Blackwater Canyon Line - April 2, 2025, Brick Street Extension Planning

Okay LT1poncho Mike.  Here it is with the LEDs installed.  The lighting isn't quite even in all windows, which I think is a good thing.  I stuck LED strips on the underside of the side bracing holding the roof up.  On the front, I stuck the LED strip on the wall between first and second floor windows.  I have one strip on the backside of the tower facing forward.  That leaves the window in the one story vestibule.  I just let the light filter through an opening from the main building, so it looks like the lights are turned down low there.  The windows look better than the last two photographs show.

I need to make a cross and sign.  I haven't found the chimney I was saving.  I may have to make one, which would be pretty easy with the Plastruct embossed brick.  I decided I am not going to scenic the base yet.  I may have to trim it some once I decide where it will go and how I am going to make the streets and sidewalks.

@Ohio Jeff posted:

Zillow.com has build dates most of the time

Hi Jeff!  That would work for the houses, but I didn't see anything for either.  Both were probably built in the 1910s or '20s.  The church doesn't come up, but this building I am modelling isn't the current building on the lots.  Thank you for the good idea.

Mark it looks great. Those windows are spot on! Love the varied lighting, and you really have the wall joints sealed up nice. No light leaks. My only thought is maybe a gooseneck overhead light over the double door entryway?? Just a thought. I think it’s well-done sir!

Mike

Hi Mark,

I have been following along with your progress on the church.  It looks fantastic!  You have done a commendable job on this build.  Congratulations!  You're an inspiration to all of us.

John

Looking even better at night. A set of lanterns, one on each side of the entrance would be better than a gooseneck, I think.

Wow....how great looking is that. Excellent!!

Mark, I can’t comment enough about this project, beautifully done!

Gene

Thank you Mike, John Dave, Greg, Gene!

Mike and Dave, I like both of your ideas!  I think the lanterns on either side of the double doors and a gooseneck over the side door would look great.  I will start looking for just those items!

I finished the sign and added the pastor and wedding couple.  Our pastors have always worn black robes, not white.  I will have to give him a quick robe change.  For many years since 1984, the pastors have all worn jackets and ties, or even just a jacket and no tie.  However, back in 1984 the robe was definitely the appropriate dress.   I suppose I should give the groom blond hair while I have the paints and brush out.

The sign is made just like the 1984 sign.  I am going to call it done, for the time being.  I need to find some exterior lights as mentioned above, that great looking chimney which got stashed somewhere when I did the red up on the train room, and finish the sidewalk and landscaping when I lay out the street. 

Hey, it looks pretty well done and there are still 20 days before our 40th anniversary!  Kim likes it a lot. 

Here is a shot with the lit Sanky Wanky Coffee Company.

I can't thank everyone enough.  Any inspiration I was able to give makes me very happy.

@Mark Boyce posted:

Thank you Mike, John Dave, Greg, Gene!

I finished the sign and added the pastor and wedding couple.  Our pastors have always worn black robes, not white.  I will have to give him a quick robe change.  For many years since 1984, the pastors have all worn jackets and ties, or even just a jacket and no tie.  However, back in 1984 the robe was definitely the appropriate dress.   I suppose I should give the groom blond hair while I have the paints and brush out.

The sign is made just like the 1984 sign.  I am going to call it done, for the time being.  I need to find some exterior lights as mentioned above, that great looking chimney which got stashed somewhere when I did the red up on the train room, and finish the sidewalk and landscaping when I lay out the street.

Hey, it looks pretty well done and there are still 20 days before our 40th anniversary!  Kim likes it a lot. 

Here is a shot with the lit Sanky Wanky Coffee Company.

I can't thank everyone enough.  Any inspiration I was able to give makes me very happy.

Mark Boyce

Mark:

That is GREAT model!!!!!! BRAVO sir!!!!

Bravo!!!!!

Looks great Mark. Check out Evans Designs. I put these coach lanterns on my factory building and the are just right. They have a nice gooseneck fixture too. Very fragile though.

Bob

@Mark Boyce

Mark,

I haven’t been following your build; but I’m impressed how great it looks! Well done!

Bravo Zulu @Mark Boyce!

@Mark Boyce posted:

Thank you Mike, John Dave, Greg, Gene!

Mike and Dave, I like both of your ideas!  I think the lanterns on either side of the double doors and a gooseneck over the side door would look great.  I will start looking for just those items! ...snip...

I can't thank everyone enough.  Any inspiration I was able to give makes me very happy.

A thought for the interior lighting, a color temperature a little more towards the yellow end of the spectrum to better represent the incandescent lighting used back then.

If none of our sponsors has what you want, Wehonest does have some gooseneck fixtures in several scales. I didn't see any lanterns but I really just did a surface scan.

As for the lanterns, I was thinking of something gothic and extremely large (salvaged from the original church?).

Just a few thoughts.

Thank you, Randy, Bob, Bob, Darrell, Dave!

Bob, I was thinking of Evans Designs.  I now remember your factory building!  They look great!

Dave, thank you for the observation that a more yellowish tone would be better.  Also, I had never heard of Wehonest.  Thank you!!

