Yard lights questions... Ok...so I am playing with ideas for some unlit yard lights. I want the illusion of a yard that works nights. I have thus been researching yard lights. I know older yard lights where set up on lattice type towers. I found an interesting website however... http://www.smarttinc.com/content/newsletter-december-2012 About 2/3 of the way down that page is a picture of what I am wanting to attempt. It states: Today railroad yard light towers have gone High Tech; with the use of mercury vapor lights, the difference between night and day is hardly noticeable. Also many of the older style truss towers have been replaced by a single pole with two or four of the mercury vapor lights on top. My type of lighting My biggest question would be...how tall would these yard light poles be ? The lights on top will be whatever I can find at Ace Hardware that may look feasible ;-) I have some bamboo skewers that measure out to a near perfect 20 inches in diameter. I will probably paint them 'aluminium' to make them look metal...or maybe even 'brown' to make em look like wooden poles. I just want to get the height about right. Another question: How far apart would yard poles be ? I imagine distance between them would depend on the height of each pole. Which leads back to... How tall should yard light poles be ? TIA
Our yard (Grand Junction, Colorado), has the older truss style towers. The look to be approximately 150' tall. North Yard in Denver, has a mix of tall truss style, and telephone pole sized lights along the switching lead. Your idea of bamboo skewers would be simple and awesome. Almost forgot, the larger poles are located in locations where they can illuminate the high (foot) traffic parts of the yard. While the telephone pole mounted lights (like at North Yard in Denver) are located at every other switch along the north lead. Use Google Earth (and street views) to take a good look at your favorite yards and you're bound to get some good inspiration. Good luck!
Englewood Yard has a combination of the old truss style towers and the newer single pole lights. I think 150' sounds like a reasonable guess. Most of the lights illuminate the areas where the switches are located. The actual bowl tracks are pretty dark. The area where mechanical forces work on the engines have much shorter light poles, more like 50' tall.
Thanks for the replies guys I believe THE Wife found something that will work just fine. Here are the first 3 yard lights installed. single pole They are on scale 20" diameter metal poles. The poles are 80' tall. All four sides of the light fixtures are actually clear see thru material ...giving the illusion of lights... all with a metal hood I could have gone taller poles...but remembered that I have to work around these things all day...and will probably snap them off even at just 80'...lol
Thnxs Rick... The light tops are made from pieces of squared off tongue depressors ! I sanded the edges at an angle and painted em silver to make em look like metal.
The lights themselves are 1/2 " clear vinyl pads..."bumpers"...my wife spotted at Ace Hardware. I drilled a 1/8" hole in the center and pressed them over 1/8" bamboo skewers painted silver to look like aluminium poles. In the pictures the lights look silver too...but they really are clear...lol
Thnxs guys....its really fun at times to make something...outta nothing. "Model Railroading on a Shoestring Budget"...lol
