The Heybridge Railway, 1889 to 1913

[Richard Gawler]

In all of this excitement I left the coach lighting running all night and saw it, in early post-dawn daylight, soon after I got up. I think Nick's "acid" describes the untreated Dapol LEDs well, and they are reminiscent of the lamp in Prague. The two LEDs with amber paint do have an incandescent look about them but they remind me of a sodium street lamp not an oil lamp.

My gut feeling is, the output of an LED is too monochromatic to properly represent the gentle spread of colour in an oil lamp, and the amber headlamp paint is too orange. A cream paint might work better than amber or yellow.

I agree very much with Nick, that even if we can make a painted LED look like an oil lamp, the effect it produces may well be wrong, e.g. in the reproductions of red. In the model coach, I might have to choose between a good rendition of the interior and a good rendition of an oil lamp. My baseboard is at about elbow height, so I suppose I should go for the overall effect on the interior.

 

[Richard Gawler]

It would be very good to find LEDs that look credibly like an oil (or gas, or even early yellowish incandescent) lamps. Their life is much greater than any model railway is likely to need, they are usually quite cheap, they are very small, and in general they do not run hot, at least at the likely power we would want.

The Dapol lighting bar does produce a slightly ghoulish effect, call it an acid yellow or even an acid green. When Dapol release the gas-lit versions of these coaches, the effect will be pretty good (a bit subjective of course) even though the LEDs don't line up with the roof fittings.

For me, the lighting effect is going to be more important than the appearance of the model lamps. Oil lamps are incandescent and I want to try some incandescent bulbs, run at a reduced voltage. I think this will give a more gentle appearance.

 

[simond]

Well, when I get around to it, I shall try some yellow varnish on the LED lamps-with-shades that I got for the loco shed, and fit them to the goods shed, and then I'll post some pictures for discussion. The getting around to it may take some time...

 

[ICH60]

Interestingly you can now get 1800K LED's but not as singles as far as can see.

 

[ChrisBr]

Spectral characterstic of the "warm" LEDs


still all very narrow peaks in the range we would be interested in .....

 

[simond]

Well, if you could get the yellow, red-orange, red and deep red all in a single SMT package, with some of that phosphor from the white, and ideally with separate leads for each junction so you could adjust the proportions of each….

 

[Richard Gawler]

Richard - what are your thoughts on replacing the View attachment 192757 with View attachment 192758 ?

It's unfortunate they've moulded them as shallow trays. They would have been better left as solid panes in Roco HO fashion.

I noted earlier you painted the inside of the glazing to match the interior of the carriage sides - it may be worth painting the outside face of the moulding a brown or mahogany colour including the edges of the panes to see the effect. If you use acrylics this can be taken off by just rubbing with a cotton wool bud if it does not work.

I have a street car with similar glazing and just knocked up this in 15 minutes (nothing scientific) and photographed under a 60w daylight bulb to see the effect. I think it will be less noticable with 3V dimmed LEDs.

Car interior

View attachment 193037

Car Exterior. I painted in between and the edges of the panes with mahogany, car body colour (Santa Fe red) and a black Sharpie permanent marker.

View attachment 193036

And what it looks like inside the car held under the workbench 60w daylight bulb. I think it can be disguised by weathering the panes and cleaning the centres leaving the edges dusty.

View attachment 193038

In a 19th century wooden coach, the glazing sits close to the outside of the body and the interior includes a rebate inside the glass. And, in the model, the scale thickness of the glazing is negligible.

Somewhat inspired by Dave's approach, I have extended the interior colour (yellow ochre straight from the bottle) onto more of the glazing.


On the outside of the mouldings I have put paint everywhere except the faces of the window panes.


On the inside I have put paint over the whole of the flat vertical surface (but not inside the recesses, this would be too difficult).


And this is the result

I have used two or three coats of yellow ochre paint everywhere, fairly obviously a primer is not possible. I think this is a worthwhile improvement over the original appearance.

 

[David Waite]

Hi Richard
That looks very neat the colour suits perfectly.
David

 

[Richard Gawler]

This is how the windows look now, with the Dapol lighting bar in place but the interior lit primarily by ambient daylight; and the photograph exposed to create a pleasing effect. Further improvement needs lights in line with the roof fittings.

