The Railway in the Valley of the Mill

[Trevor Thompson]

Great photos. Makes me feel guilty that I've not run anything since October.

Rik

I was in the same position. It was only Phil’s presence which made it happen, and the lack of charge in 4415 made me feel guilty that I had neglected the batteries for so long.

Trevor

[gilfachphil]

Guilty as charged, this time.

I have turned down the opportunity to play with G Scale outdoors for several hours tomorrow when the temperature is forecast to be a maximum of 4 Celsius!

Phil

[Old Man Aaron]

Hard to imagine what would be worse, our 38 degree spikes, or your freezing temps..

[gilfachphil]

If only we could have the average all would be comfortable!

Phil

[Trevor Thompson]

The latest development at "Dinas" as the part built houses take shape:

IMG_4895.jpeg (3.04 MiB) Viewed 16951 times

Trevor

[ge_rik]

I do love your 3D printed buildings, Trevor.
I wish I had the courage to try ABS printing but my past experience has been unsuccessful.

Rik

[Trevor Thompson]

I do love your 3D printed buildings, Trevor.
I wish I had the courage to try ABS printing but my past experience has been unsuccessful.

Rik

I'm glad you like my buildings. Designing them gives me lots of pleasure - doubly so when they actually print out OK!

[Lonsdaler]

The idea of part built properties is brilliant. You need to arrange spare timber and bags of mortar, together with a cement mixer or two. Quite wonderful.

[Trevor Thompson]

The idea of part built properties is brilliant. You need to arrange spare timber and bags of mortar, together with a cement mixer or two. Quite wonderful.

Yes that is what I had in mind. I have spare roof timbers ready, and perhaps a pile of stone, tressles, wheelbarrow and perhaps a couple of builders!

Trevor

[gilfachphil]

With shovels to lean on and mugs of tea to hand!

Phil

[Trevor Thompson]

With shovels to lean on and mugs of tea to hand!

Phil

Good idea!

Trevor

[Trevor Thompson]

I have a couple of points that sometimes cause problems. Not so much with my stock but with occasional visitors stock. So having decided to replace them I thought it was a good opportunity to experiment.

I have been trying for some time to recreate victorian deep ballasting but the shallow depth of ballast over the sleepers always comes free and falls off. Of course the ballast can also interfere with the operation of the points. So I wondered if using thin sleepers , and deeper chairs would solve both problems. The ballast should be further from the rails, and it might be thick enough to stay put.

So a development of my point design using printed sleepers:

Screenshot 2026-03-06 at 12.03.08.png (1.09 MiB) Viewed 12137 times

The first point with the rails fitted:

IMG_5003.jpg (2.51 MiB) Viewed 12137 times

The sleepers are printed in two sections. The chairs which support the point blades are printed onto one sleeper unit. The frog unit is printed onto the other sleeper unit. The majority of the chairs are printed as individual chairs, and bonded to the sleepers during assembly (that allows me to use roller gauges to set the gauge accurately).
and a view from the side to show how the thicker chairs, and thinner sleepers:

IMG_5004.jpg (2.71 MiB) Viewed 12137 times

Just need it to stop raining so I can instal it!

Trevor

[ge_rik]

Ingenious! I like the blue clips, too, Trevor.

Rik

[Old Man Aaron]

Interesting, I certainly wouldn't have thought of that. Hope it works, "rails only" narrow gauge has a serious charm of it's own.

[Trevor Thompson]

Ingenious! I like the blue clips, too, Trevor.

Rik

The frog unit is in 3 parts. The main part (which holds the rails coming away from the frog) is printed as part of the sleeper unit. The wing rails sit on the outside of this unit and are held to it by two strips which are glued on after fitting the wing rails. The blue clips are holding it all together while the glue sets.

Those clips are really quite useful - as long as I don't accidentally glue them to the workpiece!

Trevor

[Trevor Thompson]

Interesting, I certainly wouldn't have thought of that. Hope it works, "rails only" narrow gauge has a serious charm of it's own.

I hope it works as well!

Trevor

[Trevor Thompson]

I have been able to get away from domestic duties for a few hours, and since it stopped raining over a week ago, I have been sorting out track.

The two points and the station loop removed:

IMG_5024.jpeg (2.66 MiB) Viewed 8365 times

I might try to recover the points for future use, but I can certainly reuse the rail from the lengths of track.

The new in place:

IMG_5025.jpeg (2.79 MiB) Viewed 8365 times

That is the original rail with new printed sleepers with integral chairs slid into place.

and finally ballasted:

IMG_5027.jpeg (2.84 MiB) Viewed 8365 times

The rail is sitting proud of the ballast and the sleepers are well covered, so it may well work as intended!

Trevor

[ge_rik]

That does look good, Trevor.

Rik

[Trevor Thompson]

I am working my way up the line sorting out the damage caused during a long wet winter.

Most of the 3 D printed "scenery" - such as buildings - have survived outside since they were built. This station building has been out there for something like 5 years. However the fencing around the station at Tan - y - Bwlch had been damaged by last years heavy crop of apples falling onto it. So it has been redrawn reprinted and relaid:

IMG_5036.jpg (2.79 MiB) Viewed 7727 times

The files for the fencing will be in the 3 D printing section shortly.

The next task is to finish the railings around the viaduct.

Trevor

[philipy]

That fencing looks good Trevor.