Lighting for East Oakdale Section

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was not able to light this layout section with blue rope lighting to achieve the "night lighting" effect. My solution was to purchase (Ace Hardware) three individual screw-in light bulb type lighting fixtures. I then had to figure out how to wire them to a switch and route power to them.

As I am no electrician, I turned to YouTube to see how to do this. I found a fellow model railroader who did a similar electrical project and filmed how he did it. Basically, this guy used a grounded electrical cord as a basis for his project. So, I did the same thing. I bought an electrical cord, a blue plastic electrical box and a standard wall switch.

I cut off the female end plug of the electrical cord which gave me access to the three inner wires. I connected one wire to one lead of the light fixtures in series and the other wire to the wall switch and then to the second lead of the light fixtures. I attached the ground wire to a grounding point. All of the electrical connections were done with a soldering iron and then covered with heat-shrink tubing. After the connections were made, I plugged in the male plug of the electrical cord into a power surge outlet. I flipped the switch on and to my delight; the three light fixtures illuminated with blue light.

*** Special Note ***

THIS METHOD IS NOT ACCORDING TO THE ELECTRICAL CODE