Lights On Nystrup Gravel

With the autumn season having arrived coupled with an old image with light coming from the top floor of a Nystrup Gravel building, I have begun to contemplate how lights on my layout could be laid out.

The Lister (Nystrup loco no. 3) is about to enter one of the buildings at Nystrup Gravel. Probably a late afternoon shunting  manoeuvre before a day's work is over. The lights are turned on in the building's top floor.

I already have two lamps mounted above the doors in the small brick shed in one end of the layout. Interior light is also planned on the top floor of the large building in the other end. As most traffic on a primitive narrow gauge industrial railway would occur during daylight hours more lamps really wouldn't be necessary. As I like a dimly lit layout and have been inspired by several other modellers' work with light, my little layout will receive additional lamps at relevant spots.

Even if scale and theme are quite different I have been very inspired to add lights to my layout by Danish modeller Leif Gjesing Hansen's freelance layout in H0 scale. With clever design and careful work Leif has succeeded in creating a good 'early night-feel' to his Märklin-layout. You will have to be a member of the Danish Facebook group 'Modeltog' to view more of Leif's work. Photo: Leif Gjesing Hansen

Even if the real Nystrup Gravel area was without much proper outside electrical lighting I plan to add two mast mounted lamps at the loading ramp, one halfway between brick shed and wooden building as well as a lamp above the large door in the wooden building. Being a member of the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society I will naturally mount the lamps on wooden masts and fit dummy electric overhead wires. I'm now in the proces of sourcing isolators and figuring out if the lamps will have to be scratchbuilt. They will probably have to. 

A single lamp can add a lot of atmosphere to a little scene even if photographed outside the layout room. A view from one of my old 1:35 scale modules.