Something I'd Really Like....

[Patrick Davey]

With the illuminated Park Royals soon to be seen on layouts everywhere, and all those amazing fully-illuminated diesel locos already working hard, my never-resting mind landed on something which I'd really to have...

Lamps for the rear of passenger & goods trains, and the front of steam locos

The recent Hornby experiment with their new Black 5 didn't seem to be a huge success, so my lamps would be much better, with the following specs:

* Wireless, with really tiny rechargeable batteries

* Recharging base station, charging multiple units simultaneously

* Fitted with really tiny magnets on the rear and underside so they can be fitted to loco buffer beams and the rear of carriages & brake vans

* More really tiny magnets for fitting to the aforementioned loco buffer beams, carriages & brake vans

 

Macro technology......

 

[Horsetan]

2 hours ago, Patrick Davey said:

...The recent Hornby experiment with their new Black 5 didn't seem to be a huge success, so my lamps would be much better, with the following specs:

* Wireless, with really tiny rechargeable batteries

* Recharging base station, charging multiple units simultaneously

* Fitted with really tiny magnets on the rear and underside so they can be fitted to loco buffer beams and the rear of carriages & brake vans

* More really tiny magnets for fitting to the aforementioned loco buffer beams, carriages & brake vans

Macro technology......

 

The trouble with the Hornby Black 5 (and the Dapol A4) lamps is they're in fixed positions. As everyone knows, in the UK, lamp positions changed according to the type/class of train being hauled.

The Southern group of railways were even more complex, as they mostly relied on disc headcodes according to the route taken by the train, and you could have anywhere between one and three discs showing on almost any combination of six lamp iron positions. Dapol are trying to address this in their new Bulleid Light Pacific, which has six switchable headcode lamps in front, and the same again on the rear of the tender.