The Great Bear

Are the pictures in this book all post-nationalisation?

Which goes to confirm my impression having met Paul and his wife years ago at an RMWeb event (when they were in Stafford) what a lovely and helpful chap he is.

I can sympathise with the storage issues - you can never have too much storage. I am an inherently untidy person and having a man cave where SWMBO never ventures brings out the worst in me. It is far to easy to just put something down on the layout as it's a nice relatively flat large and accessible area temporarily then leave it there for months with a steady pile of additions. At least your layout is at a relatively early stage of construction, hopefully not too much to get damaged. I have a couple of signals I need to re-build which have suffered from storage system. For months now each weekend I vow I will get it tidied up and run a train or two, still haven't managed that.

Some guidance on things like this here, albeit mainly for functional parts not scale models: https://ameralabs.com/blog/3d-design-parts-sla-3d-printing/ Also I've read on Phrozen facebook page that slowing down the print, in particular the speed the plate lifts off the fep can help resolve some distortion/banding issues, reducing the forces. Still experimenting with this on my own prints.

They are ones I designed and got printed in brass by Shapeways. They work at around £14 for 24 of them. Shapeways have a minimum price for casting stuff IIRC and having played around with various numbers of handles, this design ended up being the most economic. The shape isn't quite right, the shape of the real things is very complex and hard to determine exactly -I haven't found any drawings. They are also a tad chunkier than they should be due to Shapeways minimum thickess requirements. I've set this to be publically available, since I've had some printed I think that should work? (I can't remember does Shapeways require you to make one for yourself before selling?) (When fitting to the coach, I tend to find it a lot faster to snip off the bottom lug, so only one goes into the hole in the coach body, rather than fiddling trying to get two in, even if they should fit it ends up testing my patience too much!) https://www.shapeways.com/product/B8C28QZDF/commode-handles-x24

Thank you. I've gone back and had another look at Shapeways. Taking the E73 as an exampe, if the body is printed complete like I do on my own printer it comes in at £66 in Versatile Plastic or a whopping £127 in Fine Detail Plastic. For panelled coaches the sample prints near the start of this topic show that the Versatile Plastic simply isn't good eough. I've had a play with the E73 and broken the body into parts: The sides printed as above in Fine Detailed Plastic would be around £50. The roof printed in Fine Detailed Plastic would be around £29 which seems a lot; as there's less detail probably could get away with the Versatile Plastic which would be around £18. Altogether that's more sensible but still not cheap. Would people want the coach interiror and chassis? This is where the costs start to mount. The interior printed as whole in Versatile Plastic is £37! So I tried breaking into parts: But, this doesn't save any money. Seems a lot to me. The chassis would be around £18. So we have: Body sides £50 Roof £18 Interior £37 Chassis £18 Total £123 To that you would add another £30 or so for bogies, wheels and the commode handles. It strikes me that it's the interior and to lesser extent chassis that seem bad value. I'm open to suggestions on this as to how this could be arranged to make more economic so my designs can be shared.

Yes, some of the photos have dates and locations and they have the twin cities crest rather than the garter crest and some where you can make out the text it is the 1942 or later sans-serif font

That's for the body BTW. The body, interiror and chassis don't all fit in the build space so it takes two print runs to do a coach.

Thank you. Depending on the resin and the printer settings between 10 and 16+ hours. That's printing at 100 micron layer thickness. The resin that does it faster is more expensive and I think gives better, more detailed/crisper results. I think, stilll testing, slowing the print down, the speed the build plate moves to see if it improves print quality and repeatability.

Some more coaches. Firstly a D88 brake third: This print shows the end that is nearest to the build plate when printing. I haven't made an attempt to clean up the printing supports, but by reducing the size of tips of them they should with care clean up easier, with less damage to the detail at the end. Next, some corridor celerestories, firstly an E73 composite: This, unlike the photo of the E88, is the free end of the print, so no supports. The chassis remain a pain to print, to avoid warping as mentioned above I print attached to stiffening beams then cure for a long time an hour plus and only then remove the supports. The downside is that the resulting print is very brittle - you can see where I snapped it in the photo. For the toplight frames I'm erring toward printing via 3rd party using SLS Nylon or HP Mutlijet fusion tech, they are then more robust. More on this later. Some coaches like this one, the location of the bogie centres ends up rather messily fouling the seats, but who's going to see... And finally for now, a completed coach a C17 all third Most of the pictures of clerestories in Russell show them in all brown livery, which suits me - far less painting and lining to do. This one has a stab at some weathering too. All the best Jon

Actually, net gain is not some whim of wildlife trusts and so on it is now government policy https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/biodiversity-net-gain-updating-planning-requirements but hs2 pre-dates that of course by several years. Other large emergining schemes that are some way off planning will probably have to move to this higher standard otherwise they won't get approval.

