Three-D Modelling for Railways

This is a curious building in Barnard Castle, also known as the market cross. Barnard Castle is a delightful town on the River Tees, in County Durham. After the castle itself, the Butter Market is the most prominent building, being in the middle of the main road, but there are of lovely old building there. The Butter Market was built in 1747 , and as well as being used as a market has see service as a court, a prison and a fire station. In 1804, two men used it as a target in a bet about marksmanship skill, and the weather van has two holes in it dating from that event. The octagonal symmetry makes this an unusual challenge in Blender. I found it worked well to rotate sections by 45 degrees, do the detailing orthogonally, then join the parts together, before rotating back. I also had to break it up into six parts... For comparison, here is the prototype. Not the greatest photo; taken from a car (by the passenger, not driver!) on a dismal day in December.

 I have wanted to do a church for a while, but wanted to start small... The prototype is near where I work, but a good ten to fifteen minutes walk from the nearest village; it really is in the middle of nowhere. The turret on the tower is a nice feature that makes it distinctive. The main church was built around 1825, but the tower was about fifty years later, and the stone is noticeable different. The church web site states the tower in 60' high, which was useful. Other dimension from Google maps. I was surprised at how big it turned out to be, but have checked and it is right. A small church in N gauge really is about 18 cm (7") long. Both Metcalfe and Scalescenes churches are similar. Even small churches are big! Church windows are very difficult in Blender. I used the Boolean modifier to cut holes, but the calculations seems to fail in some situations, and the hole comes and goes, so the geometry is partly dictated by what Blender could cope with. I also had issues with ba...

British Homes Stores (BHS) was a chain of stores across the UK. According to here , BHS was founded in 1928 (by US entrepreneurs according to Wiki), with the Preston branch, the second outside the southeast built in 1935 - the first being Hull. It was extended and rebuilt in 1967, in common with numerous branches during the sixties. There is an image  here  of BHS in 1965, clearly a different building. Compare to  here , from 1970, where the premises have been extended to the right, and a new building (or new façade). Looks like the first floor windows were enlarged at some point. I think this was a restaurant - we used to eat there occasion when the kids were very small, if we were in town shopping.  It folded in 2016, and the Preston branch was closed 23/Jul that year. It has remained closed ever since. The building to the right is significantly more ornate, and took about five times as long to make. It is now a mobile phone shop, but I cannot find out anything abo...