The Printable Garden Railway

built in conjunction with Project Walle

going through my stuff i found myself finding a lot of old model trains and thought i could make a small model railway with them. I knew id need to buy some extra stuff to make it but i suddenly found why i hadnt continued, money or at least my lack of it.

looking at the hobby right now OO is the popular gauge though there are plenty of others to choose from. but no matter what you choose the cheapest your going to be able to buy a train is roughly £50 in OO but will only increase from there averaging out at about £250 to £300. this has been due to an increase manufactoring and shipping.

so i decided to set a challenge, make myself a cheaper alternative with full trains, rolling stock and working track. so of course i resorted to printing.
I Started off with the track, i already knew the limitations of my 3d printer, those being the print bed size, detail, and time.
so the entire system would need to has as little post-print assembly as possible while keeping to the size limit while still looking good.

so knowing all this i decided to go with a larger scale O Gauge and LEGO's 'L gauge' both being only a few millimetres apart. This was due to having multiple references and most importantly being larger while not exceding the print bed size allowing for details while being less delicate.
LEGO has also made their track to be interlocking track rather than fishplates connectors which would be too delicate to print.

the track i ended up with could be printed for roughly 50p a piece at one piece roughly every 20 minutes though it varys by piece. Turn outs or sitches were the hardest as they were too large and complex to print so i adjusted the design to be printed in 4 parts at roughly £1.20 with a printing time of 2 hours.
The turn outs switching worked very well and the track snaps together alright. though for instances were the attachment isnt good enough ive made a clip that can be pushed in place to keep track together.

Having made the track i needed to test it. i did so using a truck shown here. Made of 9 parts it requires no glue and rolls with little friction. though this first version is a bit wobbly it is fit for purpose and has provided enough data to improve it for version 2