I will come back to this building when I get the exterior lights installed.

I have the gooseneck and lantern warm white LEDs on order from Evan Designs.  Changing the interior lighting to warm white will wait.  I decided to buy a bunch of new LED Christmas lights for the trees; inside and out.  I am tired of fighting the old strings we have. 

Mark: I thought that dealing with burned out LEDs was part of the holiday.  I have so many LED strands that I can’t count them all.

Good luck

Thank you, Zac!!  I bought a bunch of C7 LEDs last year for the outdoor strings.  I was still using incandescent bulbs that had most of the paint worn off.  Others that were fairly new would blow out first.  I stopped climbing the ladder a couple years ago, so they are strung low.  Most of the indoor miniature incandescent strings have been discarded, so I was needing something.  Hopefully, I'll have a quiet Christmas season(s) before the LEDs start to go. 

Great work on the church @Mark Boyce! Good call with the freight station since the Swanky Wanky will need a steady flow of new supplies. Everything is flowing together very nicely with the town!!

Really nice work Mark! I'm glad I was able to watch your progress.

Good morning Mark I think you have done an amazing job on the church! I think when you get the new lighting in you are going to be so happy with all your work that your going to run out and buy another building to do! LOL

Either way I am glad i fallowed along!

Thank you, Tom, Myles, Mike!

Tom, I don't know why I hadn't thought of putting the freight station there before!  It was underneath the Idaho Hotel lift-up and was out of sight, out of mind I guess.  It is too nice of a kit to have there where the hotel and the rest of the layout steals the show.

Myles, I'm glad to know you are here!

Mike, I have a couple of kits in a drawer, but my interest isn't there for them.  I also don't have anything that is compelling to scratch build right now either.  I could work on some interiors that I didn't do.

I have a little side project I am working on.  It is a module to be used by an N scale group during a weekend in December and a weekend in January.  I am using some N scale buildings I saved from 30 years ago, and the base and track are done.  I just need some scenery.  I did buy an N scale kit that I may try to build just to finish off the module for the future.  It is laser cut and has some peal and stick parts.  It should be fun.  I have a couple of N scale kits from 30+ years ago that are basically a box of sticks.  I opened the boxes and quickly shut them again cringing!    Cutting and fitting the small parts on the church turret was really a challenge for me.

It has been a while since I had anything to post here.  I have spent some time putting up Christmas decorations.  M y wife loves decorations.  I also spent some time with another project on another thread. 

I did receive the Evan Designs lantern lamps and gooseneck lights for the church doors.  They look great, but the wires are oh so thin!  I have found them a bit challenging to handle.  I started with the single gooseneck lamp for the side door.  I drilled the proper size hole and fished the wires through seating the lamp 'conduit' through the hole.  I expected the lamps to need DC, but saw the instructions said 9-17 DC or AC.  So I soldered the wires and connected them to the closest power source, the track power.  The LED shone very brightly, then went out.  It blipped on and off dimly then went out.  Well, anticipating I would burn some out, I ordered extras of both types.  I guess I'll try DC next, but there are only two black wires so there is no way to test polarity.  Does it matter?  The black blob on the wires is a mystery circuit to me!  LOL

Mark,  an LED shining bright and winking out is a burn out.  Either too high a voltage coming in or the resistor is wrong or non existent.  Evans  shrink wraps around the resistor and the rectifier if that is part of the package - their stuff should be bullet proof.  Send them an email on the issue.    Wiring in reverse in AC / DC capable elements should not matter due to the rectifier.  In LEDs is does matter, but reverse only results in no lighting not a burn out.  Track power often gets up to 22 volts, that could be enough.

You are an electronics guy, not using a dedicated power source for LEDs? What were you thinking?  Been there, done that, never again using track power for anything other than engines and cars. I thought about getting some for my engine shed, lets see some pics of working goose necks. 

Wow Mark that sucks! Reminds me of the oldbsaying. Two steps forward and one step back.

I hope it is easy to figure out. I know I sure have popped my share of LED's.!

All my LED lighting gets power from wall plug transformers like the ones shown in picture.   Several of the LEDs also required resistors to reduce brightness.   Good luck with your project!

Cheers, Dave

Just picked up a similar to this one Lionel accessory transformer (6-32923) off the 'bay in mint condition for short money as a dedicated transformer to power some Z-stuff lights I just installed.

With adjustable AC voltage and 1.8 amps of power it might be just right for what you need as long as your LED's can run off either ac or dc power.

Beautiful church, Mark - extra special nostalgia for your family adds extra charm.

Thank you, Jeff, Mike, Dave, Richie, Dan!

Jeff, I wrote about the black blob mystery circuit to see who would pick up on it.  I'm not surprised you did.  I still thought the track power at 14 v was within the parameters, but wasn't surprised when it went poof!  I have lit up greater things than LEDs by far in my time.  One was a 5 RU (rack unit) box which tripped a 500 KV breaker.  We had to get another from 2 hours away.  Another time I momentarily lit up the grated floor in the power station with 120 vac.  This was small potatoes! 

Mike, I made 3 steps forward today.  Something is going to blow any minute!

