RBTKraisee

Still early days, but this is the first time I've gotten the whole RTS on the rails. Wanted to share it with everyone. Sharp eyed amongst you will notice the 3rd coach body on the 1st coach interior/underframe and visa-versa. I moved the curtains on the 1st to the interior part instead of as part of the coach body, so I had to put the coach bodies this way around or I'd have two sets of curtains interfering with one another But you'll still get the jist. This shows the Dundas 7.2mm wheels on all bogies. My N-Brass order just arrived (photo's later) with more 7.2mm wheels and a set of 6.2mm ones for me to test, but I'm happy with these. The N brass order included brass bearings for the wheels, but I'm really not so sure I need them. After a few minutes of manually rolling these to bed them in, they all seem to spin quite freely. Great news is that this arrangement happily handles these 18 inch radius Peco Code 55 points and 21 inch Atlas C55 curves with no problems at all. I still need to setup a 9 inch radius left-right switchback to make sure everything really does work as intended, but I'm happy so far. Awaiting delivery of some grey and black resins for the printer, because I want to print the parts in something non-translucent. When the lighting kit arrives, I only want light emitting from the windows after all! I ultimately went with the yellow light DCC-controlled ESU lighting kit, sourced through Paul Foulds at CRSignals.com. I chose these because they were available immediately, are from a manufacturer who are not likely to run out of stocks any time soon and they are designed so they can be cut down to fit inside even the very short Kitchen car (just 81mm internal length). Together with their optional capacitors for flicker-free use and a set of 1.5mm pickup springs from DCC Concepts for getting the power from the wheels, this arrangement should see me good for lighting things up properly! The Dapol couplers are still on their way, so some design changes are awaiting those, but I think its safe enough to say that I'm definitely closing-in on completion of this project soon! Ross.

Yes Phil, I did, thanks! For those who don't know, Phil is Chairman of Railway Vehicle Preservations Ltd (RVP), based at the Rothley Carriage Works. In response to another post on the forum he very kindly sent me the two videos below that show the Travelling Post Office (TPO) in action on the Great Central Railway in Leicestershire! Deb and I have already put that on our "must see" list for the next time we're over in the UK - maybe late summer next year. We'll time it for one of their gala events and enjoy the ride! Whenever we do come over next, I also want to see the Gresley Quad-Art set that has been restored and is operating on the North Norfolk Railway that you told me existed - I hadn't realized any of these dual-bogie sets actually made it into preservation, so I'm delighted that I will still get the chance to see one working Here are the two vids of the TPO for others to enjoy too! Cheers, Ross.

When you build rockets and satellites for your day job, something like this is small scale. I'll get me coat... Ross.

It has been too long since I last posted here, but between a lot of overtime and a computer crash, progress has been delayed. None-the-less I finally have a new update to share! The designs for the Gresley Kitchen Car and its underframe are now complete! Woo hoo! I've also tried to replicate a simplified version of the common bearing over the shared bogies. This is a prototype design that I want to see how it actually comes out when printed, before refining it any further. I'm printing a full set of all three underframes over night so I will hopefully have more pictures to share quite soon. Another tweak done recently was to the bogies, to accommodate the prototypical Dundas 7.2mm wheelsets that came earlier, and I think the results are working really well now. And on another subject, I think I now know exactly where my big office layout is going to go. Let's just say that at 28m in length and 15m at its widest, an N-scale prototypical replica of Doncaster yards in their entirety, is really going to be something to behold! Ross.

Happily skipping down this rabbit hole... Andrew Probert told me he designed Ent-D to be 2,108ft long (643m). Divide that by 148 and I get 4.34m for N. Damn, I did mean T, not TT. Thought it was 1:400. But in 1:450 (correct) it would be 1.43m. PS - *LOVE* that paint effect. manna, a few years back there was actually a plan to build a full scale 290m long ToS Enterprise on the Las Vegas Strip, as a casino. It hasn't come together so far, but did attract quite a bit of attention at the time. Ross.

Steve, what is your criteria for choosing to model the handrails and buffers with brass parts instead of trying to integrate them directly into the 3D print? Ross.

