Lazy

In Sketchup my usual practice is to draw formers and then add the triangles by hand :

Perusal of Michael J. Collins' Life and Times - Freightliner suggests the following : The wagon, being blue, would appear to represent a Batch 2 vehicle - as far as I am aware, some lasted into the post-BR era (I think that a few are still in use in Engineer's trains). Batch 1 vehicles were painted black and virtually all withdrawn by 1989. Containers in the original livery were carried on trains at least until 1984 judging from photos, but the branding became "Freightliners Limited" after the organisation was split off from BR in 1969. The container itself is an original Freightliner non-ISO type, but these seem to have been phased out by the end of the 1960s as BR changed to the ISO system. I have not seen any photos of the non-ISO types with the "Limited" branding though - perhaps they did not last long enough.

The ERTL Thomas range contains a few items of interest to HO modellers. The "Toby" tram engine appears to be dimensionally suitable, although as it is a crude diecast model I contented myself with grinding Toby's face off (!) and adding a representation of the end doors. A Tenshodo bogie provides power. There is also a "Stafford" which represents the NSR battery loco. More work is required for this one, including opening out the (solid) cab windows and improving the underframe. Tenshodo power is again used. As supplied, the body appeared to be deeper than the prototype so I removed material from the bottom of the casting. I think the excess depth is because a half-plank on the prototype front end has been modelled as a full plank. Also, the middle plank on the bodyside appears to be too deep. Correcting this on a diecast model would be difficult. Another useful item is the tank wagon which is available in various liveries. The underframe is useless but the tank barrel is a serviceable representation of older types. A replacement chassis can be obtained from a Lima wagon or (shortened) from the Playcraft steel mineral. The tank can be detailed with wire stays etc. Securing cables are moulded on the barrel, but I remove them from the bottom half and use fuse wire (filed down to give a smooth transition to the moulded cable on the top half). I have not usually modelled specific prototypes though, adopting a more generic approach. Currently most of my tanks are Class B types, although I have (loosely) modelled a ferry tank for conveying bromine.

Here are various projects underway chez Lazy : This is a Waterloo & City locomotive, scratchbuilt mostly in metal using a Tenshodo bogie. The axlebox / spring assemblies are from a Tri-ang searchlight wagon bogie. This is a model of the Tyneside motor luggage van, constructed from Lima Mk1 coaches with shortened DC Kits bogie frames. Some years ago I purchased a scratchbuilt brass model of what appears to be a GWR City class locomotive as a completion / restoration project. Originally it was 3-rail with a large (Zenith?) motor in the tender with a shaft drive to the engine. After various false starts I replaced the ancient Romford wheels with Markits 2-rail types, along with their keyed outside cranks and Caley Coaches coupling rods. I modified the Markits axles (and omitted the usual axle nuts) in order to reduce the overall width towards HO, with the whole thing held together by the mini-nuts on the axle ends, so the model will probably be restricted to light duties. I have also completed the basic tender superstructure and wedged a Taff Vale motor and Tenderiser gearbox inside, using flexible tube to connect to the existing drive on the engine. In order to use up some Playcraft scrap I am modelling the pair of Derby Lightweight single car units. I also had a large amount of Playcraft second-class compartment interiors. To use them up, I have used them to form the outer sides of an Orange Star unit. Combining cut-down Trix Trans-Pennine cab ends with cut and shut Playcraft Mk1 bodies allows representation of these units in HO. Strictly speaking the Mk1 profile is not quite right for a Class 124, but if it was good enought for Trix... Further Playcraft butchery is producing a Hastings 6B unit. In this case, the Playcraft roof is reduced in width and the bodysides are turned round with their flat surface facing outwards. This has resulted in more Playcraft scrap so perhaps some more DMUs will be necessary.

I think that the original post was duplicated and the image is in the other one. I don't think that it is a Bugatti, but I have a vague memory of seeing a black-and-white film of similar vehicles which were designed so that one could simply drive over the top of the other in order to get past (hence the odd shape and apparent guide rails on the roof).

