3D printed King's Cross Station circa 1990-2010

[RBTKraisee]

I'm still a newbie around here, so I'm not certain this is the correct section to put this and I encourage any mods to relocate it as necessary.

I want to start this thread to show ongoing progress as I design and build a turn-of-the-millenia King's Cross passenger station before it's latest re-development.

Let me begin by saying that this thread is entirely inspired by the amazing work shown on Steve's (AKA Atso) "Mainly 3D Printed LNER Locomotives in N gauge" thread. If you haven't seen it already, you gotta go take a look! Also, Steve pointed me at Paul Walker's 1950's King's Cross model in N, and that's really impressive and inspirational for me too.

I'm starting with a 1:1 CAD design to match my reference material as precisely as possible, but I'm including a few extra settings (mainly to ensure minimum thickness parts) that will allow me to more easily re-scale it however I want. My own goal here is to build my own model in UK N-Gauge 1:148 scale.

So far, I've:

1) Found enough research material to get me started (I'm a Brit living in Florida, so I'm planning a trip back to Blighty to take loads of photo's, whenever this COVID19 thing finally passes),
2) Layed out a PECO track layout in SCARM,
3) I've placed simple outlines for the main buildings on the West side,
4) The platform for the main part of the station (not extended to the side yet),
5) Begun work on the main walls,
6) Designed the overhead girders,
7) Designed the window frames,
Designed basic light fittings - though I want to revisit these to allow for LED installation,
9) Got myself a DLP 3D printer (and learned how to use it properly) to prototype all the parts with extremely high detail.

I'm planning to allow the design to be fairly flexible - allowing for the full length platforms, or shorter variants, by the use of modular elements.

So, off to the races. Here are some of my initial CAD images.

I'll try to provide updates whenever my spare time allows me to work on it - they might be daily, they might be weekly, they might be only monthly. I don't really know. Wish me luck!

Ross.

[Atso]

Brilliant CAD work. I'm humbled that my efforts are, in part, the inspiration for this huge project and I look forward to seeing it progress.

[RBTKraisee]

Thanks Steve!

Here's my first real update. Fresh off the build plate after a 15 hour print, here is the first N scale test print of the arch over the main train shed, as shown in the CAD design above. I'm really chuffed with how these came out. I think I'll make a couple of modifications specifically to help with fitting these to other parts accurately every time (central join area and accurate alignment on the wall sections), and then I just need to print 180 of them!

Also included is an early print for the lights, though my intended channel up into the light for wiring didn't come out as planned, so I still need to revisit that.

I printed these parts with clear resin because that's all I have right now. Expect grey parts in future when my next delivery arrives on Monday.

Next, I'll try to print some of the window frames over the shed roof, but I expect to have a series of failures before any successes worth showing.

Ross.

[RBTKraisee]

So, some good news and bad news. First, three good images showing progress:

We have the template for the main train shed brick supports along the Eastern edge of KX Platform 1. If you look closely you should be able to see some of the individual bricks, which are all patterned accurately. Two small cutouts are on there too, to help position the main arches correctly every time. I made this as four relatively flat parts, but given the size of the final part I think I'll just print future ones as one element.

Next is a test print of the window frames at the top of the roof. Most of what you can see is supports needed to hold the parts in place during the printing process, but on top of those is the lower frame for the apex of the roof over the main shed, together with some of the window frames that will sit on top of that. The parts printed *almost* perfectly, even though they are less than 0.2mm thick (!). So I plan to rework them all to around 0.3mm thick, and try again later this week.

Lastly, I did a batch of a dozen main arches, with the keying features I mentioned previously.


Now for the bad news. When I tried to match-up the arches and the brick support, I found a discrepancy that tells me my scaling is screwed up somewhere. I'm trying to get more reference material now, to confirm dimensions, but its not easy doing that from Florida when the whole UK is in lockdown, so I'm not certain when I'll be able to get the info I need to proceed.

Specifically I want an accurate measurement of the height of the brickwork to where it meets the arched roof. I can see in photographs that it's 148 full bricks tall from the top of the platform, and assuming 65mm brick heights and 8mm mortar heights, I get 10,796mm, but my current drawings suggest a figure around 11,900mm - roughly 10% bigger.

I know I'm definitely not the first to try replicating KX, so I'm going to put out a request for other people's research material archives to try to nail this one down before I go much further. Not a bad way to spend a month or two in self imposed protective lockdown

Ross.

[End2end]

Astonishing work, and in N too!
Thanks
End2end

[RBTKraisee]

So, a quick update - I've been asking around on a variety of forums for reference materials to help me with the correct scaling, and Mike over on RMWeb was able to give me a hand - resulting in me realigning my drawings from the ground up.

I should also mention that his skills at making the main arch trusses by hand were spectacular and have made me step my game up

Here's the first new part I'm trying to print. It will be ready about 7am and I'll post some photo's if the results aren't embarrassing!

