Lighting: Almost Done...

The peninsula end has always been dark... no longer.

Yesterday, we completed the installation of new fluorescent fixtures on the larger layout room. Finally we got rid of shadows and yellowish lighting.

Fixtures installed along the fascia for optimal lighting

I've read my share of "how to light correctly a layout" over the years. Most end up beingcumbersome, complicated, costly and taking a huge amount of time to put together. As I said in a previous blog, we tried many things over the years and at the end of the day, keeping things simple was the solution for us. I'm not advocating on cutting the corners, but rather to be pragmatic in consideration to your needs. Our layout is quite large and not operated on a frequent basis. It would be foolish to go overboard. On another hand, a different type of layout smaller or larger could benefit a lot from a more fancy lighting rig which could enhance some aspects. This is not the case with Hedley-Junction and if something must be done, it could on a per case scenario.

Half the new fixtured turned on.

I've been impressed with the new lighting. Colors are better, many shadow zones have been addressed and the sky is bluer than ever. In my eyes, the big improvement is how orange rolling stock, particularly CN stuff, looks now more vibrant and realistic. 

Bright CN orange hoppers now stand out at Wieland shops.

Certainly, our installation is quite crude and causes a lot of glare. Next time, we will install baffles to reduce this undesirable effect. Some test were done with prepainted mouldings and it looks promising.

Wieland transload now looks much better.

So now we can go back to working on the layout and cleaning rails and wheels covered by more than 6 months of oxidation.

The alcove is no longer dark like a cave.