Adding light to Anniversary 4-6-0

[punkin]

Hello all,

I've recently added a nice little 5 volt regulator and LED lighting to my side marker lamps and the inside of my large caboose. It looks a little odd running at night in the dark. I was wondering if in the real world is there a light in the driver's compartment of the engine? If this is something that is in the real train, has anyone found a nice clean way to add a light to the model? I'm quite handy with electronics that's not the issue, I was wonder if there's a simple and clean path between the pickups in the bottom of the train leading up to the driver's compartment.

Thanks very much and have a great evening :-)

[BillBrakeman]

If the firebox door on your locomotive opens flickering red/yellow LEDs would nicely simulate the fire inside.  Perhaps a small white light over the pressure gauges might also be a possibility. 

Bill

[on30gn15]

I was wondering if in the real world is there a light in the driver's compartment of the engine?

It kind of depends on the age and era of the engine. A small source of illumination was needed for the all important steam gauge and the water level sight glass. But as for an overall cab light when running, that would be like driving your car at night with all the dome and courtesy lamps on, totally screws your night vision.

[punkin]

OK, that does make sense. I wasn't sure what the driver would do at night in the dark if he had to read or do something like turn knobs or levers and that sort of thing if maybe they had lights inside.

Thank you all :-)

[Kevin Strong]

I had wondered that myself. I found that some steam loco cabs had a single light for general (dim) illumination at night so the crew could see the valves, levers, and gauges.



You can see one such example in this photo--the bulb is visible just over the engineer's cap.

You may also find (in the electric light era) small bulbs specifically over each gauge. I don't know that you're going to be able to model that without fiberoptics, but that would be pretty cool!

In the pre-electric-light era, you'd probably find a dim lantern hanging in the cab of the loco for illumination. As mentioned earlier, these lights would not be bright so not to interfere with the engineer's forward vision, but would need to be bright enough so the crew could safely read the gauges and see which valves and levers they were moving.

Later,

K

[punkin]

That is a great photo!

Thanks very much.