GWR57xx

First batch of eight windows (outer frames yet to be added, just waiting for the glue to fully set): These panels are kept pressed between two sheets of glass and weighted to make sure they stay flat while the glue sets.

Progress is being made, honest! Slow I admit, but some progress is better than none? First up is doors: These are the eight doors for the front and back entrances, in primer. And partially painted: I got off to a bad start, as you can see bottom left. After masking across the middle(ish) I carelessly painted the top of the door in "Tint #4" rather than the bottom so had to get the IPA out and start again. I was more careful after that! Next is the internal front & back walls: These have been painted white and sealed with matt varnish, now waiting for mortar and then the bottom five feet (up to the window sills) to be painted black. External front & back walls: These have been painted, now waiting to be sealed then mortar added. Lastly for this update, Windows. I'm making each window up from four pieces of white card plus the glazing. That's glazing bars each side plus outer frame each side. To help get these accurately aligned I printed a little jig (the glazing piece is a little oversize, needs trimming): Then to align this window panel on the wall panels I made another jig: The window panel drops into the central cutout then the wall panels fit into the end guides: I will have a lot of these wall panels to make, so these jigs should make construction a lot easier. TTFN

Doors redone as described in the book (I think). These need a bit of touching up yet - my painting ability is a bit rubbish!

Hope there were no injuries among the Basel passengers 🙂 Nice trains.

I print a lot of stuff flat on the build plate without problems. Depending on your bottom layer exposure time you might get a bit of “elephants foot” but probably not a problem for track bases.

Before you ditch the set track points you might consider cutting back some of the curved turnout track to reduce the severity of the curve. This topic discusses some options: It depends on your track plan I guess as to whether it will work for you or not.

Sorry I don’t know the details because I don’t use it myself, but I believe there is an app that you can download onto a smart phone and/or tablet that allows you to use that as a controller. A few searches in the DCC section of RMWeb would probably turn up the details.

Steam, diesel or electric? Which region?

It’s certainly a vast improvement over the original, and is now a very presentable model. A worthy nominee for the Percy V Rance award for dogged determination in the face of adversity. Surely worth completing now you’ve got so close? Go on, you know you want to!

Didn’t anyone get a photo of the two 50’s? I was there for ages but must have left before they arrived - shucks! 🙂

Very good painting. Building’s not too shabby either. 🙂 Have you commissioned your wife to do a backscene?

I also now use Elegoo ABS-like v2 grey, exclusively for now. I don’t see any reason to change at the moment. It gives me very good results. When I was having problems finding satisfactory settings another RMWebber (sorry, can’t remember who) suggested trying a much longer time than I had previously used (and twice the supposed recommended time). I’ve printed dozens of different exposure test pieces at different settings, and am now happy with the ones I use. The test piece I prefer is the 3DRS Starship. It has very useful sections such as the filament columns and holes on the wings, the letters at the front and the barrels supported on thin poles and the arches over them. There are also many tiny, almost invisible, features which if they all print out shows you’re pretty close to the right settings. It’s also a bit of fun. I also use UVTools to set a pause after descent, which I think helps. I use 5s normal exposure and 10s for the bottom layers. I have fairly slow lift and retract speeds at 60mm/s normal and 30mm/s bottom. These might give me longer print times, but I think that’s a worthwhile trade for not having loads of failures. Good luck! edit: should have said, this is on a Mars 3 Pro.

Do you think you’ll be able to get transfers to adhere ok? The sides look a little heavily ribbed.

Have you checked that your sand pipes clear the rollers on whichever rolling road you use? I’ve had the situation where the sand pipes were causing a short when on the rolling road.

Have a look at Andy Peters’ @Andrew P Seven Mills Sidings layout for an example of what will fit in 12’ in O. This layout has now been resurrected as Hirst Sidings having changed hands a couple of times. Depends what you want. This layout has lots of potential for interesting shunting / loco movements. You won’t get a roundy roundy in your space but you can get a very good shunting or shed layout in. There are plenty of other good examples on RMWeb, just have a search.

Nice to see this layout again, and still looking so good.

Railtec? https://www.railtec-models.com/showitem.php?id=4362

Lovely photo, very evocative & full of atmosphere.

Ever get that feeling that you’re being watched?

What Lez said! You can’t have too many pits. I’d be tempted to leave the workshop / small shed where it was before, on the leftmost exit of the turntable (of the four in the photo above) simply because of the clearance to the adjacent roads. It looks a bit tight on the rightmost exit?

Looking good Bob! The additional pits also sound good. You could maybe also have one on the turntable exit road that runs into the small shed/workshop?

I’d go for middle, I.e. centred on the coal loading flap, but if possible make it slightly longer (say 4 or 5 segments rather than the 3 shown?), that way (as @Tortuga says) it doesn’t matter which way the engines are facing they will still be over the pit. In practice engines would turn up in either direction depending where they’re coming from or going to.

Looking forward to seeing progress on both these layouts. What’s the plan for the new bay platform line? Does it lead off to some sort of industry or a branch line? Or is it double track coming into the station from Croftview?

I haven't been able to make any progress on painting & varnishing anything because of the rain. In the meantime I've been cracking on with bits of the shed. I've been wondering what to do with the hole in the gable walls front & back: Looking through all the photos I can find, it's hard to determine what (if anything) is in most of them because they just appear as black holes. Those that can be seen appear to have either nothing, a glazing panel or a vent of some sort. I think a vent is the most likely (at least when newly built - they probably rotted out by BR days). I tried a laser-cut version, which is a bit flat (obviously 2D): Next I tried a 3D printed version: It's not clear from the photo, but in person you can tell that the slats are sloping. Any of the three options would probably be OK, but I think I'll stick with the 3D version (painted black).

I think the inspection pits out front will be a great enhancement. You could perhaps add doors and the posts to hold them open?