Ross.

[RBTKraisee]

Hot off the press... Well, technically still a little damp, in reality

My old attempt and the much higher detail, vastly more accurate, new one. Yes, they are different styles, but that's because there are two different types of arched truss used in the station

Also, one of the corrected support columns to go with these is now finished in CAD too. Want to add a wall section between the columns before printing though.

Ross.

[markS&D]

This is exquisite work, it will make a stunning model, I cannot believe it is N scale

[RBTKraisee]

Thanks Mark!

Now that I've got the scaling issue sorted out, progress has been pretty good over the last few days. After a marathon design effort last night, and another 14 hour print, here's the latest update

Some minor adjustments to the alignment marks on the trusses, the Eastern wall supports and the arch structure that goes between them

The first picture in the next post is just "quick'n'dirty" dry fitted together - everything actually aligns perfectly

Ross.

[RBTKraisee]

More images.

Ross.

[RBTKraisee]

Technically the main shed has three different types of supports East, Mid and West and I've only designed one (East) so far, but I couldn't resist assembling this

Ross.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Magnificent.

manna

[dan8400]

This is very impressive work indeed.

Is it something that you are looking to market afterwards? It wouldn’t be a project for me but others may want to have a go.

It is a brilliant project either way, I hope you get the end result your aiming for.

Thanks
Dan

[RBTKraisee]

Thanks guys,
I'll hopefully get some time over the weekend to get some more done on this! Next up are the Central and Western support columns in the main shed, and the window panels over the arches. Then I'll move on to the sections between the support columns, and I really want to make all the lights work as soon as possible!

Dan, in answer to your question: Right now this is a "must have it" project for my own use - and its the first of what I hope will be a string of major UK stations.

If there is interest in some sort of kit, I'm definitely open to the idea. Others, both here on NRM and elsewhere, have been helping me with awesome reference material for this project and I have little doubt that they'd like their own model too, so I have been trying to figure out what might be feasible.

In a previous life I used to build & retail complex model kits (not railway), and from that experience I can say its *NOT* easy to do, in fact its a really efficient way to lose your shirt! Besides not having nearly enough room to do it here at home, I'm not sure my poor 'ikle 3D printer could cope with real production volumes! There's always Shapeways, who would take all the production, billing and shipping headaches off my hands, but I suspect a kit this size would be heinously expensive on there There may be some other operations out there who can do the same quality with lower costs, but I haven't gone hunting for them yet, so I don't know who. A potentially cheaper possibility might be mold casting. Options, options.

I guess I really need to know how much interest is actually out there.

So if anyone is reading this and would like one one of these as a kit, please PM me let me know what you think would be a fair price for such a kit. I'll use this feedback as a guide and if there's enough interest, I might give it a go. I'll probably also start a couple of similar threads over on some other forums, just to make sure I get to as wide an audience as poss.

Oh, for those who might be interested, I've already discussed with some folk here and on other forums, doing optional elements to allow the whole of KX station to be modeled in different era's too - but that all depends on interest levels in the first 1990's era station. So if you want to show your interest, let me know whether you would be happy with just the 1990's era if that's all I produced, or if you need a different era entirely, and say which one!

So the info I need is:

- Gauge Size? N, OO/HO, Z, Other?
- Is the 1990 config (post goods yard, pre tent awning) of interest if that's all I ever produced?
- What era would you want any extra/alternative parts for? Full goods yard era? Current config? WW-II bomb damaged?
- How much would you feel comfortable with as a price point?

Oh, and I'm thinking about ways of allowing the station to be configured as a shorter version. The full layout at 1:148 UK N-gauge (that's what I'm making for myself, but the primary CAD design is actually 1:1 full scale, so could be re-scaled to almost anything) will be around 3.5m long from KX square to the tunnel entrances, and about 1m wide (1.3m wide if I do the recently added 'tent awning' western range & concourse). With 45 arches in the main shed I could possibly supply packs of 5 arches at a time, so modelers could choose how much they want to model - to do the whole thing, you'd need 9 packs. The 'suburban' station on the West side is a little trickier to do, but something similar might be feasible there too. The main buildings and the end of the main shed would be standard for all. What to do about Platform 0 is entirely TBD at this point.

Roll on the weekend and some free time!!

Thanks,

Ross.

[RBTKraisee]

In case you don't know which bits are which, here's a quick image I scrounged off the web

BTW, Platform 0 is the new one, under the Eastern Range. And the suburban station (or Shared Services Yard?) on the West side is actually off the bottom of this image - you can see the entrance to the three platforms outlined in dotted-green.

The version I'm doing is with the old-style "Harry Potter & Hagrid" bridge across the main platforms, and without the big new "tent awning" concourse area, but I kinda want to design that, even though I don't intend to have it on my own model! It just looks too cool not to

Ross.