CN Yellowhead Division

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Fantastic! I have a strip of my generic tree background stuck to some masonite for the same purpose. I haven't figured out a good stand yet though, but I like your solution.

[Scottl]

I'm just using a light stand I had available.  I need to secure the board better but it is handy to be able to move it around. 

[Scottl]

Working on the Jasper West entrance bridge.  The structure is done but needs railings, as does the east entrance bridge. In the past I etched the distinctive CN railings but I wanted to try printing them.  Here are two versions, the standing one has a thinner profile and is what I will use.  These are printed in Anycubic ABS-like 2.0 resin and they are strong but have a little bit of flex.  I hope that will prevent accidental damage, something the etched parts were vulnerable to.  It is nice the cost is basically nothing as well!

[Scottl]

The bridge is installed and now I need to ballast the track and finish the roadway (and of course, more trees!).  I'll leave the railings off until everything is done, but I'm pleased with how the printer allowed me to do a realistic rendition of the prototype.  The scene looking west down the line is really nice.

[Tad_T]

Nicely done, sir.

[Bendtracker1]

Very nice Scott!

[Scottl]

Thanks guys!

I ballasted and it dried overnight.  Ithe layout is back in operation and the next task is to plan out the Jasper yard and town site.  It will be interesting to see how I can fit in the elements of the town's unique architecture.

[GaryHinshaw]

Fantastic!  The forested ridge line in the backdrop is especially effective at blending with the 3-d scenery here.

[pereirad]

Great progress!  Your use of the real backdrops really add to the realism. I'm looking forward to seeing more progress on the Jasper yard and the iconic station.

[Scottl]

Thanks guys!

A few more shots as the tracks were populated and trains were run. 
















The next major task is the townsite, and the station is the main feature.  It is a large and complicated structure and I plan to use my printer to do it.  I luckily have a new- much larger- printer on the way courtesy of Black Friday sales!

The space available is quite limited in terms of depth, but I want to do the station to scale and figure out how to fit the rest in.  The two boards give an idea of how it will work.  The 6" board next to the tracks is the necessary depth for the station.  The remaining 4-5" will have to fit the 4-lane road, median, sidewalks and buildings across the road.  I plan to do <1"-thick building fronts for the background structures, and I think it can all fit if I eliminate the street parking and turn lanes, and narrow the road median.  I've drafted up most of the station structure in Tinkercad and it will be an interesting printing project.  I'll have to do the windows and doors from scratch, figure out how to render the river rock wainscotting and chimneys, and then break it all into printable units.  The entire structure is about 56 X 143 cm.



I've drafted up most of the station structure in Tinkercad and it will be an interesting printing project.  I'll have to do the windows and doors from scratch, figure out how to render the river rock wainscotting and chimneys, and then break it all into printable units.  The entire structure is about 56 X 14 cm.

[Scottl]

I have been working on re-printing my intermodal well cars with the new Saturn printer.  The original prints I made ended up deforming over the trucks and in some of the main bodies.  The new versions are nicely reinforced in the weak areas and will have brass strip running along the inside of the well walls.  I found a good source for brass from Aliexpress so I am waiting on the 3 m of it to arrive.

I have been working on AI and Blender approaches to texturing the CN station and for other tasks.  I started to use Meshy.AI which is a very powerful tool for 3D generation and is only $20/month, so I am getting a lot out of it. 

The first major project was the Jasper welcome sign that appears on the road at both ends of town.  I used a picture from the internet along with a Google Maps image of the backside to create a 3D model.  First, I asked Meshy to give me a prompt from the image.  Using that prompt, I asked Meshy to churn out four models to choose from.  I picked the one that was best and exported a STL file for printing.  Meshy seems to have no ability to produce proper lettering and made some letter like shapes in the model!  After some more experiments, I gave up and exported a model without the letters and I imported it into Tinkercad and added them there.  It worked well- even if it was a rather crude workflow- and successfully printed the signs.  These things are tiny and will be challenging to paint, but a major step forwards.



Next task was starting on the building fronts from Jasper.  There are a long line of these distinct structures that I will need fill the background of the yard scene.  I started with one where I used an image from Google Maps:



In the text-3D model prompt, I used:  "Generate a model of the log building, isolated from the adjacent buildings and remove any foreground people, furniture or features, and also remove the sky.  Omit the letters over the door." and yielded the following- pretty nice!



This model is perfect, I can add the signs and details so I progressed to a 3D model:



While not perfect, this is a gamechanger.  I'll slice the depth I want from the full building and print one up for a test.

Suddenly, modeling a street of architecturally-varied building fronts does not seem so imposing as it did!

[Scottl]

From Google image to printed detail in about 40 minutes of effort.  Painting is a nightmare for another day!

[Scottl]

Turned out better than I thought.  The Meshy rendering looked pretty rough, but the model and print were smooth and detailed.   Many support defects mar the result but it printed fine.  Not bad for less than an hour.  Populating the street this way seems quite promising.

[Hazuki]

I really love your scenery

[Scottl]

The AI work continues.   I used Meshy AI to model a figure of the iconic Jasper the Bear for my yard.  Every kid who visits Jasper gets a picture with the 7' statue.  And thankfully, the real statue survived the 2024 fire that nearly burnt the town entirely.