(Waiting until dusk will reveal any leakage around the glazing mouldings; but the colour produced by these LEDs does of course look more like gas lamps than oil lamps)

 

[magmouse]

but the colour produced by these LEDs does of course look more like gas lamps than oil lamps

Yes, but the overall effect is definitely heading in the right direction, I would say - an atmosphere is emerging!

Nick.

 

[Richard Gawler]

This week I have taken more photos and made a new lighting installation for my Dapol coach.


This final view of the lighting created by the Dapol light bar is quite revealing. The flare from each LED spreading into the black above the windows is light coming directly to the camera (not reflected off a coloured surface) and is not over-exposed (unlike the images of the LEDs themselves). This means we are seeing the true colour of the light. It has an acid yellow tinge and this is not representative of light from an oil lamp. Thanks to Nick @magmouse for his analysis here.


I have made a new lighting bar for the coach. This is 0.3 mm sheet brass, rolled to fit the roof moulding, primed and then painted white. The lights are 12V incandescent bulbs masked by short lengths of aluminium tube.


The new light bar obstructs the installation of the original Dapol one so I have hard-wired it onto the factory wiring in the coach.


(A) This photograph is an attempt to make a repeatable and reasonably good reference to the colours of the coach. The camera WB setting for 'flash' is a good match for my mains-powered flash head [WB=Flash].


(B) This is how the new lights appear in overcast daylight this afternoon, with the coach itself exposed reasonably well and the bulbs overexposed [WB=shade]

At the moment I am driving the bulbs with 7V DC and they are drawing 90 mA i.e. 30 mA per bulb. I am awaiting the arrival of a high frequency lighting unit (a Gaugemaster HF-3) and hoping this will achieve a similar brightness.

 

[simond]

That’s quite effective, particularly the lights being spaced internally to match the external features.

doll‘s house wiring tape is ideal for this kind of job, self-adhesive, and very thin. Perfectly adequate for lights, not ideal for traction!

 

[Richard Gawler]

Here is a third photo of the new lighting to record my "result".


(C) Photographed after dark, with a little artificial light from outside the room falling onto the outside of the model [WB=incandescent].

Observations
In photographs A, B and C (this post and my previous post) I have used three different camera WB settings to account for the worst in the variations of light: flash, shade (shaded daylight) and incandescent.

In photographs B and C I have edited the WB of the images in photo editing software to make sure the roof of the model remains white. This was especially necessary in photo C, I will guess this was because the WB "incandescent" setting is designed for studio lighting not the LED bulbs outside the room.

In photograph C, with the interior of the model lit by its incandesent bulbs, the yellow ochre paint looks good and the flare from the interior lights is an orange or yellow colour not the green recorded from the Dapol LEDs. The outside of the model is a little cool (too blue) but I can attribute this to the light coming from the LED lighting outside the room.

To my naked eye, the bulbs look too orange to represent oil lamps, but at the end of the day I suspect I have a choice between a realistic appearance of the light sources, and a good rendition of what they are illuminating. I cannot hope for both.

 

[magmouse]

This is looking good, Richard, and a transformation compared with the Dapol LEDs. As Simon noted, getting the lamps in line with the lamp tops is also an important contribution. I wonder whether, instead of hanging the lamps vertically in the aluminium tube, it might be better to have them horizontal, tucked up as close as possible to the roof. That way you wouldn’t see the lamps unless really looking upward into the roof space.

Nick.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I am finding it easy to lose self-confidence whilst experimenting with incandescent bulbs inside a model in an age of LED lighting, so I took some photos of a pre-wired "micro" LED and one of my bulbs to try to reassure myself.


The LED was coated in amber light paint by the time I took this photo.


Blue light bleeding from the LED in its natural state.


Green light bleeding from the LED after coating it with amber paint.


Yellow light bleeding from the bulb.

Annoyingly I cannot remember whether I bought the LED as "warm white" or "cool white".

It would be useful to be able to employ this LED (or one without the paint) as a wall light inside a different coach but I probably need to told what colour I have to paint its surroundings so they appear to be glowing yellow not blue or green. Or maybe there is a peculiar shade of varnish suitable to make the necessary alteration to the light.

