Fitting Lights to a Peco 009 Coach

[Edge]

Hello All,

 

Well, for a long time I've been looking to begin work on a 009 layout and thanks to a generous offer from a friend to host it in her garage as long as she gets to build it with me it looks like that could be on for this year (finally!).

 

However, as her beloved mini is currently occupying the space earmarked for the layout, I'm focussing on stock for the time being, hence this topic.

 

I've always been something of a fan of gimmicks and so I thought I'd take on the challenge of adding lights to the two L&B trains that I plan to run on the layout (one in SR green and another as a fictional BR version of the L&B). For this i settled on the Train Tech motion senstive lights. There were a number of reasons why I felt that this was an ideal choice, which I'll go in to in a moment.

 

The Kit

 

 

This illustrates the contents of the kit I chose, which replicates the warm glow of steam era lighting in the main main coach body as well as create a flickering oil lamp effect for a tail lamp. The kit requires no pickups as it is powered by an on board battery (making it useful here owing to the trouble routing wires through the PECO coaches and indeed their wholly plastic running gear). As seen above, the kit comes with everything needed to install with no soldering required - a PCB with all of the main lights already mounted, a coin battery and two flickering LEDs for mounting in the rear of the guards compartment. Various other combinations of steam era or modern lighting can be found with effects (modern door lights, third rail arcing, solid & flashing tail lamps and even sound) which makes this a versatile product line. The section of the PCB near the battery holder contains a small microchip and motion detector which can sense movement - this means that the onboard battery is conserved as the lights will turn off after a certain period (four minutes by my timings) and won't turn on again until it senses that the train is in motion.

 

Crucially for myself, the kit can be shortened in length without losing its funationality.

 

The Project

 

As you cna see below, I had my work cut out for me:

 

 

The light bar as delivered is far too long for the coach, and the socket for the flickering lamp is a the opposite end of the bar to the battery, which was a bit of an annoyance as I needed to include both in the guards compartment. I'd originally hoped to avoid soldering in this project, but it pretty quickly became clear that I needed to do some to get everything in the right place. However, before I could begin work on that, there was a few detail items that needed attention:

 

I've never liked the white roofing on the peco coaches, so the first order of business was to give it a spray in matt black:

 

 

I'd also got to notice that even the 'warm light' on the light bar was still a little too strong for what I was looking for, so I also took the chance to give each of the LEDs there a very light and semi opaque layer of brown paint to block out some of the light and make it a little dingier - the effect was greatly enhanced by this brief process.

 

 

Finally, the flickering LED needed to be made up to look like an old oil lamp. As this will rarely be seen up close I was happy with creating a simple handle using a staple. The LED was then painted with black to seal in the lights, and finally a white top coat. Two holes were drilled in the back of the coach to accept the flickering tail lamp.

 

 

 

It was then impossible to put off the evil hour any longer, so following the instructions carefully I cut the light bar in to the appropriate pieces...

 

 

and resoldered them in a 'daisy chain' to allow for greater flexibility. I moved the LED mount to a connector positioned just behind the battery holder

 

 

Once all had been checked for connectivity, the whole was test fitted in the carriage:

 

 

After a bit of trimming in the brown passenger piece, everything fitted and the lighting effects were finished:

 

 

 

 

 

I must say that the final result is exactly what I was looking for, and the versatility of the train tech equipment made the job an easy one to finish. Highly recommended product.

 

[Edge]

Does anyone know of suitable passengers to fit in the carriage? I’d rather not pay the outrageous prices that the scenecraft passengers command

[Edge]

Just managed to get my hands on an SR liveried observation coach. I’ll be lighting that one up soon as well . I expect it to involve a lot more chopping and surgery on the lights than the brake did.

 

 

 

Another word of praise here for Model Railways Direct - two orders each arrived the day after I ordered them . Top marks.

[Skinnylinny]

That looks really good, and I'm impressed you managed to squeeze that in there. If I may make one tiny suggestion? The leads of the tail-lamp LED seem to catch the light through the guard's van windows in one of the photos. These may be much less visible in person, but a short piece of black heat shrink (or even some black paint!) over each leg would make these even less visible.

As for passengers, the Peco ModelScene range includes some seated passengers, though they're not as well-painted or quite as crisply-moulded as the Bachmann ones. Fine for inside a dark carriage, but fitting lighting combined with those big windows, I'd be tempted to splash out a little for some of the Bachmann figures and just buy fewer.

Edited February 20, 2018 by Skinnylinny

[Edge]

Hi there, thanks for your kind words.

 

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t spotted the LED legs at all in real life, but a bit of black paint certainly won’t do any harm.

 

As for passengers, I’m going to have a look around and see what’s available. The Bachman ones are okay, but I’m really not to enamoured of them for some reason

[Edge]

Good lord, is it really over fifteen months ago that I did this? Observation coach is still not lit up at the mo and and brake composite is suffering from severe cyanoacrylate fogging on the windows. 

 

Would anyone know know where I can source a replacement set of windows? I’d rather not have to buy a whole new carriage if I can help it.