And More Work On Lake St

With the extension of sidewalks that would allow some addition and repositioning of buildings at the end of Lake St, I also started to look at structure lighting again. The original structure lighting I had on the layout dated from the 1980s and involved mostly incandescent lighting sockets from companies like Bachmann and Model Power. Over the years, bulbs burned out, connections came unsoldered, and so forth. Since then, Woodland Scenics developed the Just Plug system, and this brought back my interest in the subject.

One of my problems is that I built this layout before DCC, as well as Just Plug, and retrofitting these features has been a chore, since benchwork and most scenery were already completed. Finding a location for light hubs was a problem, since they need to be easily accessible to adjust brightness, swap out plugs if needed, and extend the system. As a result, I mostly couldn't just attach them to the existing L-girder. For now, I'm adding scrap pieces of 1 x 4 to attach them beneath the fascia. I don't care if they aren't pretty. I gave up on open houses years ago. But I can reach them without bending over.

But even if I were starting from scratch, it would be something of a puzzle to find places to mount them and keep them accessible. They require a fair amount of space, especially in multiples.

One of the best features of the system is the light diffusing film. This does wonders for buildings that have the old incandescent sockets as well as Just Plug LEDs. Below is my new Bar Mills Rusty's Radiator Repair, which I built from the start with light diffusing film behind the windows and a stick on LED under the roof.

The IHC town house behind it has had light diffusing film retrofitted but keeps an incandescent socket from decades ago. You can't tell the difference. The building at left below has just had light diffusing film retrofitted but again, it keeps its incandescent socket. The electrical connection had come loose, but I reconnected it when I repositioned it over the last couple of weeks.

The First National Bank at right has never had lighting and needs to have light diffusing film added as well. This will be a priority. In general, I've added light diffusing film to all my existing buildings, whether or not they're lighted, and all new building kits are built with it and stick on LEDs installed from the start.

Finally, as I thought, I gained enough space for a new building front farther down Lake St by swapping Old Dutch with Robbins Opticians and narrowing the alleys. I'm now thinking about making this a City Classics art deco, which will have the full lighting feature installed from the start. But you can see I need to add this to the whole block.

Back To Lake Street

Inspired again by more photos from recent open houses at Geortge Sellios's layout, I'm continuing to add structures to Lake St in Zenith wherever I can squeeze them in. I finished the Downtown Deco Cooter's Liquor and inserted it between Thorpe's Radio and the First National Bank. There was enough space to leave narrow alleys on both sides of the building.

Here's a side view of the Bar Mills Rusty's Radiator Repair:

And looking farther along Lake St, I noticed something I'd forgotten about for some time, that I'd left a pair of unnecessarily wide alleys to the left of Robbins Opticians and to the right of Old Dutch.

By narrowing these and slightly readjusting the position of the two buildings, I can scrounge enough space for a Downtown Deco Skid Row Part 3. Elsewhere, I've identified space for a Woodland Scenics JW Cobbler building.

ScaleTrains Kansas City Southern ET44AC

I've grown more interested in the Kansas City Southern over the years, especially as so many other railroads its size have disappeared. Now it looks as though it will be absorbed into Canadian Pacific. I figured I should get a loco in the Southern Belle scheme while I still could, especially as KCS locos are pretty common out here in Southern California, even running with other foreign power. (So far, I haven't caught one of their ET44ACs, so this shout of an ES44AC will have to do.)

Below is my ScaleTrains Rivet Counter ET44AC out of the box. Good as all their models are, they all fall short in documentation. It was only in reading the fine print about their latest runs that I discovered that the ground lights are supplied with their locos only as the prototypes had them. My last ScaleTrains loco, a BNSF ES44C4, didn't have them, and I noted in the post I put up that this must have been a glitch of some sort. No, BNSF locos apparently don't have ground lights. However, you can see from the photo below that the KCS locos have them. You can also see the side walkway light.

/Seeing tghese on ScaleTrains models makes me more aware of them when I see them on video DVDs. They have a prototype appearance.

Below is a 3/4 front view showing the improved brightness of the ditch lights, as well as a different view of the ground light. This is only on the engineer's side. As with my ES44C4, this comes on with the F8 startup along with the numberboards. This is another feature not clearly documented in the owner's manual. None of these can be turned off independently from F8.

The rear view shows that the KCS units don't have rear ditch lights. Also, following KCS practice, the front ditch lights don't flash when the horn is sounded. It would be helpful to find a single place, possibly on their web site, where all these features could be listed for the respective models.

Finally, here is KCS 5009 in consist with BNSF 4232, my ES44C4, passing West Zenith and the Downtown Overlook Hotel on my layout.

Bar Mills Rusty's Radiator Repair

I posted an in-progress photo of this kit last week. As of today, it's almost complete, with just a few castings to finish and some final weathering and dirting in around the fence.

I decided to try posing the Oxford Diecast Edsel with it, but it turns out to be a little too big for the site, and it's 1:76 scale anyhow. I'll try something like a Classic Model Works V8 Ford next.

I didn't buy this kit specifically for this space on the layout, but once I had it, I realized it was a perfect fit for the new area opened up by the new street trackage.