Barebones Railroad Lantern Review (Bought & Tested!)

This is my Barebones Railroad lantern review. I put it through 17 different tests and experiments, all of which you’ll find below in this post.

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Quick Summary

Overall, I felt that the Barebones Railroad was a solid lantern. It doesn’t have the most features, but its vintage design is fantastic and high quality. So, if you’re looking for great vintage lantern, this is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

RELATED: Best Rechargeable LED Lanterns

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Check out the Barebones Railroad:

1. In the Box

So, I walked into a camping shop one day, saw the Barebones lantern, and just bought it off the shelf cos it looks so cool. Here’s what it looked like out of the shop:

And here’s what we get out of the box:

• Railroad lantern

• Provided USB-C cable

• User guide

• Rechargeable battery

2. Rechargeable Battery

The rechargeable battery is supposed to go into the battery housing at the bottom of the lantern:

Also, it’s a 2-18650 4400mah 3.7v 16.28wh battery.

3. Charge Time

To charge the Railroad lantern, grab the provided USB to USB-C cable. Then, open up the tiny black flap at the back of the lantern, and you’ll find an input 5V USB-C there. Plug the cable in.

Altogether, it took me about 7 hours and 45 minutes to fully charge the Railroad lantern.

4. Dimmer Key

The dimmer key at the front allows you to turn the lantern on and off, and also to adjust the brightness level.

5. Brightness – Lumen Output

I used a lux meter to find out the exact lumen output and brightness of the Railroad lantern.

Here are my results:

• Max brightness: 382 lumens

• Min brightness: 0 lumens

6. Run Times

And on these max and minimum brightness settings, what is the run time? Here are my test results:

• Max brightness: 5.25 hours

• Min brightness: 522 hours

This is much more impressive than the marketed run time of 100 hours on low and 3.5 hours on high.

7. Shine Area

I used the same lux meter to also test the shine area of the Railroad lantern on the highest brightness setting. It came in at about 8.6 feet or 2.6 meters. That’s the size of a 14-person tent.

As for the dimmest setting, that’s perfect for chilling in the tent, with a little night light.

8. Light Quality

The light creates a warm ambiance with a warm yellow light and a color temperature of 3,000 Kelvin on the light spectrum.

The globe has a gorgeous seeded glass effect, but it’s minimally frosted. It would have been better on the eyes had it been more frosted.

9. Battery Indicator Lights

Above the USB-C input flap at the back, there are 4 battery indicator lights.

Charging

When you’re charging the Railroad lantern, 1 light will blink, then 2, then 3, and all 4 lights will no longer blink when it’s fully charged.

Camping Usage

And when I was using the lantern, I found that the lights were somewhat accurate, but not all the time. Here are my results when running the lantern on the brightest setting:

• 4 lights: 100%

• 3 lights: 71%

• 2 lights: 52%

• 1 light 33%

• 0 lights: 0%

Seems pretty accurate, until you see the dimmest setting lights:

• 4 lights: 100%

• 3 lights: 43%

• 2 lights: 22%

• 1 light: 6%

• 0 lights: 0%

Not the most accurate.

10. Handle

There’s a single handle at the top of the Barebones Railroad lantern, which is quite nice, and makes it easy to carry around.

12. Weight

The Railroad lantern weighs almost exactly 30 ounces, or about 852 grams.

13. Packed Size

It has a packed size of 6.5 x 6.5 x 9.25 inches. That’s 16.5 x 16.5 x 23.5 centimeters.

14. Waterproofing

There’s no waterproofing rating on this Railroad lantern, and for good reason given its limitations in outdoor conditions.

After I put it through 15 to 30 minutes of heavy rain, I noticed that water had got into the entire lantern. There were water droplets all over the place!

I ended up having to take apart everything to dry.

In fact, Barebones even warns that extended exposure to wet conditions may cause rust, so just take note of that.

15. Drop Testing

I also dropped the Railroad lantern from hand height, and it held up fine without a single crack.

That’s why there’s an outer cage here to help protect it from any unnecessary drops and butter fingers like what I have.

16. Globe Replacement

If the globe breaks though, you can easily replace it yourself using these steps:

• Check for globe replacement symbol

• Unscrew top screw cap and rubber gasket

• Remove metal hood

• Unscrew hex nut from center rod

• Remove water shroud

• Remove wiring connector and place it into center rod

• Lift LED module and put it down face-up

• Remove glass globe and replace it!

I learned how to do so by watching the official Barebones tutorial here:

17. Warranty

The official website says that this lantern has a 2-year limited warranty, not the shortest I guess, but I do wish it could be longer.

18. Pros, Cons, Recommendations

Now, why do I think this is one of the best vintage camping lanterns ever with its vintage charm?

Pro 1: Aesthetic is amazing

First up, the timeless appeal of this Barebones lantern is fantastic, and it looks amazing, especially the awesome seeded glass effect, copper accents, and edison-style bulb.

It really is a fantastic modern twist on the antique Union Pacific lantern, just upgraded a hundred times over. The steady light and classic warming glow is fantastic for any campsite.

Pro 2: High quality

The level of detail and durable construction on this thing is awesome as well.

On top of that, I found that it works very well, and it blew some of my tests out of the water.

Tests	Official Specs	My Results
Brightest Output	200 lumens	382 lumens
Dimmest Output	35 lumens	0 lumens
Max Run-Time	100 hours	522 hours
Lighting Area	Unsure	232 sq. ft.

The max lumen output was twice what I was expecting it to be, and the dimmest output was lower than I was expecting it to be, giving me more than double the range of brightness settings than I thought I would have.

The max run-time was an insane number, 522 hours, more than 5 times what I was expecting.

And the lighting area of 232 square feet was enough to light up even a 14-person tent.

Pro 3: Simple-to-use

I also like the simplicity of this lantern, it has a single dimmer key that’s super intuitive.

Pro 4: Completely adjustable brightness

The range of motion is pretty wide, it turns more than 180 degrees, I think this is more like about 225 degrees of motion, which gives you quite a bit of control over the brightness of the light.

Pro 5: Replaceable battery

Another humongous pro is that the li-ion battery 2-18650 is replaceable, and when the capacity of this runs down, you can always replace it with another one from Barebones. That’s very rare for a rechargeable lantern.

Note: This 18650 battery is proprietary to Barebones though. If you’re looking for a regular battery-operated lantern instead, check out my review of the Black Diamond Apollo instead (I typically use Eneloop batteries).

Pro 6: USB-C cable

A smaller pro is that it comes with a USB-C cable, this is also kind of rare for most of my lanterns.

And you can use just about any USB-C cable, the cable they provided isn’t proprietary.

Con 1: Long charging time

It takes quite long to charge, coming in at almost 8 hours.

Con 2: No charging output

The Railroad lantern also doesn’t have a charging output that acts like a power bank to charge electronics. There’s only a single input port.

Con 3: Not waterproof

It has no IP rating, and isn’t waterproof.

Con 4: Heavy and bulky

This is easily one of my biggest and bulkiest rechargeable lanterns.

Overall Recommendation

Overall, as long as you’re aware of its kind of minor disadvantages here, and you like the vintage appeal and unique light of this lantern, I think the Barebones Railroad lantern is easily one of the highest quality and simply one of the best vintage lanterns out there.

19. Bonus – MUST Read!

Is the Railroad lantern truly the best camping lantern (LED rechargeable) though? Click on the link in this paragraph to find out!

Otherwise, check out the Barebones Railroad: