David Rickard

Took a trip to Railex today with The Boy; he's only two, and so it was his first outing at a model rail show. My other half dropped us off in town and we caught the bus, which he really enjoyed. Getting tickets on the bus was a really nice idea, and I was quite pleased with the souvenir nature of the ticket - nice and big and something to look at. The Boy was quite pleased hanging on to it for me. The team on the bus were very helpful with the pram I had to bring along too, and were waiting on the roadside with it when we disembarked. Plenty of lovely high quality layouts, and it was refreshing seeing them through my son's eyes, as he was picking up on random things I didn't see, such as the loco up on a crane on New Kensal Green having its wheels removed (I was more interested in the smoke effects). He was also fascinated with Crowsnest Wharf, even though nothing happened for a few moments (bearing in mind, just 10 seconds is an eternity for a two year old when you're trying to hold their attention). Wickwar was also a standout as one of the layout operators was out the front with a tablet asking people to press buttons to make things happen. A great idea as it does help engage the kids so much more. We picked up a few bargains too, so all in a pretty good day. Unfortunately for us, we left just as the bus crew were going on lunch, so we had a walk back into town, but I needed the exercise, so I didn't mind. ;) Oh, and sorry for being 'that' person with the push-chair, but needs must! People were generally very accommodating and the stadium has ample space between the layouts anyway, not like the days of yore at the Civic where things were a bit more 'compressed'! Looking forward to the next one!

Modern anything! Houses, offices, industrial units, whatever. Houses would be on my own selfish wishlist. Most UK outline building manufacturers seem to prefer older-style housing and buildings in general. Then again, modern designs are pretty simple, so fairly easy to scratchbuild. Something akin to the 1960s style council housing, or similar. So in theory, simple for John to make into a super-duper Scalescenes model for us all to buy

Not even stripy paint?! Then again I don't suppose Chiltern's livery calls for it I remember being scared to death of doing work experience (oddly, very near to the Aylesbury Depot down the back of Morrisons at a little computer shop). Ended up getting a job out of it! A truly enlightening experience, and I remember going back to school thinking 'I'd rather be working!'. I never got sent to pick up oddball items, but some other young chap we later had did. I recall him going to the local hardware shop to collect 'a hard screw, and a long weight'. He took a note (on our headed paper no less) with what he wanted on - presented it to one of the chaps in the shop, who actually played along, so said chap was told to stand patiently in the corner of the shop for a while, and was then sent back being told 'the order will be sent later on'. He came back and told us this in all seriousness... Nice to read these little updates. Nice to know what goes on down there! Glad you enjoyed it so much

This is a great blog. Fascinating stuff

Today, I took my plan of action a step further. I exported a hi-res image from Xara, and plopped that onto a banner page in Publisher, suitably sized to match my baseboard size. That was printed out onto A4 sheets, which were then duly trimmed, and taped together into one big sheet. Finally, said sheet was pinned to the board. Various locos and rolling stock were then placed onto the sections of track, to see how things fit, how sizes are, etc. I printed it on the laser printer, as there's a LOT of green on the plan, and printing out that much colour would be a bit silly I felt. Having done that, the first thing that struck me was how viable it looks. It helped so much to visualise the layout, how things will fit, etc. I like how 'big' it feels. I can fit full-length passenger trains on it, without them looking like they're too squeezed in. The locos sit in the sidings and the depot roads with lots of space in front and behind of them. In previous plans I had pretty short headshunts and sidings, which left a somewhat cramped feel. There's a nice run for trains to pick up speed and slow down coming in and out. Plus the depot is connected to the main tracks, but nicely isolated, so I can have things happening there without 'fouling the main'. The station/depot combo is losely based on the Aylesbury arrangement, albeit a bit jumbled up. A couple of things have jumped out at me though. The bridge is wide enough for vehicles, but not pedestrians! I considered just making it wider, but a better remedy is to run a footbridge alongside it. There's a road bridge/foot bridge combo like that round here. It also occurs to me that having one either side of the split, will hide it quite nicely! I've seen many wonderful layouts with massive fault-lines down the middle. That's an idea, maybe the join could be a land-slide... The island platform may be too narrow. Or is it? Answers on a postcard! I'm a little worried that the depot buildings might not fit too well. Kitbashing may be required. Having studied satellite photos, I'm going to need a LOT of trees. I still want to put something in the expanse of green near the fuelling stage. Still not sure what. I think I'll keep my eye out for something interesting. I'd originally envisaged the row of houses at the back on top of the embankment with their backs to the track. However, it occurred there's a row of houses round here facing the railway. They have small front gardens, then a footpath, a small fence, then the railway line. Something like that would work very nicely. I'm really quite keen on this plan though. It's shaping up nicely.