Dave, yes I took the time today to run some wire and install a spare wall wart as you suggested.  Much better idea!

Richie, very nice unit!  I am using an old MRC power pack to power the Z-Stuff switches and the linear actuators for the lift-up bridges. 

Dan, nostalgia for sure!  One elderly lady sent us an anniversary card and commented about having being there and making the punch.  She was correct! 

So here are the lights installed on the church.  The gooseneck looks pretty dim with the room lights on, but shows up well with the lights off.  I think I would expect the side light with the shade to look less bright than the front door in real life, though I may pot the lid again and change out the resistor I added for something smaller.

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions!

Mark, the lights look great!  But I must admit, you got my attention with the 500KV breaker trip.  That must have been a fun time going through the root cause analysis afterwards.  Hopefully, no customer problems except maybe a minor blip!  

Keep up the good work with these projects!

Bob

Thank you, Bob!

Yes, I added the 500 KV mishap to show it is like an old timer used to say when I was working at that position during my 30s.  He would say, "If you don't trip something once in a while, then you aren't doing anything."  The same thing happens with snafus we have with our trains and layouts.

What happened in the 500 KV scenario was that burning up the shelf tripped 2 circuit breakers which isolated one 500 KV transmission line from the rest of the station.  Since that line stopped carrying any current, current flow in the adjacent lines could have switched direction or increased in the same direction.  No customers would have been affected.  There is a reclosing timer circuit in the overall scheme that would try to reclose instantaneously, then again at usually 15 seconds, and again at 45 seconds, before locking out at 90 seconds.  I do not recall whether the breakers reclosed instantaneously or at 15 seconds, but our only issue then was to replace the burned out shelf.  I was the crew leader training another employee.  However, he was the one who got a verbal reprimand (at my protest I might add) because he was the one who actually closed the switch causing smoke to be emitted.  Rest assured, there were other times when I did trip breakers that turned the lights out for customers until we could get a switchman in to switch everything back in service.

My 45 years experience gave me a respect for electricity, but at low voltages we use with our trains even I can take shortcuts evidenced by burning up a tiny LED.

Mark, they look good. I’ve been looking for some goose neck lamps and checked out Evan’s. Just verifying that you used the Warm White. Yours is the look I’m after color wise.

Thank you, Dave!  Yes, I used warm white.

While on the subject, when I first posted photographs of the church with interior lighting, someone pointed out the light through the windows was too white for my era.  The warm white exterior lighting shows that distinctly.  I could replace the interior LEDs, buy some slightly yellow translucent paint to cover the existing LEDs, or get some kind of warm white looking film to put over the inside of the windows.  I think the last option would be easiest to do, if I can find something appropriate.  We will see what I come up with.

Hey Mark, things look great! I really like the lights outside they turned out really nice!

As for the windows here is an idea, just throwing it out there. Maybe the wife has some parchment paper from baking, you could cut a little piece and see what it looks like. Plus if she has it that means its free to you! LOL

Mark, pretty sure this is what’s recommended to give a more yellow hue to the lighting. Should be a few on line tutorials on Google or You Tube.

Thank you, Mike, Dave!

Mike, I tried the parchment paper, but it made no difference.  Maybe there is something other than the white that Kim has.

Dave, that's the stuff I was thinking of.  I just didn't know what to call it.  I just ordered a bottle.  Thank you.

MARK, Marantz used vellum to diffuse the fuse lights behind the tuner panel to give a uniform blue glow. Hobby Lobby carries sheets of the stuff. Kind of feels like parchment paper, but there are different weights. Otherwise the yellow Tamia is often used for the warm white from what Ive read.

Mark,

I'm really enjoying this build. I know you are working on the finishing touches, with the lights and all, but your efforts have paid off. Keep us posted through all surrounding scenery. This is going to be a great scene.

Dave

Your stained glass windows are the real deal! Great work as always Mark!

Mark, great looking lighting on the church!

Uh, were you the cause of the 2 hour blackout in Cranberry on Thursday night?  (Asking for a friend).

George

@Mark Boyce posted:

Thank you, Jeff, Mike, Dave, Richie, Dan!

Jeff, I wrote about the black blob mystery circuit to see who would pick up on it.  I'm not surprised you did.  I still thought the track power at 14 v was within the parameters, but wasn't surprised when it went poof!  I have lit up greater things than LEDs by far in my time.  One was a 5 RU (rack unit) box which tripped a 500 KV breaker.  We had to get another from 2 hours away.  Another time I momentarily lit up the grated floor in the power station with 120 vac.  This was small potatoes! 

Mike, I made 3 steps forward today.  Something is going to blow any minute!

So here are the lights installed on the church.  The gooseneck looks pretty dim with the room lights on, but shows up well with the lights off.  I think I would expect the side light with the shade to look less bright than the front door in real life, though I may pot the lid again and change out the resistor I added for something smaller.

Thank you everyone for all the suggestions!

Looks great Mark. I agree that the side door would be less bright than the main entrance.

I've fried a few Evan's lights too. One was a mfr's mistake and the others were operator error. Yes- the wires are hair-thin on these. I can't imagine sitting at a bench assembling these all day but someone's gotta do it.

Bob