Drivers Eye Views – Mini Cameras

Drivers Eye Views – Mini Cameras

Ever wondered what it’s like to a drivers view on your own layout, or fancy making your own driver’s eye view video? With plenty of video’s of drivers eye views of model railway layouts to inspire you, as well as giving you a different perspective of your layout. With the many types mini cameras now available in the marketplace, they’ll be one to suit you & most folks budgets. A quick search online such as on the likes of eBay, Amazon amongst other websites will bring many small micro cams. These range from just a few £’s to a couple of hundred £’s. The cameras can range from a small fake car key fob with a built-in camera, to camera wagons, to small action cameras like the Polaroid Cube & GoPro’s, Foxeer & Mobius.

Reviewer YouTube channel, Techmoan reviews many mini cameras ( as well as lots of other interesting electronic gadgets ), is worth checking out if you’re not sure what mini camera to go for. Techmoan can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5I2hjZYiW9gZPVkvzM8_Cw

In particular, one mini camera that’s popular with modellers is the Mobius mini camera, which is ideal for popping on to a flatbed wagon. Here Techmoan gives his in-depth review of this mini camera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfFBCuzoG-U

Depending on what size camera you use, it’s best to place the camera on to a low flat four-wheel wagon, or bogie flatbed wagon. To temporarily fix the camera to the wagon, use blu-tak, double-sided sticky tape, double-sided sticky pad or simply tape the camera to the wagon.

Place the camera wagon in front of the loco & have the loco push the camera wagon around the layout at slow to medium speeds. For best results try to have good lighting in the room if possible or some kind of light mounted to the wagon to light up the darker areas that your camera train may pass through.

A cheap way is to start off with is the dummy car key fob with a built-in spy camera. Thes can be found very cheaply on the internet. To give you an example here is one video that features on such a camera:

Some modellers have taken things further, by fitting the camera inside the train giving an inside the cab drivers eye view. This can be done using a DMU model or diesel loco model. Part of the interior or bodyshell may need to be removed to allow for the fitting of the camera. For an example of a camera fitted in the locomotive cab check out Dougattrenholmebar’s  YouTube channel which features some videos of the camera mounted in the cab. One such video can be seen here:

Taking things further a wagon or loco with a camera permanently fitted inside. The likes of Brannor Systems produce camera wagons for both OO/HO & N gauge model railways. These include the battery, USB socket etc all built in. The camera wagons are four-wheel vent van type. You can find the Brannor Camera System cam trucks here:

http://www.branor.co.uk/products.htm

An example video footage from this camera wagon is shown in this Hornby Magazine video:

Taking things further & higher up the budget, Roco produces locomotives with a factory fitted onboard high-quality camera system which is designed to work with Roco’s Z21 DCC system. The camera can be remotely operated via the DCC system using a smartphone, tablet, laptop or pc. An image inside a real locomotive cab is overlaid by what the camera sees, thus giving the impression of being in the loco cab. The neat feature of this system if using a touchscreen device, you can actually tap on the controls of the loco cab interior on the screen to operate the loco. So for example, touching the buttons or levers on the image of the cab interior allows you to operate the horn, lights, brake, throttle etc….Just like the real thing!! The video below shows an overview of this advanced camera system in action:

More details on this Roco Z21 camera system can be found here:

https://www.roco.cc/en/specials/kameralok/index.html

Another British system that’s worthy of mention is the 4KAM camera system. Apart from the cheaper mini spy type camera, they also produce a RailCam multi-camera system that can be connected to a TV using the supplied RCA/Phono connector plug.  To view set the TV to the av channel and your models will be live on your TV! However, 4KAM have taken it one stage further by producing a handheld viewer that allows up to four camera’s to connect wirelessly. An ideal solution to layouts with a hidden fiddle yard. There are two types of camera to available, a hi-quality one & a tunnel camera for dark areas of the layout.

You can out find out more about this British mini multi-rail cam system here:

http://www.4kam.com/wireless_live_train_video_camera.htm

The camera’s mention is only a tiny part of what’s available to buy. A selection of mini camera’s & camera systems is shown below in the gallery. Do you have video footage of drivers eye views on your layout? Let us know & we’ll feature them here in the club.

Happy Modelling