Oh? What the real station, or is there a layout called that?

Thanks Yes, it is free. http://www.xtrkcad.org/Wikka/HomePage Bit of a swine to use at times mind. Worth persevering with though (it's free, after all!!!).

My first layout, having returned to railway modelling, turned into a disaster. It was spiralling out of control, was too complex, fiddly, and quite frankly, no fun to work on. I ripped it all up, and decided to start again. After much deliberation, fiddling around in XTrkCad4, and browsing magazines and things, I've finally come up with a plan. I present - 'untitled II'. Location: Somewhere around the Chilterns. Ish. Era: Modern, post-privatisation. Scene Modelled: A small TMD carrying out work on anything I feel like, along with a small commuter station. The whole base board consists of two 700x300mm boards. The split exists to the left of the bridge in the middle. The boards are already built, and are free-standing. The idea behind building the boards before doing anything else was to stop me going mad with the design. The boards I built were of a much better construct than my first attempt, which was pretty rubbish. I found some screws didn't even make contact with the second bit of wood they were meant to be going into! On this design, we have two tracks entering on the left. These converge onto the two lines entering the station. One ends in a bay platform, the other on a through platform. Said lines also go toward a headshunt, with a fuelling facility sitting in it. After entering the headshunt, a train and make its way down to the four roads of the TMD. There's some Pikestuff buildings I like the look of, which should fit the part. Offscene on the left, I will have a cassette storage system, or at least a couple of bits of track on a plank which can be used to change trains. It won't be a full-scale fiddle yard, not until I have more storage room! The right hand side will lead nowhere for now. In future it could be extended, or may never go anywhere! I'm leaning towards the notion of no side scenic breaks (i.e. bridges). I'll probably have a back-scene though. I'm probably not going to use low-relief buildings as to me, they look like a building cut in half! The bridge in the middle will serve to hide the baseboard join. It will join up with the houses at the back, which are on an embankment, the same level as the road. On the other parts of the bridge, it will drop down to baseboard level. The office building will be some sort of non-descript modern building type. Similarly, the bus depot down front could be an interesting feature, as I can plonk various random buses and things in the yard in front of it. The empty green space on the bottom right may end up with something in it. So far, I'm not overly sure what! I'm going to try and have a bash at working out where the signals should sit. I'm much more pleased with this plan though. It's an actual plan!

I read this article today: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/04/science_explains_why_you_alway.php It's in a similar vein. I know people who swear by Costco; I recently signed up and took my sister and mother along. All the way round they were clucking at the prices going 'that's cheaper in Tesco' or 'That's cheaper in Morrisons'. It was quite funny seeing the look on a few people's faces who overheard - a kind of 'WHAT? Are we being lied to?!' sort of look. Granted, there IS some good stuff there (TVs are a cracking deal), and we found some great stuff. But the basics people were piling their trolleys up with (bog roll, for example) was basically the same price as elsewhere. Because people are told it's cheap, they go and buy it, and probably never bothered to check otherwise. eBay is the same. eBay is where you go to get cheap stuff. Ergo EVERYTHING on eBay is cheaper than elsewhere. Because eBay is all cheap stuff. Only, as we know, that's not the case. I found myself frantically digging around on there for cheap flash memory, only to find it cheaper on 7dayshop later on. I've fallen into the same thing a few times, but usually twigged before hitting 'Buy it now'.

I found this purely by accident today: http://objects.reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page Build your own 3D printer for about ?‚¬350!

I've often wondered how much it would cost to build a model from scratch, suitable for mass production. I suppose you're looking about five figures before you've even turned any moulds out.

I believe one way 3d moulds are used is the 3d print is used to make a negative mould, which then makes a positive part, which is then cleaned up and used. I have a feeling some go through two or three positive/negative stages before the final thing is produced! Then again, that's probably mainly if you were to be producing a final mould for injection moulding thousands of them.

Ah Blender. I've not used that in a while! I might have to play again. Thanks

I'm very intrigued by this. What CAD software did you use by the way?