I am currently working on structures for a model railway layout. These are a couple of models partly completed. They were printed on Ender 5 Plus using PLA+ filament from an Australian manufacturer Aurarum. I find it a reliable filament and the bonus is its locally (for me) made. The models have been painted but not fully assembled and are only posed for the photo, you can see the windows on a paiinting stick and a veranda post print ready to be painted. Hope they may be of interest to someone.
Very nice! My brother-in-law has an extensive village surrounding his model railway. Can you describe in more detail how you made the buildings? What scale are they? Where did the STLs come from? What type(s) of paint?
Cheers!
Very nice. The only issue is that it’s for model railroading. Everyone knows model railroaders have psychological issues ?? (sorry couldn’t resist: my F-I-L was a model RRr for many years before he died).
Psychological issues Ha Ha!! Thats only the half of it ?
The models houses are in HO scale 1:87. I used Tinkercad to draw them up. The walls are one peice print, then there is a false ceiling with the eves and lip for the seperate gutter. The false ceiling also is the roof truss structure. Each panel of roof is .84mm thick and is glued to the roof truss/false ceiling. Windows and doors are printed at .12 layer height along with any other additional detail like the veranda posts and trim. They are very much a kit rather that a single peice print in an attempt to reduce the impact of layer lines. I use a mix of paint, Tamiya, Vellejo, but all acrylic. I will include some more pics during the next print run. Thank you for your interest, I know this is not a model train enthusiast forum but I’m happy to share the print experience if there is interest…
This is an excellent application for 3d printing. I am thinking of doing a series about using 3d printers for Doll House furniture. The series would go from design to printing and finishing.
I visited the Rockwell facility in the late 1980s when I worked for DEC supporting software on both PDP-11s and VAX/VMS systems. I worked out of DECs Chicago office in Software Services.
I wished I had a 3D printer in the 80th, when I had a H0 Märklin system with tons of stuff on a bed size table. That would have given me much more design choices. All I did was adding my 4 bit computer to it to make it sort digital way before the company itself did it. 
I basically split the track into sections and added sensors to know where the trains where. Depending on the position I could stop them and direct them to different rails, so the faster train was able to overtake the slower one without collision and fully automated.
Hi Irv… perhaps our paths crossed at Rockwell. We were in different locations in the area (Oak Brook & Downers Grove) and settled into a DG location by I88 (was named I5 at the time).
I remember the using the PDP 11/24’s and 11/84’s both within our development system and our Galaxy ACD telecom system we produced. I can almost remember the front panel switch settings to reboot the computer and load from the 9 track tape.
I would also like to say that I fully concur with your “Why Boomers should become Makers” article! Spot on! As a Boomer I know that there is almost nothing I can’t accomplish if I approach a task/problem with the creativity, ownership and diligence that most boomers were brought up to do. It’s what we’ve done throughout our careers and will continue to do in my retirement. Boomers know that the US landed on the moon because our generation and those proceeding just got things done!
There is so much to do in this world any so many was to get things done! The fruit is not just hanging low, it’s lying on the ground for an engaged person to grab and run with it!