Model Railroading > HO scale lighthouse?

After our recent trip to Maine, and seeing 6 wonderful lighthouses, I have decided to leave some room on the edge of our layout for one. Aside from the offerings on Walthers, does anyone have any suggestions as to where I could find a HO lighthouse?

Walthers had one from Faller Gmbh, does anyone have that?

Not being very good at model building, I have learned that easy to build does not always mean easy to build.

Chris Bogley
Bowie, MD

Be adventurous! Scratch build what you want. It's fun.

wjpyper Wrote:
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> Be adventurous! Scratch build what you want. It's
> fun.


The man says he's "not very good at model building," and this is your advice?

I'm sure you have done this but when I searched for HO scale lighthouses I ran across several HO scale models -- all the way from Thomas the Tank Engine up to Builders in Scale. If you visited Maine and saw 6, then you noticed that none were the same so you have some creative license to imagineer what strikes your fancy! The only thing they have in common are a light that is elevated above the ground and a fancy lens to magnify and project the light beam -- some are tall, some are short, some have houses attached, some do not, some have a green light, some have red light, some a white light, etc.. I realize you said that you are not really a model builder but... If you like the ones that have an attached house then try taking a cardboard tube (paper towel?) and see what different heights might look like on the house. Where we used to live, we could see the Nubble (Cape Neddick Light), Boon Island, and White Island. A few miles down the road and we had White Island, Whaleback, and Ft. Constitution. Remember, today most of them are automated. A now dead aunt used to raise tomatoes on the walk around the top of Boon Island lighthouse!

Bruce

If one wants to see a few more, over 30, check out Chesapeake Bay lighthouses, a few very simple, a couple really weird.
One of the simpler ones should not be too difficult out of balsa, basswood, or even foamboard, several are simply stuccoed over blocks - which don't show.

dnuck

The club I belong to has a lighthouse. It was built from a Walthers kit, Rocky Point Lighthouse.

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3603

Richmond Controls makes a nice lighting unit, that is better than the stock unit.

Fog horns make a nice addition if you want sound.

Innovative Train Technologies has a nice sound unit with sea gulls, wave sounds and fog horn.

Here is a link to a directory of lighthouses world wide.

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/lighthouse/

Also features photos of lighthouses from various locations around the US. Quite a variety of styles were built over the years.

Bob

The Walther's lighthouse is a decent kit, easy to build and looks nice. Here is one I built for a display layout at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, CA.

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As far as the color of a lighthouse's light goes, most in North America are white. The exceptions would be those that are associated with a specific navigable channel, in which case they MAY have a green light if on the port (left) side of the channel and MAY have a red light if on the starboard (right) side of the channel. Port or starboard side is in relation to vessels heading into harbor or, on a river, upstream. Most model railroads, of course, would not show enough of a navigable waterway for it to be apparent that a particular light color is correct or incorrect, but the possibility exists....

I will second that the Walther's Light House kit is easy to build...It's painted in good colors and does not look "plastic" when completed...

Paul Liddiard
Spanish Fork, UT

I have been working on a couple lighthouse kits and even have a beacon kit for an Airport / Lighthouse designed in HO.

http://i634.photobucket.com/albums/uu61/mgwsy1990/temp/th_MOV06437.jpg

Here is my version of the Walthers lighthouse. Different paint is the only significant change. The kit is made by Kibri so the fit and finish is better than most of the Walthers kits.

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I like the paint change on the light house! Very cool...

Paul Liddiard
Spanish Fork, UT



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/11 06:36 by lizzard_45.

Here's a model based on a Maine prototype. Scroll down to the fifth model. I do not know anything about these kits.

http://www.bluejacketinc.com/honscale.htm