Mickoos European dabblings

unklian

Western Thunderer
Nice work Mickoo, if I may say the corners of the windscreens look a little sharp. Good luck with those quarter lights . I could cast that in resin if you don't have a pet caster already .
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Ian, you're probably correct, the shape and size isn't quite right and they were added as a sort of visual guide to get the basic cab shape nearly right. Once I'm happy with the external shape I'll work on the windows and door openings.

110 xxx_02.jpg

What makes it more 'exciting' is that the glass is laminated with a heater film and is thus perfectly flat, so I have to form a flat recess in there to get the distinctive edges top and bottom.

110 windscreen detail.jpg

Copyright to Dorian Kerl.

The recess will hold the glazing on place and the the etched window frame will drop in from the front and hold it all in place, so the theory goes!

I may take you up on the resin offer, that part is all flexible and fluid right now depending on how this part goes.

MD
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
So moving on and a little backward to generate a new shell so y'all can get an idea of how it's done in Autocad, Arun showed y'all how easy it was in Inventor, this isn't.

There may be (more than certainly is) an easier way to do this....but I've yet to find it, I can find tutorials on candles, light houses, penguins and all sorts of goodies, I.E regular round shaped objects, but nowt that helps with this sort of shape.

First up is to draw some profiles of the parts we need.
Image2.jpg
On the left is the cab interior plug and on the right the exterior shell. Autocad will only draw effectively in the top down view, you can't really draw in left/right/front or back. Not a problem for the flat sections that form the main bulk of the cab and front but a right PITA for the roof and forehead profiles. These need to be drawn in the flat and then rotated the required amount and they must, must oh must touch at the vertices (points at each joint) on the flat parts, if they are out by one millionth of an atom then the part will not loft, form or join together.....it's a crap shoot.

In 3DSM you could simply grab all the vertices and weld them together to one spot in X,Y,Z space to overcome this problem, in Autocad no such function exists.

So have made all or profiles and made extra sure all the vertices meet it's time to loft between them.
Image4.jpg

Jumping ahead a bit the internal plug has been completed and we're at the external cab roof part, you simply select each outline in sequence and work from one end to the other, when you get to the end accept and it'll fill in the blank spaces...usually!

Having completed the roof it's time to do the forehead
Image6.jpg

Again select each outline in sequence and join together to form that block, and here in lies one of Autocads foibles. Each of the roof sections is a stand alone section, so each one has the same properties, however the forehead ones are all joined at their base and rotate around that base line to give a smooth arc. As far as Autocad is concerned it will now only join sections whose base is attached to another section, it will not join sections that are free standing along the roof. This took about three days to unravel :mad:

Image8.jpg

Having worked out the outlines must all be the same format it's then easy to join them all together at the end with a merge function to make one complete block, like the internal plug on the left.

The headlight cone is an off set cone and once again we run into Autocads inflexibility. If I were to make a cube and select the top surface I can move or transform that in anyway I like and the resultant sides will adjust accordingly, however, as soon as there's a curve in it then the only function you can do is pull the top face up and down, you can't move it left or right, front or back, making it impossible to make an offset cone from a parallel cone.

To over come this you need to draw two circles for the top and bottom, off set those to the required position and loft between the two.
Image10.jpg

The upper circle was moved back to give the offset taper, even now if I select the top face it will only allow it to go up or down, so if the offset is wrong it's a case of delete and start again.

Rotating the light casing to the required axis shows that it is too short (intentional)
Image12.jpg

Now we can select the rear face and pull it into the roof until we get a seamless joint.

Image14.jpg

At the moment I'm only dealing with half the cab and the reason for that is below. The next stage is to off the half internal plug up to the external shell, both being half profiles allow me to check how far forward I need to move the plug to give the correct thickness to the front wall.

Image16.jpg

The windscreen is there just as a visual aid to make sure the front wall is a uniform thickness where the glazing will be, everywhere else doesn't matter and the thicker front base will allow screws to be tapped into the base from below, to hold the resin cab into place on the metal frame work.

