My first love was model railroading. I have a 39’ X 15’ O’gauge layout that leans scale by having full-size locomotives and very realistic buildings, most of which are custom designs by me often using SketchUp, especially since 2014. Prior to that time, most of the design work was done 2D on CorelDraw. I didn’t know there was a Gallery Forum, but if people really want to see what’s going on you can check here. I’ve been running this thread continuously since 2012 and it covers every aspect of building a railroad empire from painting the clouds on the walls to creating each aspect.
This thread references an earlier one that included creating the room up to the trackwork and getting trains running. The current thread starts with laying the track ballast and everything else.
The buildings I create often start with a photo or painting of an existing structure. Then through SU magic (MatchPhoto) I draw the building in 3D. I didn’t start using my own 3D printer until 2019. Any printed parts before then were outsourced. In 2019 an affordable (to me) high resolution 3D Resin printer came on the market from Elegoo, The Mars.
Here’s a sample:
This was my first railraod in 1958. Platform was built by my dad and me, but the rest was entirely my doing.
Here’s today’s layout. The house we bought in Louisville was perfect for a model railroad with a clear space and no columns.
The I.W.Berheim Distillery (circa 1870), taken from a single picture hanging in the lobby of the existing (modern) Berheim Distillery operated by Heaven Hill brands.
The Distillery was drawn with match photo, then flat parts exported to Coreldraw to create the laminate layers for the fancy brickwork that was laser cut by an outside vendor. I don’t yet have a laser cutter and probably won’t get one. I built one model for my railroad (on the lower right) and one for the Heaven Hill Bourbon Experience Center in Bardstown, KY. We are friends of the owners of Heaven Hill and they have been very kind to us since moving here. The building pictured was one of the first commercial distillery in the US and was razed during Prohibition.
From a picture posted in the NYT of a neat looking 2nd Empire structure in the Bronx, I drew this from that picture downloaded from NYT on line and then from Google Earth images that showed me the missing other views. Walls were laser cut Masonite and architectural details 3D printed by an outside vendor. I had to remove one story and shorten it some to better suit my village, but otherwise, it’s a true representation.
My custom-building confidence was growing. I then drew and had laser cut a very large engine house. During construction my first printer arrived and I put it use imediately detailing the building, creating an entire machine and a bevy of scale locomotive prime movers.
Most of the machines came from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse with extensive editing to make them printable. Three big machines were custom-drawn by me.
An interior shot looks pretty convincing (except for the 3-rail track).
Next is my rendition of Edward Hopper’s “House by the Railroad”. This was a challenging project to draw due to the impressionistic nature of the painting and the number of ambiguous areas that I had to fill in. It has a completely decorated interior that is almost impossible to see.
Then, we have my version of the “Newtown Hardware House”. This hardware store was built in 1869 as a hardware store on the left and dry goods on the right. Sometime later the two were merged and it continues to this day as an Ace Hardware store. We lived in that community for 26 years and it seemed appropriate to model it. Using a combination of Google Earth and live photos by me and the owner, I created a good representation,
The owner was so pleased with the result that he commissioned me to create a tiny n-gauge layout for holiday displays in the store window. I had built such a railroad with my grandsons before building the big layout and was able to re-purpose it for the hardware store. I removed some of the plastic structures on it and, again, using Google Earth and and Google Earth Street View replicated three other noteworthy buildings; the old newspaper building, the Temperance House Hotel and The First National Bank and Trust.
All of the O’scale structures (1:48) had laser cut walls. The distillery was cut from 1/4 Masonite. The House by the Railroad out of Northeastern O’scale clapboard siding, and the Hardware House out of 3/16 white acrylic. The brick buildings had the mortar lines engraved during the cutting process. However, the n-gauge buildings (1:160) were so small that I could print them on my Elegoo Mars 3 Resin printer. I didn’t include mortar lines. They would be invisible at this scale.
Since that time, I now have an Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra. It’s precision and incrased capacity are such that I’m going to attempt to print entire walls (inclduing bricks and window details) of O’scale structures. On deck with this new method is another Hopper Masterpiece, “Early Sunday Morning”. It’s just a row of typical store fronts with apartments above that he found in lower Manhattan. I’ve done the prelimenary work, but not designing specifically for printing.
To print I will have to break the walls into vertical sections and draw the brick work so they will interlock realistically.
So… I guess that answers the question, “Do I use SU for model railroading?” and the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
