Model Railway Forum

Hi All,

I'm about to place some street lighting on my layout and am looking for advice on distances between lights that others have used. I've checked out various web sites on the matter and the general consensus is between 30m to 50m, scaling that out, it comes in around 390mm to 660mm which seems to be a pretty big distance.

I laid some lights out on opposite sides of a street with a distance of 200mm between lights on alternate sides of the street, which doesn't look too bad.

Your thoughts please.

Best Rgds,
Dave R.
Australia

It is the same problem with telephone poles. If you put them a scale distance apart they look wrong. My advice would be if they look right they are right.

Hi There,

Yes, I tend to agree with you, I think that I just wanted reassurance of that.

Best Rgds,
Dave R.
Australia

why not just put them where you are comfortable with, your railway after all.

A lot depends on the era you are modelling. Early street lighting was so much duller than modern stuff as much of it was converted from gas lamps, particularly in city or urban areas. So there tended to be a pool of light around each post with semi dark areas in between.