And in 3D

Image20.jpg

Satisfied that we have enough material around the shell it's a simple case to clone and mirror each part and then merge them to form two solid blocks

Image22.jpg

And taking note of our measurement from earlier about how far to insert the plug we do just that, safe in the knowlege that the wall thickness will be just fine.

Image24.jpg

Now it's a simple case or a Boolean cut and simply cut the inside from the outside to leave a hollow shell.

Image25.jpg

And a quick test cut with the window profiles.

Image26.jpg

Even now the frames still look a little thick so the other way to do it is to cut the windscreen into the exterior first to leave two big recesses,

Image27.jpg

.... then slide the internal plug forward until the correct thickness frames are present and then perform the Boolean cut.

Image28.jpg

Next up are the windscreen plugs and recesses for the flat screens.

MD
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Okay, quick test run with the windows and flat recesses, as y'all probably gather by now, not easy so there's more work to be done.

The easiest way to see it is with a render so here's a few to be getting on with.

Br110 3D-Temp0008.jpeg

Overall I think the outer shell is quite close but I suspect I'll need to see the real thing in my hand to be sure. The recesses are the full width of the etched frame and with a planned 1 mm border all round look a little thick, however, I'm not keen to make it smaller on the 3D master, that sort of thing might be better doing by hand on the 3D print or even later on the actual resin shell....trim to suit sort of thing.

Br110 3D-Temp0014.jpeg

The recessed depth is about 1mm at the shallowest point, to allow for the glazing to be added (0.25 mm) and etched frame (0.25 mm).

Br110 3D-Temp0017.jpeg

From a high angle you can just see the two issues, the recesses on the lower face is too large at the outer edge and the inside face from the plug is too curved and the glazing rebate is of varying thickness. There are several ways around this, reduce the curvature on the outer skin at the windows lower edge and flatten the internal plug at the same point on the inside. The other option will be to bring in the outside edge of the windscreen (thicken the corner pillar inward) which will change the angle of the flat plate area and reduce the width of it.

Br110 3D-Temp0022.jpeg

From above it's easier to see the issue between the inside surface and the flat section for the glazing as well as the overly large flat area at the base of the recesses (depth front to back).

From dead ahead the windows look roughly the right shape.
Br110 3D-Temp0020.jpeg

Though I think the inside top corners need dropping a little when compared to this crop of a photo. I also need to make the centre pillar wider by reducing the width of the windscreens and the corner radius may need a little more radius.

110 469-4.jpg

But it is progress none the less.

MD
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Right, last update for the time being, just about all in the right place and thickness for the windscreens, a few more hours tweaking the templates for lofting should fix the rest.

Br110 3D-Temp0015.jpeg

Br110 3D-Temp0031.jpeg

The centre pillar looks about right now and the top inside corners have been dropped a fraction; bringing in the outside edges has made the screens look a little too square, so they'll go out a fraction and the base will be raised, we're only talking 0.2 - 0.4 mm but it'll make a big difference visually.

MD
 

SimonT

Western Thunderer
Mick,
looking magnificent; I'm glad you dropped the top inside corners. I think they used a slightly smaller radius for the corners.

The Rhino steps to produce the roof would be:
Capture.PNG
The two pink curves are the rails that the green surface is going to sweep along, so five curves drawn, three of which are joined to make the surface.

Capture2.PNG
The Sweep 2 Rails command involves selecting the two rails, selecting the surface and then pressing enter. The view is shaded as I don't use the render view as it slow's things a little and is rather dark. The highlight on the right doesn't exist when viewed from other points.

The new London bus was designed in Rhino which possibly explains all the curves on it!

Simon
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Simon, as suspected, in Rhino you draw a few lines and it fills it in :cool:, the beauty of a software package designed specifically for 3D work :thumbs:

I'll end up tweaking bits here and there for some time I suspect; you're right on the top inside corner, it does look to have a smaller radius so I'll give that a tweak later and see what it looks like, I also think the bottom outside radii is smaller too. At the moment I'm messing with the outer skin to get the profile just right and thus the two flat lands top and bottom of the recess.

