Have ya got a Ciggy?

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the majority of people (including my dad)  smoked despite the long term damage to one's health. Smoking was promoted by advertising cigarettes with celebrities endorsing the product. Paul Hogan made TV commercials for Winfield cigarettes. I also remember the large billboards along Moore Park road where the Sydney Showground use to be located where smoking was seen as cool, sexy and for the sophisticated. Nowadays it is unfashionable. 

But since my layout is set in the 1970s I needed at least a few billboards of cigarette brands. I definitely wanted a billboard with the renowned Hoges but also wanted to include some other not so well known. brands. 

 

Above: Completed infamous Winfield billboard with repurpose generic street lamp leds from Ebay

The Build

I purchased and used the Walthers plain billboard as the basis for the Australian billboards for my streets. I used two of these on West Wardell. One on the "Parramatta Road" and kept in green and the other I painted white and placed it on top of the building. I also had some other spare simple billboards lying around and used them too.

Sourcing advertisements

I had to research the internet for photos of buildings and posters of cigarette brands. Many photos sourced were graffitied as a result of the BUGAUP campaign in the early 1980s1. 

As a result I had to photoshop to clean them up to look more like 1970s era. 

Above: More Billboards of Escort Cigarettes and Winfield blues. 

Adding lighting

I wasn't intending to add lighting but had a surplus leftover of generic street lamps that I used on the West Wardell layout and were too modern for my 1950s section of the layout and decided to re-purpose them. 1000K resistors were added to each of the positive side of the leds to ensure that they would not be too bright and also not blow with the 15 volt power supply. 

After adding the Lighting to the billboards it looks like I was also need to add lights for the advertising on the Arnotts bridge as well as car lights to give the section of the layout more balance.

. 1. https://www.bugaup.org/

A Little Ray of Sunshine

O ne of the major drawbacks of the location of West Wardell in the model railway room was the lighting. There was currently no lighting over West Wardell to showcase that section of the layout. Furthermore the room was lite by three bays of old fluorescent lights. I decided to upgrade the lighting to LED battens with a dimmer and also have add a set of LED battens over West Wardell.

The outcome has been remarkable to say the least. 

After Shot

Before shot

Locomotive running on West Wardell

After a long absence of running trains on West Wardell, the Stay at Home restrictions across Australia since late March 2020 have meant that I have been able to repair some of the trackwork where it crossed adjoining baseboards and didn't align. I used track pins instead of glue as it gave some flexibility and also has the ability to remove if the trackwork needs replacing just like the prototype.

Here are two view of  42 Class hauling a military load through West Wardell

Enjoy!!