Ride the rails across the country with Darrell Brownlee

The WMRC is not the only 70 year old! VIA Rail marked the 70th anniversary of the Canadian and her famous Budd cars in 2025.  To travel coast to coast by rail in Canada you will be riding on “The Canadian”, from Vancouver to Toronto, a Corridor train between Toronto and Montreal, and finally “The Ocean” (which celebrated its 120th anniversary in 2024) from Montreal to Halifax. 

Whether you're a “Budd” or a “Renaissance” man,  travelling Canada by rail gives you a sense of adventure and a greater insight for modelling railways. Darrell Brownlee, one of our newest members, has made many trips across the country on the Canadian and the Ocean. He'll be presenting his historical knowledge and facts on these great trains and cars and will share travel tips at our January 9th meeting. 

The fun starts at 7:30PM in the Tank Room at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. The canteen will be open and we will have out usual photo and model displays.

New member Darrell Brownlee makes a great first impression with his 3D models

Darrell Brownlee made this lighted model of the building at 138 Portage Avenue with a 3D printer.

Darrell Brownlee, our newest member, is also one of our most talented members. At our November meeting, he wowed everyone with his lighted model of the historic Keewayden / Crowley building at 138 Portage Avenue East, which he created with his 3D printer. He also designed and 3D printed a Digitrax battery cover.

At our December meeting he held his first clinic for the club’s Clinic Carnival, where he set up his 3D printer and made some models. He also brought in two N gauge structures he created with Fusion 360 software and his 3D printer. The structures were  based on two buildings in the Exchange District. The restaurant, whose prototype is located at 95 Arthur Street, was printed using a resin printer. 

The four story structure is a compressed model of the building at 91 Albert Street. The building, roof and floor insert were printed with a filament printer. The doors and windows were printed separately using a resin printer ands will be installed separately. Darrell also created an insert which will have wiring going up to the centre to power LED’s own each floor.

We can’t wait to see what Darrell’s going to bring to next month’s meeting!

Darrell designed and 3D printed this Digitrax hand held battery cover.

Darrell 3D printed Scale replicas of the buildings on 95 and 91 Albert Street.

Darrell printed the windows for the structures pictured above, which will be installed separately. 

 

A good time was had by all at the WMRC's annual Clinic Carnival and Christmas hot dog banquet

Darrell Brownlee (left)  demonstrates how to make model with his 3D computer. John Bate, sitting behind him, conducted a clinician how to use 3D printing software.

Everybody had a great time at last week's clinic carnival and annual Christmas hot dog banquet. We even had a few guests! 

For the first time at our annual clinic carnival we had two tag team demonstrations. We had a 3D printing clinic by Darrell Brownlee with a software tutorial on how to set it up by John Bate. 

Murray Brown showed us how to make your own decals, while MMR Fred Headon showed us how to apply them. Marvin Fetch was on hand showing us his many structure building techniques.

And of course, there was the hot dog banquet! Everyone enjoyed the air fried hot dogs expertly prepared by our master chef, canteen operator Mark McLennan.

Murray Brown shows Graham Leathers (R) and Gary Stempnick (L) how to make decals.

After Murray Brown showed you how to make your own decals, you could mosey on over to MMR Fred Headon's table to learn how to apply them.

Marvin Fetch shares some of his expert structure building techniques with long time member Allan Graham (L) and WMRC Past President Bob Harrison (R).

Neil Carleton uses 3D printing to make replacement gears

          The Samhongsa gas electric combine Neil Carleton bought needed gear replacements.            

By Neil Carleton

This article originally appeared in The Lantern, the official publication of the WMRC.

I bought a brass Samhongsa gas electric combine from the estate of Morgan Turney. It was sold as “needing work” but it was such a well made model that I had to buy it. On the track it would go about 3 inches and stop, when reversed, 3 inches back.

The model has one powered truck with a universal connected to the motor. When disconnected the motor ran smoothly with no issues. On removal of the bottom cover plate and opening the gear tower I found three plastic gears meshing to brass gears. On close inspection, all three were cracked, and they jammed when the crack rolled around. The gears are quite small and two different sized axels. 

NorthWest Shortline has hundreds of replacement gears and some they recommended, but would not let me send the damaged ones to make sure. Each new gear was over US$30 and not easily returnable. A friend who is not an active model railroader wondered if 3-D printing was a solution.

I contacted Darrell Brownlee, who has printed some vehicles and some other items for me. He said he knew what to do, so I got the cracked gears to him. In short order he returned new gears, with lots of spares. I fit them in and they worked! 

Then I realized I could not tighten the gear tower sufficiently to remove some gear slop when going forward, causing excess noise.

It appeared that the machine screws were bottoming out so I spoke to Darrell and with the measurements I sent him, he was able to print extremely small washers. The washers were various thicknesses but the winner was two about the thickness of paper.

Gas electric now runs smoothly in both directions. Next step is to add DCC and then paint and decal the model.

Close up of the gear tower with the nylon gears removed.

The original nylon gears, which were cracked.

The 3D printed replacement gears and washers made by Darrell Brownleee.

 

It's Clinic Carnival time at the Winnipeg Model Railroad Club

Come one, come all to the WMRC’s annual clinic carnival and Christmas hot dog banquet! Please note that we’re having our meeting on Friday, December 5, a week earlier than usual.

We have an exciting roster of some of Winnipeg’s best modellers sharing their skills this year, including Murray Brown, who’ll show you how to make your own decals, and Fred Headon, who’ll show you how to apply them. John Bate will have a simple 3D CAD program running, capable of producing the files needed to drive 3D printers. People can see how this part of 3D printing is done, and try it for themselves. Darrell Brownlee will show you how to complete the task using 3D printing. 

While you’re soaking in on all of these great modelling hints, feast on gourmet air fried hot dogs prepared by our own master chef Mark McLennan, along with pop, chips, donuts and cookies!

The fun begins at 7:30PM on Friday, December 5 in the Tank Room at the Charleswood Legion, 6003 Roblin Boulevard. We’ll he having our usual model and photo display, as well as the 50-50 draw. Don’t forget to bring a tin for the bin! Every donation helps the less fortunate.