Designing the LaSalette Station

3D Model

There are two great looking little structures needed for the LaSalette Free-mo module, a station and a interlocking tower. I plan on designing and building both of these are faithfully as possible from the few pictures available of them.

I am starting with the station. This has been completely modeled in 3D using a sophisticated parametric design package as an assembled laser cut model. Each piece of the station has been designed and drawn to interact with the others including all the tabbing necessary for alignment and offsets applied to compensate for the width of the laser beam. In total I have about 40-50 hours of time in just the design alone.

While it may seem like having a laser is a major shortcut to building structures for a layout, this could not be further from the truth. Without accurate drawings the laser is pretty much useless, and developing those accurate drawings is very time consuming and requires a great deal of skill and effort to produce good results. The only advantage is once all that is done, as many kits as one wants can be cut out. Of course most will only need one building of a specific design, especially a station so the advantage of the laser goes out the window.

All that said, I still find it worth while to invest the time to design the parts accurately, but I’m a bit nuts that way. Quite literally, an entire layout could be built in the time I have spent on the design of this one building, but I enjoy that aspect of the hobby.

Below are some photo realistic renderings of the LaSalette station, generated by the same software used to design the building.

click on images for larger view….

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 01-30-2008 | 04:01 PM
Posted in: LaSalette Freemo Module | Latest Posts