JimFin

Using the links from the Swiss Railway Society you could find this page and have a look at some of the offerings, http://homepage.swissonline.ch/unholz/page3/shops.html Specifically for your crossing signs - http://www.mbapiro.ch/produkte_detail.php?grp_id=6&content_id=21&produkt_id=10172 Pirovino are excellent if your budget allows. The Lautenwerk (bells) as far as I am aware are only made by Bemo and can be picked up on e-bay from time to time. A terrific way to see detail is to use the Google street view of the Abula line as they had a camera car on the front of the train and you can really see a lot that way. For example, a lot of the rustic fence has rather fallen into disrepair and is largely being replaced with post and electrified wire which could easily be modelled with wire and thread - as can be seen here - https://www.google.com/maps/@46.6786309,9.6672946,2a,15y,58.79h,87.72t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLPBsnXlU3eH17yYIGOp9Uw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 If you just keep clicking forward, you can enjoy a nice slow speed run! All the best with your layout

Love to - but its just too far South for me. Hope it goes well for you and hope you will keep us all up to date with developments regarding the standards.

The chalet I posted above cost me about £10 in material and 80p in electricity.

Readily available commercial alternative. https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/desks/table-tops-legs/olov-leg-adjustable-white-art-10264302/

Just a suggestion, I model Continental outline and have done a few buildings in different prototype finishes and have found that to print the window frames, doors (and shutters) as a separate job makes finishing the final model a little easier. I would imagine you are thinking of some wash coats on the stone and being able to finish the walls without the complication of windows/doors etc does make life easier. This is the sort of thing I mean When added to the building - By using light wood texture PLA I have only had to do a light wash on the shutters and the balcony and balustrades are "raw" dark wood PLA. I do like the dairy/creamery, the stone texture is very effective - what temperatures do you use for ABS, I have never been able to get a large print in ABS without warping and/or detaching from the bed?

I forgot about that! See more here - https://www.rtvoost.nl/nieuws/310693/Het-bouwen-van-een-modelspoorweg-dat-is-wat-Rene-Wolf-bezighoudt

Clearing stock, have a list of available items on their website - http://www.winco.uk.com/

This might be worth springing for as a starter - will confess an interest as I do have a layout in it https://peco-uk.com/products/your-guide-to-modelling-swiss-railways - just bear in mind stock can be quite expensive compared to mainstream UK as there are a limited number of quite small manufacturers serving the market.

As an alternative to printing have you investigated laser cutting what you require? https://www.lasermaster.co.uk/easy-order

I do offer my apologies if my actions have not been in the spirit you intended. Home printing a file like this in one piece is very inefficient for the home user as 1) it consumes a significant amount of internal support material which is wasted and then time consuming to remove. 2) A lot of external support material would be required to cope with the overhang of the roof which would spoil the side details. 3) the print time for the whole job at a reasonable resolution would be in the order of 24 hours (using an Ultimaker 2) the flat form "kit" is about 14 but in 4 separate jobs which is more easily manageable for the home hobbyist. As far as the STL files are concerned, I am surprised that it had not occurred to you that it could be imported to an appropriate CAD tool and edited just in the same way as you created it. The most useful feature of this for the hobbyist is the ability to re-scale the file to whatever scale required for their particular interest or modify to create variations. I think your then wishing to stick with Shapeways could constrain the development of this part of the hobby as is places Shapeways in something of a monopoly position and there are already many discussions regarding their pricing structures. A viable alternative, which directly rewards the intellectual effort of the designer are sites like CGTrader where commercial standard 3D models can be purchased and either printed at home by the hobbyist or taken/sent to one of the growing number of local and online print houses to produce for you. This approach in my view opens the market to a much wider usage while still rewarding the designer for their effort. I do thank you for opening up this discussion.

Many thanks for all the work you have done on this, it is an interesting project. To print at home I have split the model into components, sides, ends and roof to print each flat on the bed and assemble as a kit. Used Light Wood PLA which I will stain to a teak effect. The resolution of the roof vents is problematic and in removing these I found that the model has locating holes in the roof which did not quite align with the vents. Not sure if that is a consequence of my editing though. Below is the untouched side as it finished printing.

Can you give me a clue as to where on the page the button is - I just cannot find it!!!!!!!

How do you download from Shapeways? Could you put it on Thingiverse?

All the best with the show, be interested to hear how the wires go. Have some fine and thicker Sommerfeldt to play with but not at that stage yet.

What are you planning to use for catenary wires? I am still contemplating options, just wondered if you had decided.

667mm radius - or is that being pedantic, does 533 fit a proposed module size? https://structurae.net/structures/landwasser-viaduct

On the 2013 layout, only managed to position the plywood base for roads which had to include the road overbridge. It is based on a prototype where the original stone arch bridge has had a (crude and ugly) concrete width extension. I am not that pleased with the model - but its a fair reflection of the prototype! Could not resist adding the first photo spanning the 100 years! Theme is firmly - same but different. Apart from that - island platform has progressed well - plywood base fronted with 3d printed "concrete" panels and pretty well all the rest printed. Lighting is using LED adhesive strips with opaque sections to represent fluorescent fittings. Still a work in progress, not sure I am happy with the platform texture - will add some weathering and see if that improves it or it might be +++redo+++