Well, the proposed Oxford - Cambridge expressway has few friends for a start. (Does have the common ground with your last sentence, mind you.) There is not as much difference in width as you might think: hs2 width from back of cable troughs 18.9m (the standard I have is 2013 for the hybrid bill design), a 2 lane dual carriageway (1m hardstrips, not hardshoulders as now is the norm) to back of verges 26.1m. But, as soon as you start adding any embankment or cutting the width of the trace becomes as much if not more a function of the height/depth of that so quickly the earthworks slope width becomes the main part of the width - and that, assuming same geotechnical assumptions, will be the same. When you add in the fact that for a new road it can have much tighter horizontal curves, tighter vertical curvature and slightly steeper gradients the road will be able to better avoid constraints bending around them and more closely follow the topography and so have less earthworks. Also, the eventual land take will in lots of cases, will end up be driven by environmental mitigation not the basic engineering. With regards to environmental impact whether new road or railway the projects are going to have to comply with the same laws regarding environmental impact. It is no more acceptable for a road scheme to cause harm than a railway. There is shed loads of stuff on environmental impact in the National Networks National Policy Statement (NNNPS) which are the rules that all nationally significant infrastructure schemes (NSIP) Development Concent Orders (DCO) are assessed against by the planning inspectorate. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/387223/npsnn-web.pdf (HS2 is a special case with rather than a DCO being hybrid bill) Anyway, who needs hs2? Let's all fly(be) seems to be the new government policy!

Very , very nice modelling. Blimey they are big buildings!

I couldn't wait

I'd have thought as an express service it would have warranted a passenger class or mixed traffic loco, a Hall or Grange at least? Maybe I'm misunderstanding?

I guess too late as you've mounted it but I thought they offered the option of printing on waterproof paper, their "premium" range https://www.art-printers.com/ That's something I wish I'd considered. Along with the blemishing you may also find that in an environment where the humidity/temperature greatly varies, an outside shed, the normal ones bubble over time.

I do like the bent wire replacement for the tension lock you have on your tank locos, much more discreet.

Some of the earlier 517 class 0-4-2 tanks were so fitted as were some of the similar vintage 2-4-0 Metro tanks. Some 4575 small prairies were auto fitted for work on heavier trains, multiple trailers in south Wales. I'm sure others will add more details on this.

That's very nice 3d design work. The tapered boiler and firebox is a quite subtle shape and not easy to get right. Is it the angle of view - the firebox sides should taper back inward toward the cab? That took me a whie to realise, should have noted the shape of the RTR locos I have. (I had a go making a no.2 boiler for converting a Bachmann Dukedog to a Bulldog.) What scale is it going to be printed at? I do wonder whether some of the small details, the handrails for instance will print?

Hello Does anyone have the dimensions for the little boards that went on the coach sides near the ends with the coach letter(?) on and the brackets for them? (Not the long rectangular ones with destinations on.) Thanks in advance Jon

You can get a very wide range of screws etc from Accu

Ah well, I was only out by 20 in the number I made up when requesting custom set of transfers for the set ends then... (Am adding an extra third to the set anyway as I think has been discussed was done post war.)

The combination of GWR post war livery but with smokebox number strikes me as strange and could deter sales. It's putting me of buying a post war one in addition to a shirt button one.

I've now got my bodged Bulldog complete, with the Bachmann Earl chassis and my own 3d printed loco body The smokebox saddle joint to the chassis and the bit infront is a bit of mess, the latter as the 3d printed bits were too fragile so this was bodged with some plasticard. That apart I'm pretty content with the result. In due course Sir Arthur Yorke will get a heavy does of weathering to suit rather run down post war condition as seen in these pictures https://rcts.zenfolio.com/steam-gwr/bulldog/hA0FF5B85#ha0ff5b85 and https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Steam-Engine-Photo-GWR-Dean-Designed-4-4-0-Locomotive-No-3418-Sir-Arthur-Yorke-/183942427144?hash=item2ad3d2b208, the freight turn in the latter picture likely what I have in mind for eventual run in timetable on layout. All the prototype discussion in this thread has been most informative. All the best Jon

If you google Avonmouth banana you should get some results of interest eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0VDKhkswU8 Also covered in GWRJ 94. I think I have that one, whether I can find it is another matter.