How to attach lights to a hornby exterior

[Helen-1272049]

My son has seen a steam train called train of lights,the outside of the train covered in rope lights

He wants to recreate this on his hornby flying scotsman set

Any ideas on how we could do this ?

Many thanks

[JJ73]

Hiya

Use LED Lights as found on the Mag Lighs Carriages (R40142 & or R40111) perhaps??? 🤔🚂

R40142 NBR, 6 Wheel Coach, Unclassed (Brake 3rd) Coach, Fitted Lights, 472 - Era 2 (hornby.com)

R7338 Maglight for 4/6 Wheeled Coaches (hornby.com)

R7305 Maglight Lighting Unit for Mk3 Coaches (hornby.com)

[ellocoloco]

Helen,

If its the train I'm thinking of on the Dartmouth steam railway, I think it would be very difficult to get a OO scale model to look good. I cannot think of any available lighting that would be small enough to look 'in scale' while hung over the carriages.

It might be possible to use battery powered LEDs inside the coaches but this might involve removing the interiors. You might also have to paint the inside of the coaches so that the lights only comes out the windows. You could also consider drilling holes in the coach sides in the pattern used on the Train of Lights so that interior lighting shines out to replicate the effect on the real train.

It would be an interesting project and if you go ahead, please post a picture of the results.

Edit: You might also be able to use a battery powered Fibre Optic lamp but I don't know flexible the strands would be for bending round the coaches.

[What About The Bee]

Hi Ellocoloco

Perhaps "fairy lights" or "mini LEDs". They come as small as 0.6mm bulbs, prewired into strings. Sadly not at realistic scaled spacing. 0.6mm scales to about 4.5cm for OO. Maybe a pinch large but certainly within "acceptable" range.

Battery powered too. No need to grab power from the rails.

The tricky bit will be to hide all the cable. Perhaps some clever lad can find a way! I've thought of a few, but rejected most.

This is my top idea. Depending on soldering skills, I do suppose the bulbs could be soldered to wires at the correct spacing, but that might be a daunting task.

Bee