Three-D Modelling for Railways

 A small project I did in Blender on Christmas Eve, and printed on Boxing Day, painted today. The prototype is where Old Manchester Road meets Manchester Road, and was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Jubilee - like so many municipal drinking fountains. I created one corner, which was then replicated using Geometry Nodes, though mirroring would have worked just as well! There is a gargoyle on each corner, which I did using the "Sculpt" mode, and is fine in small scale, but will look a bit rubbish if you look too closely! This is the print, unpainted. This is the first time using a light box for photos (thanks to middle child for the present!). And printed. The STL file is available on Thingiverse . The above is a slightly different version as the prototype is missing a ball in one corner and has a sizeable chunk out of it

I visited Settle with the specific intention to get photos of the footbridge, but ended up doing most of the station structures. The Settle and Carlisle Line is a popular one to model. The Midland Rail had a standard design for buildings, so the main station building at Settle is essentially the same as that At Appleby, Kirby Stephen and other locations. The waiting room is even more ubiquitous. Here is that main building. This is the platform side. The door did not quite print properly, and the bits in the windows either side failed to and had to be redone - and are rather fatter than they should be but that is a limitation of the technology. But if you ignore that area, otherwise it looks pretty good. This is from the road side. No doors on this side, which is unusual. Was that to prevent draughts? The waiting room is very much in the same style. The water tower. I did a second version that is rather smaller. The Settle water tower is noted as the biggest on the line. The footbridge....

The prototype is discussed here . It is a complex model, but for the most part not technically challenging. The worst part was aligning the pivot with the centre of the arc, and I am not quite sure I got it right. In hindsight I should have done the pivot first... There was also the cog and rack. The cog on the back of the curve is the rack aligned to a curve. There does not seem to be a cog and rack on the prototype, but I felt I would need one to make up for the lack of weight. I printed it in four parts, the two big being the main stationary infrastructure and the lifting the span. The roof and top of the counterweight being the other two. The lifting span was printed upside down. The road deck is card. I designed it hoping it could be motorised, but the lifting span was too wide, and catches on the stationary part. With a bit of effort it could be modified, but that is a job for another day.

Built by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, but I cannot determine when, besides the second half of the nineteenth century. This is a nice building to model because it is so thin; the model is only 65 mm deep. The model was fiddly to do, but not that complex technically. The tower was done aligned to the grid, and then I took a copy, joined it into a single object, and rotated it 45deg. I printed the roof and tower separately.

By their nature, every farmhouse and barn is unique. This is a selection of images to give a feel for what is out there. Mostly from Lancashire, with a few others at the end. This is an on-going project, and more images will be added as they are acquired. This barn is in Higher Walton. It features two sets of holes in a diamond on the gable end; something common in this area. It is also apparent that the barn has been subject to numerous alterations over the years. And is in a pretty poor state! This large barn, near Walton-le-Dale, has fifteen of the diamond patterns on the gable wall, and more on the other wall. This example is in Lea Town on the Flyde, with the same pattern in the walls. What I guess are earlier barns were stone-built, and the ventilation was simple slots. This is in Cliviger. A stone-built barn in Hirst Green. A somewhat more modern barn, also at Hirst Green. The lower level is concrete, with wood above. This split of materials of construction is very common, thoug...

This is just a bunch of links to collections of photos. My interest in British Rail in the era ca. 1980, so that is the focus. A Flickr aggregated collection: https://www.flickr.com/groups/br_blue/pool/page1 Some personal Flickr collections, conveniently grouped into albums (you will need to search out the relevant albums!). https://www.flickr.com/photos/28083135@N06/albums/72157624997530469/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/12a_kingmoor_klickr/albums/with/72157716166489487 https://www.flickr.com/photos/96859208@N07/albums/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/geoffsimages/albums https://www.flickr.com/photos/oldbuzzard/albums/with/72157632402338575 https://www.flickr.com/photos/126693116@N06/albums/72157650816798679/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/hmillington/albums/72177720299929413/ Not Flickr https://andygibbs.zenfolio.com/ https://www.philt.org.uk/BR https://www.pinterest.co.uk/smcgguy/br-blue/ http://www.davidheyscollection.com/page40.htm A lot of photos here, but spread across many decades...

I use IPA ( iso -propyl alohol)to wash models after printing; this removes resin stuck to the surface, and is vital if you want to get good resolution. Part of the action is physical - it is just washing off the excess - but put of it is that the IPA dissolves the resin. There comes a point where the IPA is saturated, and it will not dissolve any more resin. And they will happen at different times with the different components in the resin. So at this point you need to use fresh IPA, or to somehow renew the old. Note that letting it stand so the resin settles out and then decanting off will not work. It will only remove resin that is not dissolved; if the IPA is saturated with resin, it will remain so. Some people distil the IPA, and this is the only way to get high quality IPA back again. However, IPA is flammable, and when you distil you will necessarily be heating it beyond its flash point. If you buy equipment designed for distilling water there is no reason to suppose it was built...