The real engines were pretty much hand built, on a jig of course, but there's a wide variety of variations in curvature, some of the later engines have almost a complete flat surface above the windscreen, others bow in varying amounts. I'll post some scans up later to explain with the next update.

MD
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
The new London bus was designed in Rhino which possibly explains all the curves on it!

Also behaves like one.......:D


With all the African mammals and rogues (cads in old parlance) is there not a design program which scans engineering drawings where you can tell it the scale of the drawings, the program analyses them and produces a 3d image or is that too sophisticated?

As for the BR 103 - which version? one of the first 4 or the later production locos. To keep things going here's one of mine photos taken at Stuttgart in the early 1990's when they were commonplace.
103 223-4 1(20151123-193530).jpg
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Also behaves like one.......:D
But no where near as loud! Bloody hybrid drive is so quite I nearly got run over by one a while back.

Mind not that they're that hard to see, being bright red and all that :eek: though in my defence I was occupied with more pressing matters....like walking in a straight line and eating my Kebab at the same time, always a taxing exercise late at night after a few beers :thumbs:

I'm sure there are expensive programs that will scan and make a model, there are those that go the other way and scan models and make virtual models.

Still it's the journey I keep telling myself :D

Little bit more progress today, happier with the overall shape, externally and internally and cut the door openings out now, not sure if that's a good idea or not as it might limit the orientation of the master in the mould, I'd hoped to go nose bottom but might get away with roof bottom due to the tapering of the sides and front.

Br110 3D-Temp0029.jpeg

Br110 3D-Temp0031.jpeg

Br110 3D-Temp0005.jpeg

I need to work on the bevelled edges to the door opening, they need to be straighter, the bevel face isn't on the same plain from top to bottom, it actually twists as it rises up and the windscreens need lowering a fraction too.

Br110 3D-Temp0038.jpeg

Internally I'll add a couple of prominent boxed in sections that will still allow the plug to be pulled out once the cab has been cast.

Next up the quarter light windows, that's when we'll see if it all comes together and begins to look the part.

MD
 

unklian

Western Thunderer
As far as your 'pattern' goes so far, and assuming you will want a hole through your headlight fairing. I would favour nose down in the mould, which only makes for an awkward undercut on the leading edge of the door opening. Of course if you left the doors in that would make it easier, but equally I can see why you want them cut out. I really should reserve judgement until you are done though .
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Ian, I wasn't planning on more than an indent for a drill on the headlights to be honest and all the openings I'll seal with a thin sheet of 10 thou plasticard flush on the inside, which might make the removing the internal plug a bit easier.

The other Ian, no it doesn't but lots of swearing does :D

Right, it's about as far as it goes for the time being, I've had a long weekend off work and it's taken virtually all of that to get this far.

Adding the quarter lights revealed quite a few problems with the shape,

Br110 3D-Temp0024.jpeg

there was no where near enough rake on the cab front and the gap between door and quarter light was too big, even now it needs shunting back about 0.3 mm to thicken the corner pillar a little.

The top front corner of the cab roof was too high and on the real deal is depressed quite a bit to blend it in with the other curves, the vanilla cab has much higher corners to the cab roof at the front.

Br110 3D-Temp0021.jpeg

From a higher angle the same said corner needed to be pulled in a bit as well.

Br110 3D-Temp0025.jpeg

Which is the reason why the quarter light glazing is tilted at an odd angle on the real engines.

There are a couple of tweaks to be made to the external skin around the windscreens, at the bottom lower corner the skin needs pulling back a little to create a little more of a bow along the lower flat plate, we're talking 0.2 mm or so here. I'm still not convinced about the headlight sizes, maybe adding the recess for the lens and the bezel might make it look a little better and help the eye decide.

Internally I've only had time to add the two pillars either side of the door

Br110 3D-Temp0029.jpeg

There are a few more blocks to go in which are easier to cast than fiddling to shape and adding later and the rear wall area is a little thin for fixing to the rest of the body, I may well add a complete rear wall which will strengthen the two thin rears to the door openings.

