Three-D Modelling for Railways

I am a chemist by profession, and so the transport of chemicals by rail is of interest. In fact I wrote an article on the topic, see here . Nitrogen Liquors The appeal for these is in the name, which makes no sense at all if you are a chemist. They actually contained ammonium nitrate, which is a fertiliser used to put nitrogen in soil, which will be where the name comes from, presumably a solution in water, that is likely both hot - given the wagons are lagged - and very concentrated. Images of the prototype can he found here . They are so dirty it is not possible to tell the original colour, but I am guessing green? One end has four flanges; these would have been to allow the contents to be heated using steam. They were printed separately. The wagons have channels down the sides to catch spills. i guess this is to ensure the solution down not end up between the rails, where it could mix with oil to create an explosive mixture. The ladders are brass. The chasses are Peco. Carbon Dioxid...

 The FEP/PFA film on the bottom of the tank is a consumable. It gets pulled on every layer of every model, and eventually wears out (and I strongly suspect using metal tools on it will make that happen faster). What happens when it wears out? You get a leak. Early signs of a leak I had noticed a bump in the PFA film previously, and I guess this was a leak in the making. There were no scratches or whiting of the film besides that. Is it worth replacing the FEP/PFA film at the first sign of a leak about to appear? My current thinking is no. I got quite a few prints out before the leak actually developed, and the effort and money probably comes down on the side of waiting - if you have a screen protector. Printing with a leak This is what I got. There should be two octagonal towers, and some other bits. The tower on the right is fine, the one on the left, not so much. It stuck to the base plate and the supports are fine, in fact by the end of the print is was looking okay again. After...

Lancastria House was built by the Lancastrian Co-Operative Society in, I think, 1935. It is, in my view, the best example of Art Deco we have in Preston. It is mostly done in Blender, and I am starting to print it out. This was my longest print, at over eight hours. This is the first six components. I have yet to print out the ground floor; the walls you see will eventually be rather higher, almost up to the towers. Obviously no roof or back wall yet either. There is the prototype. It is currently not in use - and narrowly avoided demolition, but was recently Great Times Chinese Restaurant on the ground floor, and offices above. Ultimately I decided to do this as a low relief building.

I could do the main building from Google Street View and Google Earth, but the platform level buildings an infrastructure were not possible, so I went in person. This is the "up" line as it disappears under the station building. I had been expectimg the platform to go further this way, with the station on columns over the platform, but that is not the case, and it is a solid structure. On the other side. Again, t station building is supported by a steel girder. The stairs are not aligned with the roof. They slope at different angles, and at different times. The slopin roof is glass, but not clear. The platform building was rebuilt in ca. 1977. The station has a bay platform. I am not sure how much it is used - i would guess trains from the south are more likely to terminate here (the one in the image is doing just that). The track is in good condition however. The station had a canopy that extended for some distance over the bay platform at one time, though it had been choppe...

 This follows on from here . I have now printed and painted the model. I was printed in four parts; the roof, the roof of the canopy, the supports for the canopy and the main building. I tried doing the canopy as one piece, but it was too difficult cleaning off the supports. I was not sure the canopy roof is quite right. It has a high gloss on it that I hoped would look like glass, but really does not! Here is a replacement. For reference, this is the real thing. Colours really not right....

 I am some way from printing this, but thought I would show the work-in-progress. Stations on bridges are very common on model railways as they save space, but are considerably less common in real life, I guess because of the extra expense of providing infrastructure to support the building. Wigan Wallgate station is one such example, so seems ripe for modelling. The prototype was opened 2 February 1896 by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, replacing an earlier station the other side of the road. Obviously the ground floor windows and doors are still to be done, and these are arched so a bit more complicated than the first floor windows. It then needs bricks adding. the real pain-in-the-neck job was the slates, so it feels this is not far from done. Then there is printing it.

Shipping containers became a popular means to ship goods in the sixties, and have only become more popular since. British Rail introduced its own variant, Freightliner, in the mid-sixties, pioneered by Dr Beeching, better known for closing railways. It was originally envisaged as a domestic solution, however it was international trade where is took off. An international standard, ISO-668, appeared in 1968, based at least in part on the UK standard, though not quite identical to it, and this slowly replaced the UK version. Early international shipping containers were a variety of designs, but all the same width and height, and either 20', 30' or 40' long. Today the design has standardised on the corrugated sides, and 30' containers are rare, but there is some variation in height - which is a problem in the UK as many routes are not suitable for the higher containers. The old UK shipping contains seem to have varied rather more, including 10' containers and 27' co...