Meanwhile, the bulbs are staying in the Dapol coach. I have done some experiments on "heating" (not as bad as I feared) and I will post these later.

 

[Richard Gawler]

I have done an experiment to find out how much the 12 volt bulbs increase the temperature of the air inside my Dapol Stroudley coach.

The guard’s compartment occupies one-third of the length of the coach and has one bulb; the three passenger compartments occupy the other two-thirds and have two bulbs shared between then. I have removed the glazing from one door in each part of the coach, to allow a small movement of air.


The temperature sensor is my SensorPush environmental sensor, placed inside the guard’s compartment at the opposite end of the compartment from the bulb.

I installed the roof and left the model untouched for most of an hour to let the sensor stabilise.

Observations . . .


(A) 13:20 Powered up all three bulbs using a 7 volt supply and covered the model with a thick folded towel to remove air flow and provide some heat insulation

(B) 14:20 Power off, towel removed, allowed to cool

(C) 15:10 Power on (no towel)

(D) 16:20 Power off

(The ambient temperature increased by 1 °C from (A) to (C) and fell away late afternoon)

Looking at the second heating cycle (no towel over the model) it looks as if the bulbs can increase the air temperature inside the coach by 3 °C after an hour. After this, losses through the door window are slowing further increases.

I hope this is of interest to anyone pondering bulbs vs LEDs. I think I can tolerate 3 °C. The SensorPush is a most useful tool, I have used it in a few locations around the house. It logs humidity and dew point as well as temperature.

 

[Richard Gawler]

This is looking good, Richard, and a transformation compared with the Dapol LEDs. As Simon noted, getting the lamps in line with the lamp tops is also an important contribution. I wonder whether, instead of hanging the lamps vertically in the aluminium tube, it might be better to have them horizontal, tucked up as close as possible to the roof. That way you wouldn’t see the lamps unless really looking upward into the roof space.

Nick.

The idea is, the short lengths of aluminium tube obscure most of the length of the bulbs and leave a hemisperical glass dome protruding at the bottom. This dome being reminiscent of a fitting inside a real coach though not a scale model. The bulbs are sitting most of a scale foot too low but they are still just about above the tops of the window frames.

I am expecting my other coaches to be of brass. Suppose I solder short lengths of brass tube onto the underneaths of their roofs, and tuck the bulbs into these tubes. See which lighting effect I prefer, and then perhaps move the bulbs on this first coach to match. But leave the bulbs as they are for the time being.

 

[Osgood]

But if the bulbs were recessed up into the roof fitting..........

 

[Richard Gawler]

But if the bulbs were recessed up into the roof fitting..........

The lamp tops are separately applied fittings and they clip into place. They are hollow and you can see daylight through them from side to side - incredible attention to detail really. But they are moulded from plastic. I would give this a go with LEDs (a few mW) but the bulbs (0.2W) get too hot to touch. Sorry.

 

[Richard Gawler]

At the moment I am driving the bulbs with 7V DC and they are drawing 90 mA i.e. 30 mA per bulb. I am awaiting the arrival of a high frequency lighting unit (a Gaugemaster HF-3) and hoping this will achieve a similar brightness.

Not a chance. The HF-3 gets the filaments to glow so I can see their wiggly outlines; no chance of any illumination.

I hope the foregoing assessments of 12V bulbs are not viewed as a waste, but I have replaced the three 12V bulbs wired in parallel with three 3V bulbs (supplied with the HF-3) wired in series. And finally, I have my result.


The lighting circuit gains a capacitor (top left) to pass the high frequency (AC) lighting supply but block the DC train control. Very old skool tech but it seems to fit with the light railway, one engine in steam sort of model railway. However many coaches I go on to build, their lighting fittings will cost pennies.


The flare shows good colour and even the over-exposed bulbs look like the colour of a mantle in an oil lamp!


And this is the best rendition of the interior colours I have managed so far.

The dangly red wire is annoying but I can sort this out another day when I add some passengers and a guard.

I cannot include figures for volts or amps here because the frequency of the Gaugemaster lighting supply seems to be higher than what my multimeter perceives to be alternating current. The only numbers are, the capacitor is marked 0.47 µF, and the new bulbs are rated at 3V each.