Transfer Sidings Diorama In progress

Description

This diorama represents a pair of transfer sidings between a narrow gauge quarry line and a standard gauge line. It is set somewhere in Great Britain in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The scale is 4mm to 1 foot (≈1:76 scale).

The transfer sidings are located at the front of a small baseboard that was constructed on stretched artists' canvas that I came across for free. There is a road overbridge at the left hand side that spans a standard gauge siding. The narrow gauge siding enters from the right hand side with the entry being screened by a workshop building. A low relief small factory and a warehouse, along with a site office in full relief, are located at the rear of the model. These buildings are separated from the exchange sidings by a yard. The narrow gauge line is at a higher level than the standard gauge, enabling narrow gauge tipper trucks to be emptied into awaiting standard gauge open wagons.

Buildings

So far four buildings have been, or a being, constructed. Some of these have LEDs fitted. They are described below.

1. Warehouse (low relief).
2. Factory (low relief).
3. Workshop.
4. Site office.

Warehouse

This is a two storey, low relief, building with four separate rooms:

Each room is lit by a 3mm warm white LED set in its ceiling. Since the building is low relief and will be set against the backscene, the wires from the each of the LEDs' anodes and cathodes are routed through the rear wall of the building, which has been routed out to carry the cables down and through the floor.

Factory

This is a low relief building representing a long, single storey factory:

The building has four bays. The left hand bay, behind the door is fully enclosed. The remaining three bays have windows. Each of these bays has a 3mm warm white LED mounted in the roof. Once again the building is to be set up against the backscene so the wires exit through the rear walls and a groove is provided to carry the wires down to, and through the floor immediately in front of the backscene. There are six wires, one from each anode and cathode of the three LEDs.

Workshop

This is a complete, single story, building that is to be located towards the right hand side of the diorama in front of the narrow gauge railway line. It is to act as a scenic block to hide to point where the narrow gauge railway exits the diorama.

The workshop has two 3mm warm white LEDs mounted on roof rafters. Leads from the anodes and cathodes of each LED are wrapped together in black painted paper and are routed down inside front wall of the building and then through the building floor. There is also a forge in the workshop with a fire emulated by LEDs. The following images shows the LEDs in the rafters (outlined by yellow stars), the "trunking" containing the LED wires (pointed to by arrows) and the forge (pointed to by the lightening flash):

The forge was constructed from two 3D printed components: a hearth printed in grey PLA and a bed for the fire printed in colourless PLA. The hearth has a gap in its base for a 3mm red LED and the fire bed has a corresponding indent. The fire bed fits over the red LED in the hearth and extends into the chimney breast where it covers a 3mm amber flicker LED. The following photo montage shows the two components with their cut outs for the red LED:

Coal was glued to the fire bed component and the forge was then assembled and installed in the workshop. The LEDs were attached below for testing. The effect can be seen in the following video:

The wires from the lighting LEDs emerge from the floor as indicated by the yellow ellipse in the following photo. In the same photo the yellow rectangle encloses the legs of the red LED that is glued in place in the bottom of the forge and the yellow diamond highlights the hole where the amber flicker LED is yet to be located.

Site office

At the time of writing the site office has yet to be completed. The current state of the building can be seen in the following photo:

It has not yet been decided whether to light this structure.

Circuit design