I’d add that perhaps it makes a difference where you are needing the light. For my permanent, stationary installations, I began using 14V incandescent bulbs powered by malibu lighting transformers. The transformers are rated for 12V, so the bulbs glowed a slightly orange color and looked good in my buildings.
Since I power my trains from track, I wanted as little drain on my power packs as possible and switched to LEDs as soon as I could. I wire mine in parallel and use a cl2 to limit current. I also put a bridge rectifier in the circuit, so the electricity always goes in the correct direction. There are photos of my circuit boards on this board. A photo actually came up on the “random slide show” at the top of the list.
Using the cl2 eliminates the need for resistors, and also permits a variable number of LED in your consist. I now power five cars with about three or four LEDs per car with a single circuit, using small wires to connect the cars.
Recently I converted a Charles Ro set of cars to LEDs when the owner wanted to use battery power for them. Using screw in E5 LEDs sure sped up the process, although I did have to rewire about one third of the sockets because they were wired “backward” for LEDs.
I’m thinking that now that LEDs are getting cheaper and brighter and with more colors, the benefits of LEDs are growing. Now I’ve got LEDs that are are placements for malibu iight bulbs, and am replacing the four watt bulbs in them as they incandescents burn out.
