Got an empty flatcar sitting around? Or maybe an intermodal yard or industrial siding that could use a little more activity?My latest O-gauge project is a 3D printable ISO tank container.

The model features a cylindrical tank, separate end frames, side bracing, support cradles, and a top walkway. It's designed as a multi-part assembly, so you can print the components separately and put everything together.

These should look right at home on a suitable intermodal flatcar, in a container yard, or sitting around an industrial facility waiting for their next trip.

I've finished printing and assembling mine, and the model is now available on MakerWorld along with an illustrated assembly guide.

If you're following me on Makerworld you already know where to find the files, but if you're not just ask for the link.

As always, I'd love to see what you do with it, especially if you put one to work on your railroad!

It's been a busy couple of weeks. My Monon Cedar Lake depot model got put on my Makerworld page today, my parametric scrap load and log load got uploaded Monday after testing. All cool stuff but I kinda like the freight car loads the most but 3D printing my own freight cars is pretty awesome too.

Since my coal loads were so popular, I decided to come up with a few more parametric freight car inserts. This time around I made a log load and a scrap metal load, both for O gauge gondolas and other open freight cars.

Like the coal load, these are set up for the MakerWorld Customizer. You measure the clear inside length and width of your car, plug those numbers in, and it generates an insert sized to fit your particular car. I also included a simple fit test frame so you can make sure your measurements are right before committing to the full print.

The log load was definitely the more involved of the two. It uses full logs, split halves, quarter splits, smaller pieces tucked into gaps, bark texture, cut ends, growth rings, and a hidden support structure so the whole thing can still print flat as a single piece.

The scrap load takes a detailed pile of assorted junk and scales it to the footprint of your car. You can also adjust the pile height if you want something a little flatter or a car that looks completely stuffed.

Both are removable inserts, so you can run the same car loaded or empty without permanently modifying anything.

I also put together Customizer Quick Start guides for both because apparently I have accepted that writing documentation is part of making train stuff now.

These are up on MakerWorld now. If you need the link leave a comment below!

Not the coolest most exciting model I've done but if you have a freight yard or warehouse or something on your layout and you 're looking for crates or barrels or palettes I've got you covered. Use them as scenery, scale them if you need to, but as is they are all support free prints.

Files up on my MW page if anyone is interested.

After going through nearly 40 rolls of filament this year, mostly designing and printing O gauge train stuff I'm down to a partial roll of pink filament. In an attempt to finish out the roll, the latest project: coal loads for my hoppers and gondolas. IDK where you get your freight cars, but mine came empty… figured it was time to give them something to haul.

The railroad is going to haul fabulous pink coal while I decide if I'm even going to order more filament or if this is the end of my 3D printed railroad adventure.

So why not use the last bit of filament I have in the cabinet to print some fabulous pink coal loads for my gondolas and hoppers?

While I’m laser marking boxes for all of my random cars and such, I got to test out the Cab 1 remote and power master I recently acquired. The 2035 steam engine, 2046W tender, and some random freight were the first pieces out of storage.

The engine smokes like a champ full of popcorn scented Mega-Steam. The whistle tender works when it wants to. Not sure if it’s a track issue, power feed issue, or something else. Doesn’t matter. Having fun.

This week I finished a parametric O-gauge trestle system based on a classic wooden trestle design. This version is specifically for level elevated sections, so every bent is generated at the same height.

Instead of modeling one fixed trestle, I made the whole thing adjustable. You can change the overall height, number of bents, spacing between them, brace tiers, dimensions, and even scale the whole thing if you want to experiment.

The bents themselves are built as a three-layer laminate with alignment pins, and the set also generates the side bracing panels and five-stringer track supports needed between each pair of bents.

So if you need a short elevated section, a long bridge approach, or something somewhere in between, you can generate exactly what you need instead of trying to make a fixed set of trestles work.

This is the same-height version. A system for changing heights/grades is a different problem for another day. 😄

I don't normally model anything but O gauge/scale stuff and actually the model pictured is in 1:48 BUT someone asked for a model of this, in HO and I did that. Then I made it O for some reason. You can obviously us a metal rod instead of the printed post but I have this hangup about having to buy stuff just to go with my 3D printed stuff.

Couple things to note: The last image in the set is not mine, it was the reference image I used to make the model. I don't actually have any of the originals to compare to, also if you're wondering why anything I've printed is in some wild color, it's because I am/was working my way through all of my filament in the cabinet.

So anyway...if you have Marklin stuff and a 3D printer and for some reason you want to print a bunch of those telegraph posts like that one guy on FB to mentioned it to me...here you go.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3248580-vintage-marklin-430-style-telegraph-pole#profileId-3681351

These are sort of a v2. The original was just a fixed height support. Recently I revisited the model and decided it was possible to make it parametric, at least to a degree and so now you can choose the height you need and the model automatically adjusts the center truss section while keeping the top support and bottom footprint consistent. It's designed to be a minimum of 4.5" and a maximum of 12" just purely based on printer build volume. I created a slip on mounting shoe for those who want to fasten this to their layout as well.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3257027-parametric-o-gauge-elevated-track-support#profileId-3691900

If you print any of these (or a lot considering what they are) I'd love to see them in use on your layout!