Although I work only in 3.5mm, I use only inside bearings for printed stock, because of the need to bend W-irons outward (with the associated risk of breakage) to install pinpoint bearings. There is also the fact that the weight of the wagon will be borne on the W-irons, which could be a problem with certain print materials that over time may bend under load if no reinforcement is provided (perhaps difficult to fit inconspicuously to a W-iron). A while ago I bought some finished printed wagons from another modeller, which had outside bearings. Several W-irons had fractured so after repairs, I converted all to inside bearings.

It may be worth printing two more wagons in order to identify the issue - one can be painted but not loaded and the other left unpainted but filled with the sand mixture. It is noticeable that the splits are all happening in the same position. My guess is that the floor and stiffening ring prevent bowing at the top and bottom of the body so the middle planks give way instead. Note that if a file repair program (eg netfabb) is used then it can make unwanted corrections including reduction of wall thickness.

On the subject of Tenshodo bogies, early variants use a narrow spur gear which is liable to fracture. Repair is impossible and the gear must be replaced. Later variants use a wider helical gear : I have never encountered breakages with this type. On rare occasions the brass worms may be loose on the motor shaft - Loctite or a replacement worm should cure it. The ends of the Tenshodo axles have machined rebates which fix the back-to-back - note that this is slightly wider than usual to clear the motor casing. If replacement wheelsets are used one must be sure to set the back-to-back to match the Tenshodo value. Earlier Tenshodo units have a small tab on the keeper plate which locks over a spigot on the main casing (although it frequently breaks) - bending the tab back to clear the spigot allows the plate to slide back and be unclipped (with care, one can use a small screwdriver to assist in levering the plate off). Later variants use a tiny screw.

Many years ago I rebuilt some of these vehicles into a Waterloo and City set. Curiously, the original items appear to be to 3.5mm scale (if they can be said to be to scale) with extra doors and ventilation grilles to stretch them to 4mm. The bodyshells appear to be pressed aluminium with steel floor plates. There were two types of motor bogie sideframes - a diecast type and a pressed type. For the conversion, I removed the surplus doors / grilles and fitted BEC motor bogies. It was also necessary to reprofile the roof area to give a more rounded look, which required vast amounts of filling and sanding. By weight and volume, the vehicles are mostly Milliput and Plastic Padding😄

Being in the process of converting Playcraft Mk1s to a 6B I have been wondering the same thing. Peering at photos in Michael Welch's Southern DEMUs book suggests that the "shoulders" of the Hastings roof are similar to those of a Hampshire unit (presumably normal Mk1 profile). On a Hampshire unit, the central panel of the cab front appears to be the same width as the rubbing plate but on the Hastings unit it seems to be narrower, so the central roof arc also appears to be correspondingly shorter but of similar radius to the normal Mk1. Consequently I have removed a few mm from the centreline of the Playcraft roof to get the (inside-out) bodysides to Hastings gauge. I have considered an Oxted unit but do not currently have enough Playcraft door sections.

I had the same problem with a large batch of 10.5mm wheels a few years back - virtually all were out of true. I tried dismantling and reassembling them but this did not work. In the end I laid them aside and looked for other types (Romfords seemed to be in short supply at the time). Peter's Spares sell what is described as a Lowmac wheel which has a non-standard axle diameter but runs true (although it is a bit chunky). I was fortunate enough to find an Ebay seller who was selling a large batch of Steam Era Models wheels which have also proved to be true. As to the Gibsons, I eventually 3D printed some simple replacement wheel discs in Shapeways' FUD which, with careful assembly on to the original axles and tyres (glue required), resulted in some usable wheelsets, although this was more about salvaging my initial outlay rather than any intention of becoming a wheel designer. But in general I would suggest using other wheel makes.

