3D Printed Signals And More

As far as I can ascertain, the 'searchlight' type signals akin to the LMS Watford DC lines applied only from Upney eastwards. West from there, apart from semaphores in the Barking area, colour light signals as far as Campbell Road Junction, 'ordinary' main line signals were used (1920s if I recall correctly). The DC style signals from Upney eastwards were a slight variation to the Watford line apparently - I have only seen photos of them at Upminster and Dagenham East.

This link might help showing what was where in 1936 www.harsig.org/PDF/District_East_1936.pdf

Colour light most of the way (with some semaphores in the Barking area) but only Upney - Upminster for the DC line searchlight-type signals.

Exactly. A brand new section of railway opened around similar time as to the DC lines being resignalled.

Have you thought of mounting the LED under the baseboard and using glass fibres as light pipes up to the lenses? You may need a diffuser as the lens. 

<<Rincew1nd: duplicate post deleted>>

In a previous life I installed fibre optic cables for data networks and the actual fibres were a whole lot thinner than regular wires Simon. The ones I worked with most were 50 microns in diameter. Would they run up the tubes OK?

With the fibre optic solution how would the small dot of light be converted to a large enough circle that it fills the signal head? I have used fibre optics in the past (a few decades ago) as it was the only way to add white headlights to a train. In those days white LEDs had not been invented. 

The axial LED option also looks interesting, although I might need to improve my soldering skills.

I've found that a small circle of grey anti-static computer component bag looks promising as a way to mask the colour seen on a LED when it is not illuminated. This will help make a signal aspect look 'dark' - rather than see the LED plastic colour. Almost certainly a magnifying lens and tweezers will be needed when placing at the desired location.

Nigel (The Forth Rail) is an expat living in USA. He's normally good at responding if you message him.

Incidentally I think I was the first customer of the 2-road cable gantry. It was just over 50 quid at the time. Curiously I see it's curr £51.67 after Shapeways pricing had pushed it way up (£70?)

www.shapeways.com/product/9BUFDQRAN/lu-cable-gantry?optionId=59433665&li=shops

I’ve heard horror stories about hauliers adding extra costs to the order to cover border fees. I’ve been trying to order a D78 car and it’s being blocked due to border issues! Very frustrating!

out of interest, who (at Shapeways) sells D78 trains? The people who I have seen do not have these trains.

The Bluebell Railway sell 3D models of the Ashbury etc trains which they own and sometimes come to London - as far as I'm aware these carriages are not sold by Radleys.

www.shapeways.com/shops/bluebellmodelrailwayshop?li=pb

Its been a while since I updated this thread. Partly because progress has been slow. I never seem to have enough time!

Anyway, I still have not built the 'Mind the Gap' tube station - I was searching for some postal tubes which I knew I had in the loft. I will get around to this eventually, but am thinking of making it a recreated tube station located at a transport museum. (The 1825 station at Beamish was relocated to there, brick by brick, so the concept already exists 'in real life'). As no models of gate end stock exist I'll put in a couple of Radley Standard Stock tube train cars. I might modify them to have open doors and people inside. 

I've recently discovered Kingsway printed stations and buildings and am partway through building some of their designs. For platforms I chose the one based on a 1930s station platform. I very much did not want a Northern line south London style station platform as that has no emotional attachment for me.
 
2mm square section Evergreen / Plastruct plastic strips painted black can represent the tube style of power rails. I have the Peco power rail chairs.

I need to fit lights in the station and have found some 30 mm LED lights which could be used to mimic fluorescent lights. I'd like to have them hang down a little from the platform ceiling but it might be easier to not do this. Having looked at photos of real underground stations I've seen enough varieties to know that whatever I do will be prototypically correct for somewhere. I did experiment with fibre optics of a type designed to leak light along the fibre but the amount of light coming out was too little - its a shame as this would have been an easier - and cheaper - option.



This image shows part of a platform. I am hoping that one of the model railway suppliers will make for me the correct LU style of platform edge coping with tactile 'dots' (I have asked but await a reply). Then I can add the rest of the platform and get rid of the white cardboard edge seen here. I also need to add adverts, platform end signs, seats, passengers etc. If available I'll also add platform end barriers. I am unsure what to do about litter bins. 

The name Hitherton comes from something I bought in the late 1990s when the London Underground Railway Society (LURS) were given permission for members to have model railway station names printed using the correct LT logo. I had to choose a name... and that was all I could think of. That said, Kingsway agreed to use my choice of station name as seen here - but I intend to use some of the LURS signage on 'open air' platforms at this station. As Kingsway do not offer passageways with matching tiles I am looking at using a similarish colour card (full colour / not printed) and printing on it a fine grid. This station will be modern-era, with some heritage elements (eg: way out signs) similar to stations such as Highgate, Gants Hill, etc. For station building I chose Mile End (printed with my choice of name) as its sort of from the right era and does not look too big physically / will easily fit in a row of shops. I need modern ticket machines and if I cannot find them commercially will look to reduce something that I photographed down to a small enough image and then print it myself.