Okay, I'll add it back into my list of projects. Don't expect to see any progress soon though, I have to finish up my Gresley Restaurant Triplet Set and King's Cross models first. Also that Enterprise-D was going to be 8ft long, so I should probably re-scale it a little bit In N gauge it would be close to 4.5m long, even in TT it would be 1.6m. 1/10th of TT might be realistic Ross.

Thanks Mick! What Lisa suggests has become part of my SOP, so it's good to see that I'm now doing things the right way! One extra step I do, is after disconnecting a bottle, I immediately blow any internal excess away as Lisa describes, but then I've always got a sheet of kitchen tissue paper dampened with some cleaner (Medea Airbrush Cleaner or Lacquer Thinner for Acrylics, Mineral/White Spirits for oil based) and twist a corner up to make a thin insert like a pipecleaner (you could use those, but tissue is a lot cheaper and has four clean corners on every sheet!) and I manually clean the bottle insert hole under the airbrush before attaching the bottle of cleaner that I will blow through the airbrush as Lisa describes. The extra cleaning step ensures no paint can get on the cleaner bottle nozzle, and avoids any possibility of potential back-flow of paint into the cleaner bottle itself. I can do a colour changeover in about one minute, maybe two if it's a particularly messy paint - and for some reason some are definitely more prone to mess! That Blue Angel Blue Testors Model Master paint that I started off testing at the head of this thread (and my whole venture into airbrushing) always caused far more of a clean up operation than anything else I've tried so far! LOL If you get a chance, please do thank Lisa on my behalf, for her advice. And I hope her furlough wasn't too much of a problem for her and that she's settling smoothly back into the swing of things. Ross.

Looking for A1 condition, ideally new but will consider like-new if it has low mileage and was properly run-in & maintained. I want at least both of the Bookends - power car and dummy. I'd like the coaches too, but will consider all options. Ultimately I will be making a full 10 car rake from this, so if you have additional coaches you wish to sell, please let me know. Shipping will be to Florida. Cheers, Ross.

I'd like one of the following box numbers: 374-061 374-061A 374-061B 374-061C (Weathered) Looking for A1 condition, ideally new but will consider like-new if it has been treated well. Shipping will be to Florida. Cheers, Ross.

I'd like one of the following box numbers: 374-187A 374-187B 374-187C (Weathered) Looking for A1 condition, ideally new but will consider like-new if it has been treated well. Shipping will be to Florida. Cheers, Ross.

Looking for A1 condition, ideally new but will consider like-new if it has low mileage and was properly run-in & maintained. With or without teak coaches from set. Shipping will be to Florida. Cheers, Ross.

Thanks Half-full. I got the same info from Brian Hallett at Railway Vehicle Preservations (73c on here suggested I make contact - cheers). Brian told me that the coach numbers were collected in a policemans notebook that is preserved in the Thames Valley Police Museum. He went on to mention that M30272M - Sorting (POS) is now preserved at the Nene Valley Railway and that he himself "...was part of the team that setup the group to restore M30272M many years ago, although I am no longer involved. We had a chap by the name of Bill Williams who was able to gain access to the Thames Valley archives, not normally accessible to the public, and he was able to do some extensive research into the robbery. This resulted in him writing a short booklet called "Hold up at Sears Crossing", produced by the NVR at a price of £6.95, which is now well out of print. The archive contained many interesting artefacts from the gang's Monopoly board, the policeman's note book (as mentioned) and hand bills from the train itself dated 8th August 1963". He gave me permission to pass all this info along to the forum here. As for the subject being a bit morbid, yes, that's true, but the fact remains that it is still one of the more significant events in history involving the British railway system. I'm building this in Florida so there's hardly any chance of any family members of the victims ever seeing it, but I think I'll spend some more time making sure to make the overall display send the right message of respect for the victims and paying tribute to them and all those who helped capture the criminals. If I can get that tone correct, I think it will make for a good model. Ross.

Yeah, a bit of an oddity to model, but I think it would make for an interesting, and fairly unique diorama. Need a tiny Phil Collins model... ;) Passenger coaches? I hadn't seen any mention of passengers being involved, or even inconvenienced, by the robbery. I know the thieves drove the train a few miles down the track after they hijacked it, but I'm sure such weird behaviour would have had a few passengers peering out the windows and seeing things going down. If there were passenger coaches on this train might they have been out of service, being relocated from Glasgow down to London for the following day's activities? And thanks for the livery info! Ross.