Initially the plan was for 1:32 but looking at the cost of just one print I'm going to head down the 1:45 route, especially until I am sure it's all the right shape and size, in which case it might pay to add the doors back in but slightly recessed by 0.4 mm so an overlay can be added in nickel silver that will show the thin cap around the door. But that's for another day, as is working out how best to do the base of the main headlights as they protrude below the cab and into the chassis plate work, a minor niggle after the last four days blending shapes :rolleyes:

MD
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
Hi Mick,
Attempting to address some of your Autocad issues......

"Autocad will only draw effectively in the top down view, you can't really draw in left/right/front or back."

This is absolutely untrue. You can draw with the exact same functionality, and for the most part with the exact same convenience, in any view in Autocad. This includes any of the standard 2d views like top, front, right, bottom, as well as any 3d view in any orientation. In fact, I probably spend 95+% of my time drawing in views other than the top view. It's fairly essential to seeing things clearly, and manipulating the model in all three dimensions accurately. The reality is that utilizing any given view has very little to do with functionality of Autocad.

The real issue is the orientation of the User Coordinate System. Manipulating the ucs, and especially the z axis, is critical to drawing any kind of circular 2d geometry or curve-based 3d object in any orientation, top down or otherwise. The orientation of the z axis also has a direct impact on the behavior and results of a host of other commands and functions in Autocad, including but not necessarily limited to the Circle, Arc, Rectangle, Mirror, Rotate, Sweep, Offset, Extend, and Trim commands. It also affects the functionality of some object snaps like Tangent and Quadrant that deal specifically with circles and arcs.

In your particular work flow, it's important to remember that circles and arcs are always drawn in the xy plane. In order to draw your roof profiles from the side, you must first change the ucs so that the xy plane is vertical and coplanar to your desired profiles, with the z axis then horizontal and perpendicular to your profiles by default. There are a multitude of ways to change the ucs, but for your purposes I'll suggest three.

From the command line: ucs-->type your chosen orientation of top, right, front, and so on-->enter.
From the toolbar: Home tab-->Coordinates-->drop down menu-->pick your orientation.
From the toolbar: Home tab-->Coordinates-->Z axis vector (the icon with the Z in the top right corner)-->pick an origin point and another point on the Z axis. In this case, it doesn't matter where the origin point is, but rather which way the z axis points (unless you're entering absolute coordinates for some reason, then the origin point matters).

I'm a short key alias keystroke kind of guy that abhors using toolbars (too slow!!!:mad:) so I would use the first option if I wanted a specific 2d orientation. When I'm in 3d, I usually use the Z axis vector method unless I need to worry about all three axes, in which case I use the 3-point method. But for circles and rotation (all rotation occurs about the z axis), I'm only really worried about the z axis.

The important distinction to remember about using the standard named ucs orientations versus the World ucs or a custom orientation is that in any standard named ucs, any point you pick defaults to the xy plane, with a z axis value of 0. In 3d ucs orientations, selected points can be just about anywhere in the infinity of the 3d realm despite where they may appear to be, unless you specify coordinates explicitly, or snap to existing points.

Another thing to know is that if you select a named 2d view from Home-->View-->3d Navigation pull down menu, the ucs will automatically be reoriented to match the view. Selecting a 3d isometric view from the same menu will not simultaneously change the ucs. Also, changing the ucs to a named orientation will not change the current view.

And lastly for now, even though not specific to this work flow, the ucs orientation is part of the information saved when you create a block or copy entities to the clipboard. When pasting or inserting, Autocad will reorient an entity so that it's saved ucs matches the current ucs, so objects may end up rotated, backwards, or upside down from what you might intend. This can be resolved by rotating things back to where you intended, but it is simpler and more robust to keep an eye on the ucs from the beginning. In the same vein, I like to set the ucs back to World when I save finished models, especially as I often xref individual parts into more complex assemblies, which often get nested into even larger assemblies.

Moving onward (finally...:rolleyes::oops:)

"...and they must, must oh must touch at the vertices (points at each joint) on the flat parts, if they are out by one millionth of an atom then the part will not loft, form or join together..."

