Claptowte Railway - Platform Lamps

[David1226]

The Claptowte Railway has a requirement for a number of platform lamps. Although the building of a passenger platform is still a little way in the future there is an immediate need for some lamps to mount on both the goods loading dock and the cattle loading dock under construction for Gernise End Station. Although trains would not normally be run at night there is a need to shed a little light on the loading and unloading of goods wagons during the dark Winter mornings and evenings. As it is intended that everything above rail height must be removable for storage, lights wired to permanent low voltage feeds, or to the track, would not be an option. I intended from the start that the lamps would all have to be battery powered.

The cheapest option by far would be to utilise the cheap 3.0 volt LED offerings, originating from China, frequently found on eBay, that work out at less than a £1.00 each. I actually paid a little more to buy eight from a UK supplier rather than direct from China, as they were delivered in days rather than weeks. My immediate requirement was for four lamps, two each for the goods dock and the cattle dock. I also purchased two 2xAA switched battery boxes to power them.

Although advertised as G Scale (or 1/25th scale) I felt that they were rather on the short side.





Fig A. Unmodified lamp post as purchased, height 85mm.

Fig B. Lamp post pulled apart.

Fig C. Top modified by cutting off plastic ladder stanchions and carefully cutting off the moulded ring at the bottom end. The bottom of the post is modified by sawing through the pole just below
the first moulded ring and discarding the top part. A new pole is fabricated from a 95mm length of 3/16” polystyrene tube (Evergreen item 226). The top and bottom of the new pole was
countersunk by running a scalpel blade around the internal bore. Two holes were drilled 5.0mm from the top to take new ladder stanchions. The pole is threaded over the wires, brass tube and
the remaining section of the original pole and glued in place. The diamond shaped moulding sits in the top countersink. The original base is then threaded over the wires and the top part glued
into the bottom of the new pole with the bottom countersink covering the moulded ring at the base top. A short section of 3/32” polystyrene tube (Evergreen item 223) is then threaded over
the wires and glued up inside the base to make a new extension with which to ‘plant’ the lamp post. The last thing is to glue in the new ladder stanchions which are cut down dress making pins.

Fig D. The completed modified lamp post, now 150mm high.

A comparison between the original and modified lamp post



Two completed modified lamp posts with 2xAA switched battery box to power them.



David

 

[Revok]

A couple of years ago I bought some of these, thinking they were 'G' scale in the generally accepted terminology. As said in the thread starter, they are indeed on the small side, but I used them outside on my station and they looked ok'ish. However, they didn't last long once the rainy season started. Where the wires extend from the base the insulation had worn or just disintegrated, and the very thin wires corroded. I replaced all the wires with a heavier gauge and better insulation, and used the same sort of idea as David to make a wider post to accommodate the thicker wires. A lot more robust now.

Incidently, the scale of these lights fit nicely with my Scalextric track!

 

[Paul2727]

Useful to know. I've got a dozen or so of these and was also disappointed by the lack of height. Once I get a chance to do a spot of modelling again, I'll pinch your idea if that's Ok.
Regards,
Paul.

 

[ebay mike]

I bought some 00 scale lamps - only because they were cheap as I was modelling trams in 1:32 scale. Obviously much too short but I treated them as 'ornamental' lamps and built small brick plinths out of slaters 0 scale brick sheet and mounted them on top giving a scale height of around 10 feet. The sort of thing you might encounter in a stately home garden.

 

[David1226]

A pair of the modified platform lamps mounted on the Gernise End Goods Loading Dock and the Cattle Loading Dock on the Claptowte Railway. There is a link below to see how the Goods Loading Dock and cattle loading dock were constructed.
Claptowte Railway - Goods Loading Dock - G Scale Central
Claptowte Railway - Cattle Loading Dock





David

 

[PhilP]

They look the business, David..

You say they are demountable? - What sort of connectors have you used?

PhilP.

 

[David1226]

Having used four lamp posts on the goods loading dock and the cattle losing dock, I was left with four to use on the passenger platform. I puzzled long and hard as to how I could mount the lamps on the platform, connect them to battery packs and still make them so as to be able to remove them to keep the baseboards flat for transport and storage. One day, while trawling through a well known manufacturer of resin cast G Scale railway buildings and lineside accessories, I saw that they manufactured a battery powered platform lamp standing beside a rockery flower bed, the flower bed concealing the battery pack. This gave me the germ of an idea.

I wanted my lamp post to be in the centre of the flower bed, and for neatness and compactness, the flower bed must have vertical retaining walls. I had some spare 2xAA switched battery packs, but these were still too large. I purchased four 2xAAA battery packs, which were much smaller. I already had the converted lamp posts, some 3.0mm foam board and some textured brick paper. I set about designing and building the flower bed, around the battery pack.

The vertical walls were a single thickness of 3.0mm foam board, with a double thickness, 5.0mm high, glued to the top inside edge, for extra thickness. From the underside, I glued in a piece of foam board to form the flower bed. Before gluing it in, I drilled a hole, in the centre, into which the base of the lamp post could be inserted, and I stippled the top surface, using the handle end of a paintbrush, to represent the soil bed. I finished off the top surface of the double thickness wall, with 8.0mm wide foam board, scribed to represent coping stones. I ended up with a raised flower bed 75mm long x 34mm wide, at the base, and 32mm high.

On the underside of the flower bed, at the base of the walls, I glued a 3.0mm wide strip at one end, and a 10.0mm wide strip at the opposite end, across the width of the flower bed. These strips allowed the battery pack to be loosely held in place, but with easy removal to replace batteries when the need arises. I glued two off-cuts of brass strip to the underside of the top surface, to which the wires from the lamp post and the battery pack could be soldered.



Here is the completed lamp post/flower bed. The walls are the same embossed textured paper that I used on the cattle dock and goods loading dock. The flower bed is planted up in patriotic colours of red, white and blue, courtesy of Warpainter Scenics, purchased on eBay.



Here is a view of the battery pack installed in the base of the flower bed.



Here is a close up of the flower bed.



A view of the four completed lamp posts.



David