A few years ago I experimented with concrete sleeper bases to use with Micro Engineering code 83 rail. These represent sleepers used at Victoria Sugar Mill in Ingham Queensland. The main line of the Illawarra Light Railway Museum (ILRMS) is now laid with 2nd hand concrete sleepers. I had a number printed by Shapeways in FUD. Whilst the experiment was moderately successful there where two issues. The cost per sleeper was way too high and the fastenings on the sleepers were rather fragile. However I did try to make the fastenings close to scale. My results can be seen at?
(The shop is really just to show off my efforts, not to make my fortune. If anyone really wants some send me a message and I will remove the markup) I think they produced a good representation of concrete sleepers.
Recent advances in printing technology and a less scale fastening would mitigate both these problems. I think printing will always be more expensive than casting, especially with the large numbers of identical sleepers required. Would it be sensible to print a few masters and use these to cast bases in a stronger resin? It would probably be better to pre-bend all rails before threading the sleepers on so that they are not stressed.
Sleeper bases for pointwork are a very good idea. It may be better to leave the spike holes out as this would allow for a greater choice of rail sizes and fastenings to be used.?A suitable cast frog/common crossing would be nice to have. Despite the number of frogs I have built (including some full size ones) I never seem to be able to bend the wing rails correctly and get everything to line up properly.
I use Micro Engineering code 83 rail
?and??3 way planed blades from??Have a look in?
/g/o14/files/mjm%27s%20Folder/N5_points?for a design I did some years ago.There was also a lengthy discussion under the heading of "Checkrail and crossing wingrail lengths" that may be of interest to some people.
Regards,
Michael Milway
