East Haven Raceway

[RichD]

This is East Haven Raceway, it is a 4X16 foot MaxTrax. EHR will be hosting its annual Sizzler race for the 11th year in a row in October.



A recent innovation has been racing under the lights.

[dreinecke]

Wow! That looks fantastic! I really love the lights too! Did you make those?

[reel55]

Really looks like fun racing at night!!!!!
Verne

[RichD]

[reel55]

Thanks for the link to the making of the lights -Very interesting and inventive!!!!!!!

Verne

[GenevaDirt]

That is just awesome...love the track design....but the night track just puts it over the top

[HRWJim]

I really like the lights. Jim

[dge467]

The track looks like a blast to race on! Looks great under the lights!

[ListerStormGT]

Very cool, the lights look great!

[RichD]

The lights turned out to be more popular than I expected. One of the Shoreline racers even added lights to his 1/32nd track. I have to leave a couple of small room lights on when we run with the lights, but someone suggested that blue Christmas lights are good for simulating moonlight, so I will be looking for some of those.

[Wolseley Hornet]

The night shot looks very good,Rich.

You obviously don't want to re make all those lights.

I've been deliberating a bit about lights, and I wonder if white LED's are a bit too white/bright/blue.

I do think blue lights would give a simulation of moonlight, but these might be best used as room background lighting, with yellow LED's over the track itself; to give the same character to the light as in Edward Hopper's Night Hawks painting.

And it's not just Hopper. If you Google "Urban night painting" and look at images,artificial light always seems to have a yellowish tone, even though you know,seen full-size, they were bright white lights.

Excuse me ruminating "out loud" in your thread, but I'm trying to sort out a clear view of my next project but one.

David.

[RichD]

The track lights are fine, I just wanted something to put on the ceiling so I wouldn't need to use any room lights. It probably would have been better if I had used a few more sets of lights, the lighting is not totally uniform like it is with modern tracks. The poles are 16 inches apart, 14 inches apart would probably be perfect.

[Wolseley Hornet]

You may be right, although the shadows between the lights add some 'atmosphere', and I'm sure drivers can still see well enough to race.

David.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

David, you amaze me. I'm a Hopper fan from waaay back. And you are right about the shade of light making the difference in scenery. I saw an "O" Gauge train layout that was the entire second floor of a five car garage, and in the urban area, he had used Night Hawks as a guide for the shade of lamplight, using completely different shades for open plains, still another shade for canyons and gorges with huge trestles, and he incorporated different shades of fluorescent lights behind valances to give the light appropriate to time of day, from yellow at dawn through white daylight to deep reds and blues at sunset, and dim blue for night. It was spectacular.

[Wolseley Hornet]

Thank goodness - I thought I might have been indulging in too much navel-gazing.

But seriously,I think that after all the effort, and inspiration that many people put into their tracks,poor lighting means that photos don't do them justice.

Conversely,I've noticed with my own tracks that in some photographs they can look quite good, and then,when you see them in the flat bright light of the garage, they can look quite dull.(I hope there's more to this than just brain levels of serotonin!).

I just wish I knew a bit more about it - lighting theory,that is.

David.