I presume you are saying that the profile must be a closed loop in order to create a solid from it, which would be correct. Much like you can't create an .stl without a watertight mesh, you can't create a solid from an open ended profile. You can still loft the profile, but you'll end up with a lofted surface instead of a solid. This is still useful in plenty of instances, but not this one. Hopefully you are using object snaps to ensure that endpoints of lines meet, or cleaning things up with fillets or by trimming or extending. I'm a big fan of object snaps - snaps equal precision, which is important to me, and they also equal convenience, which is equally important.

"Again select each outline in sequence and join together to form that block, and here in lies one of Autocads foibles. Each of the roof sections is a stand alone section, so each one has the same properties, however the forehead ones are all joined at their base and rotate around that base line to give a smooth arc. As far as Autocad is concerned it will now only join sections whose base is attached to another section, it will not join sections that are free standing along the roof."

I'm not 100% sure I am fully understanding this comment. But I think you are saying that once you form the forehead profiles into a solid, you can't them loft that together with the roof profiles. If so, then that would be correct as far as I understand. But what I would have probably done is copied the last forehead profile, the vertical one where it meets the roof, so that I had one copy to create the forehead and a second copy to loft together with the roof profiles. If everything behaved properly and as hoped, the result would be two solids sharing the same profile where the roof and forehead meet. Now of course the loft command can be a fickle mistress, often yielding unexpected results. It doesn't help that I don't always understand all of it's capabilities and processes fully, nor do I have a full grasp on some of the math behind it. I only just really learned of the idea of guides or rails when somebody mentioned it in a Rhino work flow in that recent smoke stack thread. So this may not work at all, or it may work but produce an unsuitable result. Only experimentation will tell.

"The headlight cone is an off set cone and once again we run into Autocads inflexibility. If I were to make a cube and select the top surface I can move or transform that in anyway I like and the resultant sides will adjust accordingly, however, as soon as there's a curve in it then the only function you can do is pull the top face up and down, you can't move it left or right, front or back, making it impossible to make an offset cone from a parallel cone."

Actually, creating and editing an offset cone is pretty simple. The trick is to manipulate the cone as a surface rather than as a solid,and then convert it to a solid once it's the correct shape.

For whatever reason, Autocad restricts editing of solids formed from curved geometry to essentially only allow extrusion, whereas rectilinear solids enjoy almost unlimited freedom to manipulate edges and faces in any way seen fit. But Autocad does allow manipulation of surfaces formed from lofting curved geometry. I have no idea why one works and the other doesn't, but I don't really care :rant:. I just chalk it up as one of those things. Because the lofted surface maintains a parametric association with the original geometry, manipulating the original geometry dynamically manipulates the associated surface. You can disassoicate the geometry and the surface if you like or need to, but that won't suit our purposes for this work flow.

Start by drawing the two circles you will use for the top and bottom of the cone, one above the other at an appropriate distance. You can go ahead and offset one circle now if you like, or you can do that after lofting. The two circles can even be the same size, as you can scale them as needed to get the appropriate height and taper for the desired cone.

Use the loft command and the two circles to form a truncated cone. Autocad defaults to creating a 3d solid, but it can be forced to create a surface instead. After initiating the Loft command and picking the two circles, choose MOde in the command line immediately after selecting the two circles, and before hitting enter. You will get the option to choose SOlid or SUrface. Choosing SUrface will force Autocad to create a lofted surface. Using the gizmo, move one circle sideways to create the desired offset if you didn't already position them before lofting. Then either move the circle up or down to change the height (and therefor angle) of the cone, or switch to the scale gizmo and adjust the the circle's diameter. Scaling would be appropriate if the height of the truncated cone was already correctly established but you still wanted to edit it's angle.

Once the cone is of the desired shape, convert the two end circles to regions using the Region command. A region is simply a 3d solid with no thickness. This is a necessary step before converting the surface into a 3d solid. Note that you must have a closed loop to create a region, and you cannot have overlapping lines. All segments must meet at a single point, which is of course moot when dealing with a circle. But this goes back to the closed profile discussion above. In fact, converting to a region is a good method to test the integrity of profiles before attempting to loft them.

