70000193 - Atlas N Trackside Lighting -- Double Arm Square Light, Black, 30FT, Warm LED [3-PACK]

1)      Are the lights correctly scaled?

1. Yes.  The heights of the streetlights and “parking lot” style lights are approximately 24 scale feet in height from the base to the lighting unit, which is a common standard for both primary and secondary road illumination.  This is scaled for a typical single or double-lane road, and the road type can be suggested on your layout by simply altering the spacing of sequential poles or following local DOT requirements, if known.  For parking lots, the single tube head tends to be used along the perimeter of the lot, and the double head between the rows of parking spaces.

2)      Why the two different light colors?

1. Over the years, the type of “bulb” in typical road lighting has gone through several iterations.  Originally, in the 1960s-70s, incandescent bulbs were used which give off a warmer light color (temperature) than modern high-intensity “Daylight” LEDs.  Additionally, the warm-white bulbs can roughly approximate the color of the sodium vapor lighting that was common throughout the late 1970s and 80s if used in a “mixed” installation with the cool-white fixtures. Today, it is more common from both an illumination and maintenance perspective to use high intensity LED light sources, whose color temperature approaches that of daylight for better visibility.  The Warm White and Cool White LED color temperatures in the Atlas streetlights enable you to model any of these situations or eras.

3)      Why grey and silver for the street and parking lot lights?

1. If you actually look at a lot of different streetlight poles, you will tend to see them appear in the daytime as either bright silver in color if they are (untreated) aluminum, or as a mottled dull gray if they are zinc galvanized.  Both materials are commonly used in modern lighting installations (as are galvanized steel poles), so Atlas has made these in both colors.  On a cloudy day, even untreated aluminum poles will take on a gray shade.  Gray colored poles can be made to look even more like galvanized pipe through a little bit of creative painting.

4)      Why 2 different light heights for square lights?

1. Since the 1980s, the square style of security lighting from such manufacturers as Gardco or Cree became very common, and were aesthetically preferred for use in residential areas, train or industry platforms, pedestrian walkways and in parks, and for upscale commercial structure / parking lot applications.  These lights can provide a very bright down-light, and when applied directly to the sides of structures, can “wash” the structure with light in an artistic way while providing better targeted illumination for the sake of safety.  For parking lots and large areas, multiple head variations consisting of 2, 3 or 4 heads mounted at right angles were very easy to build from these now modular components.  For such applications, these lights are usually mounted higher at around 30 feet to more efficiently cover larger “zones”, while the 15 foot height is used in residential areas to limit illumination to the areas below the second story of houses and other structures.  A modern benefit of this style of lighting is that as all the illumination is directed downward, there is less “light pollution” scattered upwards, such as was common with the cast iron globe or lantern fixtures which originated in the gas light era.

5)      6-18V Power supply examples

1. The lights require a DC power source.  One easy source is a common 9V battery.  You can also use an old DC Power Pack (rated under 18V) and dial the voltage in for your preferred brightness.  You can also commonly find used “wall wart” power supplies rated at 9-12 volts and wire these in with a little creativity and electrical knowledge.  Regardless of power source, always remember to use the resistors supplied with the lights (or resistors of higher Ohm values) so that the current applied to the lights does not blow the LEDs out!  Wiring diagrams for these lights are included in the packaging or available on the Atlas Website.