Real railroads operate around the clock, meaning that we can add night operations to our model railroad. One of the ways we can make our "nighttime" operating sessions more realistic is by adding lights to structures, vehicles, and station platforms. This month, I'll show you how I illuminated Mukwonago on our HO scale Milwaukee, Racine & Troy layout. Regular readers of Model Railroader will recognize Mukwonago from previous Step by Step columns. Managing editor David Popp showed how to model a commuter station (May 2007) and an alley scene (August 2007). Adding lights to an existing scene requires planning up front, so draw a diagram to see how your proposed lighting project will work. When working on a wiring project, be prepared for surprises. For example, the lights over the Mukwonago station signs shown in step 3 on page 34 operate at a lower voltage than the rest of the lights and require resistors. After installation, I tested them, and the filaments on these bulbs were barely glowing. After talking with editor Neil Besougloff and executive editor Andy Sperandco, we determined the supplied resistors for those bulbs weren't right for our application.
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