In an obliquely related note, I prefer to use the Region command rather than the join command to form a group of lines and curves into a closed profile. Often when curves are involved, the Join command will output a spline instead of a polyline. Splines cannot be exploded after they are created, and they behave oddly with respect to object snaps because the points that define them are often not where you'd expect them to be. For example, you can draw a spline that looks exactly the same as a circle, but you can't snap to it's center or quadrant points. Conversely, a region can be exploded and it's parts revert to their original forms, and object snaps behave exactly as they should. The join/spline issue doesn't happen all the time, and really never when joining only straight line segments, but it's often simpler to just use the Region command instead. Splines BAD:mad:!!! Hulk hate splines :rant:!

Getting close now, finish up by converting the two circular regions and the lofted surface into a 3d solid using the Surfsculpt command. Select all three entities and hit enter. Presuming all parts combine to form a watertight volume, the result will be a 3d solid. Remember that the 3d solid will now be subject to the same infuriating editing constraints as before. So it's a good idea to save a copy of the original geometry and surface before converting to the solid form, in case you decide something needs to change again. Like that ever happens :rolleyes::eek::oops::p. It's always a good practice to save a copy of your geometry.

That's it for now. I should probably go to bed. I'm probably a day or two late as you seem to have solved many of these issues already, but maybe this information can help in some way going forward. I've downloaded the FlashBack recording software. Tomorrow I will get the microphone going. So if you have any further questions, or need a video demonstration to make things clear, I should be able to create something in the next day or two.

Cheers!
Jim
 
Last edited:

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Wow, good stuff, it'll take me a while to work through it all.

I'd been messing with meshes on another project but could not for the life of me close the holes in the end, even though they were closed loops they would not fill in or create a surface.

Splines, now that's a handy tip, I'd had to exploded a couple of the sections and when joining back together with the join command all the arcs changed from polyline to spline, you can convert splines to polylines but it then adds more new nodes which makes it different to the adjoining sections, it still lofts but the results are a bit hit and miss.

I do have one remaining issue but it does not seem to be an issue with the 3D print test programs, when lofting the body it's a loft from top to bottom, the roof is front to rear, at the outer arched edge the lofting generates different fills so you end up with a small ledge (0.05 mm or so) due to the lofting. I suspect a rail along this edge would be the answer but being as the 3D print programs are not bothered by it then it's not too much of an issue.

Image2.jpg

Arrows show loft directions.

Image5.jpg

Ellipses show difference in lofted arcs due to direction of loft command. Now the simple solution is to add the roof profiles the the body side profiles, however you'd have to cut the front off and then still loft that top to bottom, in which case this issue moves from the horizontal here twixt roof and body to the vertical twixt body and front. As the 3D print is going to be used for a master and smoothed then the small ledges here are not really much of a problem, I was just (unnecessarily) concerned that the 3D print programs might baulk at this niggle, so far they don't.

The rest I'll get to and play with at the weekend.

MD
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
Mick,
Glad you could find some useful bits in amongst the chaff. I've done up a couple of videos to test the Blueberry Flashback software and the microphone. If I can get them hosted somewhere I will link them in here.

In the meantime, I agree that use of a guide or path would help with the edges of those lofted solids not matching quite exactly.

Jim
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
James, there's more in your dialogue than I think you might image :thumbs:

Guides and paths might be a step too far at the moment :p.

Someone did ask me why on earth I didn't try a steam dome or buffer housing as my first lofting exercise lol

Look forward to the vids, I use Youtube for hosting mine if and when I need to.

MD
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
I was trying to be modest....:rolleyes:;).

