Hey Everyone.
So, earlier this year I opted to clean out my inventory, and focus in on specific train's, and specific years, and stop with the Random hodge podge of stuff I had when I was a kid. Finally having an apartment to myself permitted me to actually have all my stuff in one Location.
Anyway, as part of this process, I opted to complete several uncompleted trains. One of them being the Santa Fe El-Capitan. I finished off a long overdue Broadway Limited earlier, so I have had some experience with Walthers Name Trains.
Like the Broadway Limited, the El-Capitan was a limited run, because why make something for everyone to enjoy when you can make just a few and charge a whole lot more which will slowly kill off the hobby completely. Anyway part of that whole theory means several cars are hard to find, and when you do find them, prepare the bone saw to cut off your leg. Anyway I had 4 cars already (Dorm/Baggage, Set Up Coach, 72 Seat Coach, Step Down coach with Tail Sign), and just recently got my hands on the single rarest car, the Sky Lounge. Now, all of my cars have lighting kits, so rather then mixing and matching, I've opted to continue along that path. This is my first time lighting Walthers cars, and at a first glance, I see a fairly fatal flaw in the way Walthers made the kits.
These cars are famous of course for being Bi-Level cars, so why is it that the lighting kits ignore the existence of the lower level? I guess in the coaches you could argue that only the doorway would be lighted....but I doubt that the Bathrooms were dark all the time too....So my big question for the group here is....specifically on the lounge, how the heck do I light the lower level of my Sky-Lounge, make it convincing, and still match the colors of the lighting bar that will go across the top floor? I noticed on my other 3 lighted Hi-Levels, that the lights are sort of an off Blue color, almost a light blue I would say. So can anyone tips on how to proceed, Ideally, I'd like to light all the cars lower level (at least the door) but I would settle for just the lounge if need be. I'm plenty skilled at wiring and LED's, done it many times before, done DCC installations, so I know my way around, I'm more worried about matching the color of the LED's Walthers uses on their Lighting kits.
Anyway, thank you in advance for any help or tips
-Tails
So, earlier this year I opted to clean out my inventory, and focus in on specific train's, and specific years, and stop with the Random hodge podge of stuff I had when I was a kid. Finally having an apartment to myself permitted me to actually have all my stuff in one Location.
Anyway, as part of this process, I opted to complete several uncompleted trains. One of them being the Santa Fe El-Capitan. I finished off a long overdue Broadway Limited earlier, so I have had some experience with Walthers Name Trains.
Like the Broadway Limited, the El-Capitan was a limited run, because why make something for everyone to enjoy when you can make just a few and charge a whole lot more which will slowly kill off the hobby completely. Anyway part of that whole theory means several cars are hard to find, and when you do find them, prepare the bone saw to cut off your leg. Anyway I had 4 cars already (Dorm/Baggage, Set Up Coach, 72 Seat Coach, Step Down coach with Tail Sign), and just recently got my hands on the single rarest car, the Sky Lounge. Now, all of my cars have lighting kits, so rather then mixing and matching, I've opted to continue along that path. This is my first time lighting Walthers cars, and at a first glance, I see a fairly fatal flaw in the way Walthers made the kits.
These cars are famous of course for being Bi-Level cars, so why is it that the lighting kits ignore the existence of the lower level? I guess in the coaches you could argue that only the doorway would be lighted....but I doubt that the Bathrooms were dark all the time too....So my big question for the group here is....specifically on the lounge, how the heck do I light the lower level of my Sky-Lounge, make it convincing, and still match the colors of the lighting bar that will go across the top floor? I noticed on my other 3 lighted Hi-Levels, that the lights are sort of an off Blue color, almost a light blue I would say. So can anyone tips on how to proceed, Ideally, I'd like to light all the cars lower level (at least the door) but I would settle for just the lounge if need be. I'm plenty skilled at wiring and LED's, done it many times before, done DCC installations, so I know my way around, I'm more worried about matching the color of the LED's Walthers uses on their Lighting kits.
Anyway, thank you in advance for any help or tips
-Tails
