In the box of life that formed the parts that were ripped off Rhiw Mk1 were the platform lamps. Not for me then the Bachmann or Wills products, which weren't yet available, but some fairly quick concoctions of my own. The problem was that over several years and the box being tossed about, there was a little bit of damage and one had vanished altogether. There was some repair work required and a new one to be made up. The brass rod used originally had also disappeared, but I found some slightly narrower steel that was close enough. Steel doesn't take solder particularly well, but some furious cleaning and a hot iron saw something that would pass sweated up.
Platform lamps (at least the more modern ones) seem to have been a bit of a blind spot for several manufacturers; they're one of those things that are almost hidden in plain sight and yet can play a vital role in defining the era of the layout. Even here at happy Ham Street there have been several types used in the nearly 50 years since the original oil lamps, still present in photos from 1975, were replaced (no gas in the village so I have to make my own). Late 1970s/80s photos show tall, slender light coloured (grey?) poles with long narrow lamp housings, then there's the NSE era red posts with pear-shaped discharge lamp fittings and currently silver galvanised tilt-over poles with either discharge or latterly LED lamps.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, whenever I look at the various commercial offerings that supposedly represent station lamps I just see horrible, blobby, badly painted and out of register lumps of plastic or whitemetal for lots of money...your way of representing lamps is much better!