These are sort of a v2. The original was just a fixed height support. Recently I revisited the model and decided it was possible to make it parametric, at least to a degree and so now you can choose the height you need and the model automatically adjusts the center truss section while keeping the top support and bottom footprint consistent. It's designed to be a minimum of 4.5" and a maximum of 12" just purely based on printer build volume. I created a slip on mounting shoe for those who want to fasten this to their layout as well.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3257027-parametric-o-gauge-elevated-track-support#profileId-3691900

I don’t have a layout let alone space ON a layout to store rolling stock. I don’t have wall space for the cool train shelves lots of folks have either. When I buy random stuff without boxes like I think a lot of us do, I store them in plain cardboard boxes. Until now…

I had the brilliant (dumb?) idea to take some boxes intended for the rolling stock I bought over the weekend and mark them up with my xTool s1 laser. I came up with what you see here. This can be template any number of ways but in this case I’m using the logo, car number and description. If I wanted to make more generic batches of these I’d keep the logo and subtext but ditch the description, and laser a 6- with an open box where I could write in the rest of the car number but honestly each end of the box takes less than 8 minutes and I just come and flip the box over to do the other end.

The motivation for this was something that looked substantial and appropriately industrial without taking up an absurd amount of layout space. The finished building has separate window and door inserts, a large industrial roof, a chimney, and just enough brick/architectural detail so it doesn't just look like a big plain box.

The windows and doors are separate parts so they can be printed in contrasting colors instead of having to paint the entire shell. I also designed the window inserts with removable print supports built into the parts, so there isn't a bunch of slicer-generated support material buried in the openings.

The whole thing was designed with FDM printing and actual assembly in mind rather than just making something that looks good in a render. The photos are of the actual printed and assembled model.

I also put together a full assembly guide for it.

Files are up on MakerWorld for anyone else who wants one for their O gauge layout.

My motivation here was something that looked substantial and appropriately industrial without taking up an absurd amount of layout space. The finished building has separate window and door inserts, a large industrial roof, a chimney, and just enough architectural detail so it doesn't just look like a big plain box.

The windows and doors are separate parts so they can be printed in contrasting colors instead of having to paint the entire shell. I also designed the window inserts with removable print supports built into the parts, so there isn't a bunch of slicer-generated support material buried in the openings.

The whole thing was designed with FDM printing and actual assembly in mind rather than just making something that looks good in a render. The photos are of the actual printed and assembled model.

I also put together a full assembly guide for it.

Files are up on MakerWorld for anyone else who wants one for their O gauge layout.

As always, happy to hear what you guys think.

I accidentally found this subreddit today and thought I’d join. I model mostly structural stuff for O gauge/O scale trains in openscad.

I recently put these track clips and curved grade crossings on makerworld. They’re at the link below with all the other stuff I’ve posted so far. I’ve been trying to publish something new every week. Hopefully someone finds this stuff interesting or useful or worth printing since I just have this temporary test track in my makerspace I can’t do anything permanent.

https://makerworld.com/en/@user\_1781035789/upload

This is from my x50 ultra. This is a fresh map. Made it on Thursday. This clean happened on Friday. So one day later. You can see the clean was set to “all”. The robot cleaned every room BUT the bedroom. It still claimed it completely cleaned. No indication that a room was skipped or anything. The dogs were outside and I was the only adult home so I know I didn’t block the robot. This sort of thing happens regularly but it really shouldn’t considering the map was made the day before and it clearly and accurately mapped all the rooms.

I bought this trolley a few weeks ago, had to do a complete clean and lubrication. It runs pretty nice now. I set up this track to to run it and then it started to separate the track at the joints and I had to solve for that...

If you noticed the bright green track clips...yeah so did a bunch of other people. I wasn't going to publish those but they blew up on Facebook so I released a parametric (customizable) version of those because they'll likely need adjustment due to inconsistencies in metal stamping on various track. The K-Line track had ties in the right place on the ends. The Menards track required me sliding the ties closer to the track ends.

A couple of weeks ago. I released those vehicle grade crossings. Well someone commented on that model on makerworld asking if I could do one that fits an O31 curve so I busted out my K-Line 031 track and got to work. I made it parametric same as the other version so if it doesn't fit exactly you can modify it for your needs. I even went as far as to include an option to make the double track version. You can see I'm using O42 outside and O31 inside on my trolley track.

https://preview.redd.it/i4y8vtrlljkh1.jpg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=681b83dc1d9f844d26e0c417053e40a0fa746908

https://preview.redd.it/vu6bttrlljkh1.jpg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c3926d15d668ad0bd62dbab37b4cd80f4b0eb671

https://preview.redd.it/lrh6purlljkh1.jpg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a11215336b89c68987d1f3202b7ebdd09a57476e

https://preview.redd.it/x0m5iurlljkh1.jpg?width=5712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b7e19024671f75bafb39bf769204c85c387aeb1

https://preview.redd.it/pzwvsurlljkh1.jpg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=251a4ce1022e97bb693002f93607a2923e61bbfb