I'm building my two platform kits slightly differently to how they are meant to be built - I plan to make part of one platform a fully circular tube and even add the inside tube from a kitchen roll beyond the station so that it is possible to look through the station and see the approaching train illuminating the inside of the kitchen roll cardboard tube. For the other platform, wait and see! (cheat comment - Its only just arrived and I cannot build it whilst using a computer).

Just to test the concept I pushed an unbuilt kit by Radley of a Standard Stock tube car plus some track in to a kitchen roll cardboard tube. It looks like the cardboard tube will need cutting and widening at the base, but otherwise it will work. As an aside, the tube car kit is a delight, everything just fits together, even the bogie components. So it should be easy to make. When it comes to painting I will have a choice of three colour schemes - plain red, red with cream window frames or red, cream window frames and blue stripe. This third livery was used on trains that went to all the way to Watford Junction instead of just Elephant & Castle - Queens Park.

Sadly Dark Angels Green is no longer in production but there are alternatives.

See the link with the conversion chart.
www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/paint_range_compatibility_chart

Dark Angels Green isn’t a bad option for the ‘blue’ and I have been using it for years. I used to work for Games Workshop some 16 years ago so know the paints pretty well.

I would say that a tiny bit of blue added to the mix is about right although at 4mm scale it is debatable how much of a difference it makes on the internals of a vehicle.

More painting today ... I now have a black signal head and base; also discovered that I need silver paint for the metal pole (I'm using brass tubing and also painted it today using an etching primer designed for metalwork)

In one of the model railway magazines this month they have a feature about detailing the inside of BR Mk2 InterCity carriages and the person doing this stuck paper that had been printed the correct colours on the seats!

Undercoat painted Q38 DM and 1927ts trailer

The seating unit for the Q38 needs straightening, I am hoping that placing it in hot (not boiling) water will help here.

Ideally I would also like a Q or COP composite trailer. I'm waiting for LTM to finish their working Q stock train as I have no idea of the signage these carried (and the correct colours of the signs). Then the next hurdle will be getting this in OO scale format, as my artistic abilities do not extend to freehand sign writing. Maybe for this taking photos of the signs and printing OO scale size images of these on paper will work (unsure)   

Now that I have the paints I need I am hoping to find time soon (ideally tomorrow) to start painting the seating units - the insides of the body shells will have to wait until I've done the outsides and this cannot be done until I've been to Halfords to buy the paints for the outsides. With a bit of luck I will get to Halfords this coming week, as (because of the smell) I would like to do my spray painting outdoors and leave the painted models in a garden shed overnight to dry. Ideally this needs doing before the weather turns cold.




Station platform lighting fluorescent lighting under construction!

This is not quite to scale but once completed will look the part.

What you see here is square section hollow plastic tube with 15mm (approx) long brass tube sections (painted with black self etching undercoat) superglued on one side. Plus a temporary use of unpainted circular brass tube which is here to hold what I am gluing in place AND (most important) ensure that it is straight!

I used brass (rather than plastic) circular tube because plastic will let light shine through. But I could not also use brass square tube because the circular tube sections might be electrically live and I do not want short circuits.

For lights I bought some 3 volt LED cob strip lights on eBay. These are scarily bright! What I plan to do is alternate the electrical polarity of the lights each time, as then I will only need one feeder wire for each end unit (the things which look black here). These feeder wires will power the lights on each sides of the end units.

I would prefer to add to each positive polarity feeder wire a resistor for 12v, but am not sure if the resistors will cope with two lights each. My aim is to avoid future accidental blowing of the LEDS by someone giving them 12v instead if 3v. Resistors will be located above the roof, so out of sight - and where there will be enough ventilation to prevent them from overheating.

Before fitting the lights I will need to paint everything white.


Also slowly coming is the LU signal - the signal head has been painted black and I've drilled out the 'pigs ears' with a manual drill (powered would be overkill) and 0.8mm drill bit. For lighting I am using pre-wired SMD LED lights. These are tiny and to make handling easier I've glued their backs to some black paper. For the front lens I am thinking of adding translucent cereal packet plastic that has been painted black with paint that has been thinned. This will create the right look of darkness when the light is not illuminated whilst allowing the red or green to shine through when required.  Something I strongly dislike is LED lights with the colour visible at the front!

Thats all for now.