On a workstation or panel the signaller is provided with (and required to use) route cards (which are, I believe, the property of the Signalling Engineer). These specify the positions that points are to be placed in (for all signalled routes) when a signal is to be passed at danger. Route cards are not normally provided for lever boxes though, although one large frame I worked was indeed supplied with them. The report mentions an informal guide to lever movements which is not likely to be the same thing. It has long been my belief that every box with pointwork should be issued with route cards. Had this been the case, the signaller would probably have set the route according to the relevant card and checked that the points indications were correct, at which point the fact that points were out of correspondence would have been obvious and movements could not be made until the points were secured.

I have designed various models for 3D printing (for my own use rather than for sale) over the years, so here are some of my own design bungles : 1) Rushing to beat a Shapeways price rise, I put my design file through a repair program prior to uploading. The repair program removed a few details from the model. With no time to correct the "correction", I submitted the design anyway, reasoning that I would manually restore the missing bits when I received the print. 2) Baulking at the apparent complexity of a bogie design, I decided to create a simplified model which I would detail manually after printing. Not only did the simplified bogie not look like anything, I forgot that bogie frames are "handed" and ended up with four identical frame prints rather than two opposite-handed pairs . 3) Having designed a wagon body and chassis separately, I mated them to form a one-piece design. Unfortunately, I got the chassis the wrong way round. It wasn't possible to manually correct the delicate details on the print so I left it as was. Not only that, I decided not to correct the design so that all subsequent models would be consistent (ie wrong) with the first . 4) Owing to a measurement error, a coach print ended up 0.8mm too wide. This might not seem like much (for 3.5mm scale) but it gave the model a somewhat pear-shaped profile . As the print was expensive, I decided to salvage it by manually sanding and filing away the excess and then reprofiling the original design (a more involved process that I might have wished). 5) Part-way through designing a model of a locomotive, I realised that it was actually starting to look like another (but very similar-looking) type instead. I saved a copy of the design as that other loco before trying to correct the original to represent the intended one.

According to Michael Collins' book, 601999 was apparently built as a double-ender, the other two were converted from inner vehicles and renumbered to 601997/998. There are photos of all three on Paul Bartlett's site - 601997/8 appear to retain their original headstocks inboard of the bufferbeam extensions, but the photo of 601999 is after allocation to Departmental use, including end steps which make it difficult to see whether it too had the superfluous headstocks (although if it was originally built as double-ended, one would imagine not). There was also another double-ended conversion, 601996.

Some hasty photos of the model containers : The Fleischmann model has been lengthened by splicing two containers together, hence the none-too-convincing rust to try and conceal the joins. There were also large gaps around the (opening) doors that had to be filled. The blue factory paint is fading for some reason - presumably some reaction to my touching-up. The Rowa model with the pale stripe (but not deeper - that will teach me to check the model first!)

I believe that these containers were used by a company called Winnic - Winn International Containers. I have seen a few such containers in photos from the late 1960s but none later. There are actually two models available in HO scale by Fleischmann and Rowa - the latter using a deeper but paler stripe. The Fleischmann example is a bit short though. Curiously it bears a Freightliner number but with a W suffix. There are a couple of images in Freightliner - Life and Times - pages 53 centre (Wembley? late 1960s) and 65 centre (Parkeston Quay 1968).

If the file becomes distorted between export from Netfabb and appearance on the website it may be that the website's own repair system is causing the distortion as it attempts to repair the file (some systems can be quite aggressive in their corrections, lopping chunks off or plating over large parts of the model), even if Netfabb reported that the file was error-free. If the corrected file can be downloaded it may be possible to re-import it into one's design program and manually restore it there. I can't comment on Meshlab as I find it incomprehensible

As there is limited trade support for UK-outline HO I have tended to adopt an "all-inclusive" approach for my designs, having previously been caught out when a particular component is discontinued or difficult to obtain. If suitable parts are readily available in 4mm then I suppose that it would be possible to delete much of the underframe equipment so it is easier to fit them, although redesign would otherwise be restricted to resizing. As far as resin casting goes, I am not sure if the design would stand up to it, because of the thinness of some areas. Designing a kit from scratch might be more effective than converting an integral design.