Not been able to do a lot on this over the last few weeks, some family commitments and needed to spend some time on the 1913 layout, routine maintainence with some improvements - new lighting rig, swivel shelf for the laptop control and after some experiment, added ambient sound using a bluetooth speaker under the station building. Will see how that is received. The lighting and shelf now need to be stripped down and properly finished.

https://www.dccsupplies.com/item-p-102421/n-pickups-10-pack-dr-60010.htm

Very interesting, would be tempted to do a module or 2 at some point. Re your questions - here's my contribution - Not aware of any standards, I am a member of Bahnforum Schweiz and there is no mention of this concept on there. A 300 width would allow a bit more depth to the module but could you use I would stick with 2 endplates, one profiled and one flat. You might consider allowing modules in pairs where the inner endplates of the pair are "freestyle" but the joining plates must be standard. I would go for 1143 height. One suggestion would be to use DCC for train control i.e. the track, but all points and accessory control e.g. signals and lighting should be self contained within each module. To that end and for some simplicity, adopt a 4 wire BUS standard - 2 X 16v AC and 2 X 12v DC from which feeds can be taken in each module. Operation needs to be decided potentially for each event depending on contributors preference. That's my penny worth......

You could try dry brushing or using a sponge with matt white to get a tonal difference - just skimming the surface and leaving the crevices dark. You can also achieve a lot with a wash rather than paint.

Seemed like a reasonable way to spend an otherwise grey and damp Thursday morning - The disposable mini brushes are great for this job.

Tracklaying and electrics. Continuing the saga - As this layout is DCC the basic wiring needs to be laid in with the tracklaying. My basic approach is to lay the track and wiring simultaneously making sure that it all runs perfectly before moving on - so lots of running of locos as I go and later, running trains with both bogie stock and short wheelbase as it's a lot easier to tune and adjust at this stage rather than later - does that sound like the voice of experience speaking? Track is all Peco HOm and I use rail connectors with soldered drop wires at all appropriate joins and if there is a rail section without a feed, solder drop wires direct to the underside of the rail at a convenient point. The points are all live frog so are insulated on both frog ends. I have not found it necessary to use the electrical feeds to the frogs with switching as the blades have proved to be reliable enough to pass the current without any great issue. An infrequent clean of the rail contact surfaces seems to be enough. I do wonder if this is because of the better conductivity of 16v AC rather than the 12v DC used when the design of live frogs was developed? Once all laid out, fixing starts from the fiddle yard and works out to the visible area. I mark and drill 8mm holes at the centre point of the tie bar for each point as it is fixed into place for the servo actuator. At each rail join, the board is drilled for the dropper wires. Track is laid in the visible area direct onto the baseboard with fine pins securing it and flexi track cut in situ with s Dremel type drill fitted with a diamond cutting disk, the disk is slightly larger diameter than the drill to allow vertical cuts and can also be used to smooth and adjust length. Temporary wiring is connected and extensively tested with different locos and stock, long and short wheelbase, to ensure smooth running as minor adjustment and tuning is much easier at this stage. Its at this point that I ballast the visible area. The way I go about this is to unpin the track completely and ease it up about 1 cm from the baseboard and slide “Tracklay” (https://www.tracklay.co.uk/ ) underlay under the track, sticky side up. Its cut to length as I go and worked round the dropper wires. No underlay at the tie bars. The track is then firmly pushed back down onto the baseboard and pinned where curves are strained and tested with locos again. Provided all is well, a bead of PVA adhesive is applied to each edge of the underlay and onto about 4mm of the baseboard. I use N gauge light grey ballast, is then liberally sprinkled over the prepared area and firmed down by running over with a foam paint roller. The excess can then be lifted off with a vacuum cleaner but saved for later use. I simply pull a fine woven cloth in a hose join which captures the ballast and can be emptied back into the tub. Ends up looking like this – Again, test and adjust for smooth running making sure no ballast is fouling wheels, points etc. Being satisfied that everything runs smoothly, I clear everything away and flip the layout on its side to complete the wiring, find it much easier on the back that way! I use domestic 2 core flex for the main power and 3 ESU Servo Pilot controllers for the points, each module runs 4 points and is programmable from push buttons on the unit. There is 1 ESU Switch Pilot which operates the 2 Led signals, 1 servo for the loco shed doors and 2 circuits for the LED lighting. On this layout I am using more lights than 1913 so am using a separate 12V supply for them but with the output from the Switch Pilot operating the low power side of a relay. Connections between boards uses 9pin connectors which are wired with tails on the workbench which then go onto connectors screwed to the underside of the baseboard. The fixed socket is attached to the side of the baseboard by a 3d printed bracket, in white. Once installed – and checked with a multi meter, everything is tidied up with spiral cable wrap and fastened to clips on the baseboard. At that point, flip it back upright and run trains test points etc to make sure everything behaves as intended. So – with track laid, ballasted and electrics working, I can move on to the scenic part of the job, unfortunately the first part of that is to paint the track another job I am not too keen on but you have to do it! Hope you find this description interesting, happy to answer questions and have your comments.

Similar vein but demonstrates their flexible approach - Driving car at the front, passenger coaches in the middle, loco at the end and Oh! stick on some post wagons after that.

Still regular, particularly with the post wagons. They are a 12 axle power unit rather than an EMU and are replacing conventional locos on passenger service, have a scan through this archive http://webcam.schmalspurbahn.ch/filisur/archiv/ and you will see plenty.