Clinician: Earl Hackett – Philly Express

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CLINIC: What You Can Do with 3D Printing

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DESCRIPTION: Years ago I wanted to build a model railroad of the Wilmington waterfront. It was a highly industrialized area served by the PRR, B&O, and RDG railroads. Each had their own spur track, 2 in the case of the PRR. They all entered under a single arch of the PRR high line. The whole area would fit nicely along one wall of my basement with the PRR station at the left side. I went to the national archives to get copies of the valuation maps for the track plan, and had the original plans for the PRR station. I generated the plans for the station model. They were published in Mainline Modeler and that single article got me the authors achievement award. After more than a year of work I had the finished model at the cost of over $1000. It was obvious that this was beyond my ability to complete with the technology available at the time – silicone molds and epoxy castings. So i went back to following my favorite lines, the Appalachian coal haulers, particularly the C&O. Then came 3D printing. This has changed everything. I estimate that I could crank out a model of the PRR station in 4 to 6 weeks at a cod under $70 in materials. The idea of modeling a real railroad was revived, but the Wilmington waterfront was gone. Fortunately there is another possibility, Thurmond, WV where there many prominent buildings remain and extensive photo decimation of the others are available. So I scaled the C&O track plan to HO scale and placed it against one wall of my basement room. The layout extends from the depot and freight house on the right (the asile is the New River) to the coaling tower on the left, and includes the truss and girder rail and road bridge across the New River as well as the Southside yards where empty coal hoppers were stored.

About the Clinician...

I was born on W 16^th street in Wilmington, Del, not far from the B&O station. Northbound trains would often slip on the grade approaching the station and my mom would pack me up and run down to the station where I would see this smoke and steam belching thing pounding the ground coming directly at me. To this day I can’t shake the feeling of dread or excitement when a steam loco approaches. My grandfather and uncle were both engineers on the PRR so I guess I’m from a railroading family although I became a chemist.

I’ve been a model railroader for over 70 years now. Like most modelers I was started by a Lionel Christmas layout at a time I can barely remember. My first permanent layout was with the Lionel equipment, but I never liked that three rail system. I've been involved in HO scale model railroading since the 7th grade except for a few years I took to build and sail a 40' sailboat. I'm currently building my sixth layout.

Until recently I was a free lance modeler with a collection of whatever locomotives I thought looked good. I began collecting brass while in Utah and Texas with the Air Force so most of my collection was western roads. My current layout started out as a free lance design, but will into construction I found myself being attracted to C&O motive power. I decided to follow the C&O prototype, which resulted in a pretty massive rebuild that continues today to model (with some artistic license) the western Allegheny grade from Ronceverte to Allegheny Summit.

I scratch build or heavily kitbash just about everything. I made many business trips to Manchester, UK and became friends with John Yates who at the time was the chief signal officer for the East Lancashire Railway. Operating the signal box (the British term for a signal tower) at Ramsbottom got me hooked on signaling. I'm installing operating interlocking cabins (the C&O term) on my layout. A portion of that project provides the examples for this clinic.