I'd like to put a rake together to model the 1963 Great Train Robbery. To start, I can get a Farish Class 40 with the split head code and repaint that to match D326. But I'm not sure what types - and numbers - of coaches featured on that particularly historic Travelling Post Office rake and haven't been able to find any specific references. As for modelling options, I know Farish used to have a 3-car Travelling Post Office set of NSX, NEX & NJX coaches, so I'm looking for one of those to get things started, but I'd guess I need more than just those three. A 2013 post on another forum suggested a BG and a few GUV coaches might be appropriate, some follow-ups suggest BG's either end and no GUV's. But nobody there was modelling this particular train, so I just don't know And before I forget - what would the livery have looked like in 1963? I'd appreciate any advice I might glean from those who know much more about these things than I do! Thanks, Ross.

Three body shells finally make the whole Restaurant Triplet Set! Forgive the bleed-through of the white primer through the Pumpkin base on the 1st coach (right) - I was a little too eager and didn't wait long enough for the primer to dry fully. It won't hurt anything, but you can see a few little white patches that I'll touch-up manually a little later Enjoy. Hmmm. Really should clean my keyboard more frequently... Ross.

The print of the Kitchen Car body came out great! Its in clear material so doesn't show well in the photo here, so I'll prime it later and take another shot, but for now I can say that all the details came out beautifully crisp and clear. I'm a very happy bunny :) Ross.

Finished designing the Kitchen Car body. Am attempting a print over night and if all goes well, I should have some pictures to share tomorrow. I think I'll be able to have a go at the Underframe tomorrow and then we shall finally see how the whole triplet looks! Ross.

Busy week at work which has prevented me from doing much, but here's an update. First, the Gresley's: The 7mm Dundas Models wheels arrived today! Yay! They look great - perfect scale wheels - but there is a fitment issue, as I suspected there might be. They're clipping the underframe when they turn about half way to what would be needed for 1st radius turns I haven't measured exactly, but as it stands I don't think they would be able to go around anything less than 18" radius! Additionally I would need to make the bogies about 1mm wider to fit the axle properly. So that isn't going to work. Drat, because the Dundas wheels are really nice! I'll have to find another project to use them on I have some 6.2mm wheels coming from NBrass (along with a pile of other great bits!) but with post the way it is, I expect it will still be another 2-3 weeks before they arrive. I've also got some Dapol couplers coming from DCC Supplies too, so I'll be able to try integrating them into the design. Also on the Gresley front, I'm making continual progress on the Kitchen Car: And I received another pack of electrical stuff from Amazon today, including connectors for my layout's power distribution, a Male<>Female 25-pin connector pairing that will allow the layout to be split into two quickly and easily, a variable DC power supply unit that will allow me to vary the voltage between 3.3v to 24v and two sets of LED's. The first set are 100x miniature white light LED's for lighting coaches, inserting into the lights along my King's Cross layout and for a variety of signals that I'm going to design one day. The second set are just cool - they're orange/yellow "flickering" LED's. I have an idea that I'd like to actually show the firebox glowing in some of my loco's I really need to get my soldering iron out soon! Oh, and my soon-to-be "red" Hall, together with an A4 Mallard, are also finally on the way!! And I decided to pick up a cheap Dapol Gresley LNER 3rd, just to see how they did them. I don't actually expect it to be used, but it will be a useful reference to see how their teak panels look. That's all there is so far. Hopefully work won't need quite so many overtime hours over the coming weeks! Ross.

LOL Steve! Nice Enterprise model. I started designing something similar back in 2013 for someone else. The project ended before I got it finished, but I did make some nice progress I should finish it one day and 3D print it! Ross.

