LIGHTS FOR LAYOUTS

As night falls, joy glows brighter” -

Mason Cooley.

Night time, and the period leading up to and away from it, offers a whole new world of modelling potential. How many of us don’t remember standing on a darkened platform waiting for a train, bathed in the welcoming lights of the station? Or loitering on a preserved line listening to the burble from a gas lamp as it breaks up the shadows?

Modellers used to be very conservative about the time layouts were set. For most, noon on a sunny summer day was the perfect period. Even lighting and nature in full flood. Very few looked to the darker hours, often for a very practical reason.

In the old days, model lights meant ‘grain of wheat’ incandescent