Mostly because sometimes I have a tendency to use a lot of words to describe something when just a few would have been quite sufficient :oops:.
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
By the way, and I mention this in the video, you don't have to use the gizmo when manipulating the circles that create the lofted cone surface, but you would need to use the gizmos to move the same circular face of a 3d solid cone. This makes sense because the circle remains a separate entity when used to create the lofted surface cone. So you can edit it using traditional commands like move and scale. On the other hand, the circular face of a 3d solid cone is actually part of the cone itself, so the gizmo is required to manipulate that face independently from the rest of the 3d solid.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Still stuck well and truly inside the euro bubble.....and not actually achieving any modelling as such :(....I claim it's all in the aid of research ;)

Anyway, many many moons ago I did a Euro pass, ten countries in ten days, my mate and I basically slept on trains and woke up in a new country everyday :thumbs: It was quite fun to rock up in the evening and look at the departure board and just pick somewhere at random, the idea being to get some decent kip, not have to change or be pitched out at some ungodly hour onto a freezing station. On the whole we did pretty well.

I knew I did Berlin but could not remember how it fitted in, where we'd come from or were going, or our route in and out of the Eastern block, so over the weekend a concerted effort was made to dig through all my negatives and I think I've found most of them from that trip. Sadly they're colour and colour film of the day does not seem to weather well, nor does having them processed in the ever so prevalent 1hr photos shops of the time.

I cannot remember the exact dates, let alone which year it was but it was late summer.

First up Berlin Zoo and our train arrives behind one of these monsters, being an anorak it had to be a first coach jobbie, I do like the Euro windows where the whole top half dropped down :cool:
132 527-3a.jpg

I do have to say though that after half an hour we debunked to the second coach, the high pitched scream from this thing was dreadful!

And now the main reason for digging out the archives, steam, real working steam. You have to remember the wall was still up and Westerners were viewed with suspicion, so taking photos in clearly non tourist areas was not such a good idea, especially with a train full of border guards.

First up 52 813552 8135-7a.jpg

Shocking lighting and colours and that's as good as it gets, but it's real steam :thumbs: You can just make out the station sign (Brandenburg) which was the crucial bit of information that had eluded me for years....should of done this earlier truth be told.

52 8135-7.jpg

A little further through the station we find 52 8178 and another I can't quite make out. Now 8178 was Z'd in July 86 so if my dates and very hazy memory is right this would of been summer of 85 which made me 19 at the time.

52 8178-7.jpg

Further along we find 52 8180, this did not transfer to Brandenburg until Aug 84 so again the dates fit with summer 85. Br.52 are rather reticent when it comes to speed and as such did not cover large distances so were rather territorial.

52 8180-3.jpg

Finally we've arrived in West Germany and outside the station anther Br.132 sits waiting to take a train back over the border, the drivers arm can just be made out in the cab window. By this stage the guards had left the train, I'm not sure where they actually got off or got on, probably got on at Brandenburg and then got off just before here. I need to research that a little better, I do remember the border area being heavily wired and crawling with soldiers and dogs, bloody dogs everywhere, under the train, in the train and just stood outside, I'd hidden my camera in the bottom of my travel bag by this time!

132 545-5.jpg

Final destination is Helmstedt

132 527-3.jpg

My mate Dave in the first coach fretting I was going to get left behind, the benefits of being an anorak in knowing we were going no further with this engine ;) The change over was slick and our replacement engine was a 110, photos later, for our run into Hannover. From there is was North to Hamburg and then Sweden in the morning.

It's a shame about the quality, even so I wish I'd taken more but am pleased I've finally found these again after 30+ years, the prints have long since been lost in house moves.

Enjoy

MD
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Engine change at Helmstedt was to a DB 110 for the trip to Hannover.

110 466-0.jpg

The negative is suffering badly on the left edge and I've not had time this evening to clean it up fully, but the colour is a little better.

Arrival at Hannover and a local V60 rolls by.

260 311-6.jpg

Followed at some point by an E41

141 055-4.jpg

And over the other side another V60 shunts some stock

260 018-7.jpg

The last two have not been processed at all straight out of the scanner, resized and posted. I'll clean them up tomorrow and edit the post to show the cleaner ones later on.

Next stop Hamburg and then Sweden.

MD
 
Top