Hilux, that is pretty cool! I actually need an N gauge version and came across this 1:800 scale model of Hogwarts by Joshua Neil Arthur that can be 3D printed. Its a beautiful rendition in that scale, but when scaled up to 1:148 it loses a lot of detail There is no brickwork, which is something I really want to include, which has left me starting to design my own! LOL Joshua used drawings and pictures of the "real" 1:16 scale model that was used in all the films, currently at the Warner Bros Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesdon (you gotta go see it if you haven't already!) for reference, so I suspect his dimensions are fairly close to authentic (prototypical?? ). Using the same landscape as the 1:800 model, rescaled to 1:148, this one is REALLY BIG. It has a footprint 2.38 x 2.42m and stands 1.23m tall, including towering cliffs rising from the waterline (it does depict the boathouse and stairs). I had intended to come over to Blighty and make a point to visit Leavesdon this autumn, hopefully organising some access to the behind-the-scenes drawings with the organisers there too, but as my better half is in a high risk category for Covid19, all those plans are presently on hold until we see what happens regarding second waves. Progress on my Hogwarts model is real slow (not to mention that my poor laptop running SolidWorks can hardly cope with it - for example, I started opening the model to get the measurements when I began writing this reply and some 20 minutes later it still hasn't opened, as I complete writing this missive!) as I want to get the Triplet and King's Cross station models completed first, and then I want to get my home layout finally up and operating! But my personal goal is to have a finished 1:148 scale Hogwarts within the next ~18 months, and I will show progress. When the time comes, would anyone prefer I break the Harry Potter stuff out into its own separate thread? Ross.

Needed a little down-time this weekend, with my better half, so not a great deal of progress was made since my last post. Mick, thanks for the info about MJT, based on that I just decided to integrate the curtains directly into the existing 3D print of the coach body for the 1st class restaurant car only and below is the result. I guessed right first time, and there is a perfect amount of space between the curtains and the body to insert the panes of glass! I've primed and painted the pumpkin base coat here already because it shows up the details a bit better than the clear resin I'm currently using. Eagle eyed among you might also notice that I've added a knob to the gangway door and a pair of lamp holder brackets too. I don't think there's anything else to do to this now, so the two end coach bodies are 'finished' as far as I'm concerned. Below that is the adjusted design for the interior/underframe combined module. I had to cut off some of the seat sides to make room for the curtains to fit, but the curtains would have hidden them anyway, so nothing is lost. I'm trying an alternative screw fitment in this set, and I'm still not quite happy with the results so will be experimenting some more to get that perfect later this week. And I will get that kitchen car under way too! That's it for now, Ciao! Ross.

A question for y'all... What do you think would be a good approach for doing the curtains in the restaurant cars, like in Steve Banks' image below? The obvious approach would be to just 3D print them as solid plastic pieces that just look right once painted, probably directly integrated into the coach body/window frame, but inserting the window panes becomes a bit of an issue if I do that, so I wonder if there might not be a better option out there. Ideas anyone? Ross.

Fixed the bowing in the underframes by warming up the plastic with a hair dryer, allowed them to get warm (careful to avoid them getting too hot), then stretched them like a bridge, across the gap made between a pair of books, placed a weight over the middle (being careful not to damage any of the detail work) and made it gently bow the opposite way, just a little, until they cooled completely. Twenty minutes later they were still very slightly bowed the opposite way, but over night they seem to have settled into a very straight orientation. Worked like a charm! Anyhow, got a few deliveries of new toys to play with! My new Zimo MX622F DCC decoder arrived from Streamlined Backshop in Indianapolis. I particularly like the fact that Zimo put the PCB inside what appears to be a small silicone sleeve for protection. This will go into my Dapol Hall when I eventually get around to ordering it! And yes, that's the one that will be getting a nice shiny new red coat of paint! Also on the DCC front I received my Tam Valley Octopus III and Octocoder DCC daughter board too. Looks like this weekend will be spent with my soldering iron and programming my Arduino! And I'll need to design and print another one of those DCC++ boxes for this too. Ross.

Couldn't resist putting the first two coaches together for the first time This is final coach bodies for the 1st and 3rd class restaurant cars (left to right), the final interiors are in, the underframes look good with only minor refinements needed and the bogies are great. Still waiting for my 7mm wheels to arrive to really get to test it out The underframe is bowing quite a bit on the 3rd class coach (right), so you'll note the roof alignment is rather skew-whiff right now, but this is a sign of things to come and I'm actually really happy with progress so far. And yes, you can see I'm clearly still experimenting with the painting techniques Ross.