A few ferry wagons in HO - variations of the Ferry High, plus the Ferry Tube. All are printed in FUD as an integral unit because of the various brackets that connect solebar to body. This in turn means that inside bearings have to be used as the axleguards would probably break when bending them out to fit pinpoint axles. All were produced under the Print It Anyway scheme as minimum wall thickness etc is violated in several places. Bearing / brake shoe assemblies and RIV buffers are attached in or underneath the wagon. RIV plain bearings and sheet rail (not operational as it would be too fragile) Roller bearings and sheet rail Roller bearings and no sheet rail Cut-down version Ferry Tube

I did use the 38mm KW bogie but as it was supplied with 9mm wheels I swapped them for 14mm.

The internal width is about 28.5mm, tapering to 26mm at the ends. I have installed KW bogies myself and they will fit (after trimming each end), but one needs to open out an aperture right out to the brackets projecting down from the chassis at the bogie centres. The brass tube attached to the chassis is listed as 2.38mm across. To allow sharper curves to be negotiated the projecting bogie brackets were removed from the chassis and fitted to the bogies themselves. The moulded cab interior partitions support the body at the correct height so I retained these but with cutouts to accommodate the mechanism.

​Hiya Here are some of my 3D-printed items over the past few years (mostly in 3.5mm scale) : I have designed and had printed various Portsmouth units – 4Cor, 4Buf and 4Res. My cunning plan to use Prime Gray for the motorcoach bodies and FUD for the window frames went awry because I had not allowed sufficient clearance, hence the window apertures had to be opened out in order to fit the frames without them distorting. The trailer cars (other than the Buf buffet car) were done in FUD, which gave less trouble but considerably more expense. The underframes are generally WSF braced with brass tube and furnished with Tenshodo motor bogies and Fleischmann trailers. Jumper cables and roof details are from Dart Castings or the scrapbox. A 2Hal is similar in composition but fortunately didn’t require separate window frames. The Fleischmann trailer bogies were so costly that I designed my own. Years ago, I decided to attempt a Class 86. I cynically used Prime Gray for the body, mainly because the stepped finish on the roof dome would require considerable filling and sanding which would in turn correct the badly-represented roof shape which doesn’t look right from certain angles. Unfortunately, the design also seems prone to developing a bend during printing, which then requires further correction. The underframe and bogies were originally FUD but since other FUD items have deformed under load I use WSF for chassis now. For bogies I usually use an internal – inside bearing – WSF stretcher with a cosmetic FUD sideframe. But in the case of the Class 86, the bogie frame is WSF and clips to the Tenshodo bogie. I also designed the Floyd Rail variant but lost interest in it and converted the print to a conventional 86 using parts from a failed print. All will be 86/4 since having spent my formative years on the Southern, a train looks incomplete without a mass of jumper cables on its front. Having acquired some scratchbuilt LMS coaches (Reidpath?) on Ebay, something would be required to haul them. Without building a steam engine, there was only one credible option – the Ivatt diesels, 10000 and 10001. After several false starts, reasonably representative bodyshells were designed for FUD and married to WSF chassis and bogie frames. I couldn’t find a motor bogie that would allow an A-1-A-A-1-A configuration so ended up rebuilding some BEC / KW Trams bogies (by remounting the motor on edge to allow for larger wheels) to give a 1-B-B-1 arrangement. On tests this seems to work and negotiate required curves. I have also attempted a wagon – the Open AB. One example uses a WSF underframe with a High Definition Acrylate body. After I removed the internal tiebars intended to maintain shape during printing, the body developed a camber in the floor which consequently rotated the sides outwards, a defect that necessitated cutting away of the floor. So that wagon will have to run with a load to hide the damage. Another, all-FUD example does not seem to have suffered from the same problem. Buffers in both cases are WSF for strength. In order to convert Lima Mk.2 coaches to air-conditioned types, some substitute window strips were printed in White Detail plastic, but the doors were not altered (to include the distinctive grilles whose absence is fortunately disguised somewhat by the livery) and I have not designed underframe equipment (yet). New B4 bogies are in WSF.