lot more lights I want to add. Additional bricks I guess??

Oh well, good news I haven't burn the place down yet

Larry   still having fun!

PS Your Christmas layout is very nice I might add

I would say less is more. I believe many off the shelf models are overkill, but they are quick.

I live on the 12th floor in a small city.  This is downtown at 7pm October 29th last year, taken for modeling reference. Very few buildings stand out.  Its mostly street lights, an illuminated county building to the left, lights in parking lots and lights on bridges to the right.

Lights add a lot to a layout. Having said that, I have 12 street light lights that need to be installed. Every time the project is to start, somehow the trains start rolling and construction stops.

Brent

Love the airport runway.  Nicely done with the lights and scenery Larry, Sr!!!

Since my model buildings are near a large window most of my lighting is natural light which looks the best to me. I do have a small florescent light if it happens to be a cloudy day and I want more light. As for street lights, I only have two MTH remakes of the Lionel Post war street lights.

I like a lot of lights placed accordingly, to highlight details you may not otherwise notice. The problem with this scale, is there is NOT a lot of options for realistic, scale sized lights, shades, and posts. Many times you have to build them yourself, and even then, it's tough to squeeze a bulb or LED into a lamp shade that doesn't look over sized.

I made these lights using SMD (surface mount) LEDs with Plastruct lampshades. The shades are O scale, but to me, still oversized. The black conduit is Plastruct tubing, sliced in half to cover the wires. I have some scale shades from Tichy, but no way I can put a SMD LED with magnet wire in it, and still get it to satisfy the look I was going for. So these have to do for now:

Timing is everything! I just posted this clip yesterday on "What have you done on your layout today..." but since it relates to lighting, I hope folks won't be too upset if I add it here. I used Lionel street lights to bring more illumination to my construction area so the operating vehicles could be better seen during night running. Pushing the button to operate them also turns on the light.

Lighting is a wonderful element of the magic to be created on a layout.

My first memories of LIONEL trains dates back to the early '50's when Plasticville cottages, grocery store, church, etc. "glowed" with the Christmas tree bulbs my Dad had separated from their string to provide individual lights for them.  As an adult, I recognize that the "glow" is not at all prototypical, yet if I want to create the wonder I experienced as a child for my grandchildren, prototype lighting is not a yardstick.  I won't be adding backing to the walls or roofs of the structures to create a more realistic look; rather, I'll try to provide the "glow" that my Dad provided for me.

It's great that we 21st century enthusiasts have modern products available to us to model virtually anything we like.

Not enough.  I have track lights for general lighting.  I hid some C9 LED Christmas lights behind a bridge support to illuminate a dark area.  Lighted buildings and things like flashing crossing gate lights look great, but I only have a few.  Makes it much more interesting when you can see something inside a lighted building.  I would like to install more, but my platform is only about 12” off the attic floor so I usually do a lot more thinking about it than actually crawling under there and doing it.

Wood, this is excellent use of supplemental lighting.

Larry, this view of your layout is very memorable. Your night photos are spectacular. Great job.

"I was thinking of placing lights behind structures, hills, rock outcroppings and the like to backlight certain areas for good effect."

Sam, we came up with a way to do just this on the layout under construction. It has a dramatic effect.

There will be very little lighting on my layout other than interior lights in a few buildings.

One of the problems with modeling the WW2 era is that blackouts were in effect for most of the country (near the coastlines, anyway) with the stereotypical air raid warden walking around the streets at night, yelling out, "PUT OUT THOSE LIGHTS!" to houses with the blinds not drawn. So, it wouldn't be correct for me to have a lot of lights on if I ever decided to run night runs. Besides, the RR I model never ran at night anyway during those years.

I think that illumination makes my layout "pop" and stirs the imagination. I used Lionel, MTH, and LifeLike for most of the outdoor lighting and LED's in most of the buildings. Plasticville structures were lined with aluminum foil to cut down on the wall/roof "glow".

Thanks for all the lighting ideas and great night pics.

The Miller lights are very nice but some lay-outs seem to over do it with them.

Initially, I did not put lights in buildings, and I don't want too many Miller-type signs (too distracting) but lately I do put lights in buildings just so the interiors can be seen. Without them, all that work setting up small vignettes inside is largely wasted (although of course, I had as much fun as ever doing it).

Rickoshay, I would say you have been very successful with you lighting. Really looks good.

Lee, no question that the interior adds to this structure. You can see the boat inside very nicely.

I used these towers for my yard.

And my UPS yard.

I learned with our main layout that lighting can really add to a structure, scene, and in general, your layouts. An example would be our Newport Bridge that looked good prior to lighting it, but with the LED string lights, it becomes a significant focal point on the layout.

Then came the expansion of the refinery area with more specialty lighting.

Our latest project takes specialty lighting to a whole new ballgame for us. We have used it extensively to enhance backdrops, to make featured scenes really stand out, and to give new custom structures some pizzazz. As we get to a more complete stage, I will share with you just what I mean.

At the moment, nothing! My train room has a skylight, and in this southern latitude daylight remains well into the evening for much of the year. I eventually intend to install some track lighting for those rare occasions when I run trains after dark.

I will be installing building, yard, and street lighting as I get the layout landscaped. I'm making provision for this as I go along. 

One more thing - I have a large kit for a plastic model of the Graf Zeppelin. When I have time, I will hang that from the ceiling and put a spotlight on it. 

Good lighting on a layout separates the men from the boys IMO.

Especially with what you do. Christmas and passenger trains.

I bet it really looks great with just the layout lights.

If I come over to see it, can I bring my sleeping bag ?

I have used surface mount led lights to accent and brighten up the water under my bridge.  Before I added the lighting the water was dark and blended into the background.  Now I think it pops.  Sorry for the low quality photos, but here is my attempt  at accent lighting.

This is a great thread with a lot of talented responders.

When I think of special lighting I think of live theater and Walt Disney World. Both of those applications rely heavily on lighting to help tell their story.

The photo shown here is my bi-level passenger station and downtown area. I love the Miller signs and have used blacklights with fluorescent paint to represent the skyscraper lighted windows, street lights, auto head and tail lights and even stars.

TJ

JSP, I agree completely with your comments, the lights do add to the quality of the scene. I like water scenes anyway, so adding down lights makes a significant difference. Nice job.

TonkaNut, just an outstanding photo. Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks!

Out of everything I did on my Redford Theatre display this year, the added lighting underneath the snow blankets probably received the most compliments from visitors and theater volunteers.  Due to the dim house lighting during normal theater shows, I found over the years that though the interiors of my buildings are illuminated, the exteriors weren't as visible as I would have liked.  This year I decided to experiment and stapled several strings of warm white LED christmas lights to the table surfaces before adding the snow blanketing.  The result was pretty dramatic (though the picture doesn't do it justice).  You can also see in the background that I used some older cool white twinkling icicle light strings in the center town portion, as well as some colored incandescent lights on the edges of the second level.  I like the contrast of the different colors, but I definitely want to invest in some more warm white LED's to give the layout a more consistent look next year.  My experiment definitely worked when it came to accomplishing my goal of illuminating the building exteriors better.  They were much more visible.

Very impressive Jake. You sure make my point.

Jake, Tonkanut

VERY nice work.

Larry