Arun' Modern Image CAD Bench

[Arun Sharma]

I've been CAD doodling of late following a few trips to Clapham Junction [Sarf' London as opposed to North Yorkshire] to photograph the class 455/8 SWR EMUs before they all get replaced by new class 701 Arterios.
The class 455 have the highest availability of any EMUs on BR being of a fairly simple design based on the Mk3 20metre bodyshell. They share essentially the same bodyshell as many of the Sprinter DMUs and early second generation 3rd rail and 25kV EMUs. In fact the first class 150 was created by taking a 455 shell off BREL's production line and putting a diesel engine in it.
All the remaining 455s are now employed by SouthWesternRailway and there are three subclasses distinguishable by their different cab and roof lines:

This is the class 455/8:


The upper pic is a screenshot of the CAD program showing the artwork for the cab and how it relates to the fwd half of the passenger area. The lower pic is part of that artwork translated into solid form via 3D printing in 7mm scale [naturally]. This basic design could [like BR did] be used for a variety of MUs including the class 210 DEMUs that worked (mainly) on the BR(W) lines out of Reading.
These were printed at home on an Elegoo Saturn 8k resin printer but the body shell will be printed [in two halves] on an industrial FDM printer in ABS because it is 381mm long and being devoid of significant surface detail, can be printed on an FDM printer and sanded smooth. The doors [blue in the picture] will be printed separately on a resin printer because of not wishing to lose the surface detail. I will draw some nickel-silver etches for the window surrounds and drop-down ventilators.
Visitors to the Guildford O gauge Trade Show [23 Nov 2024] should be able to see this on the 7mm Scale Society stand.

 

[Arun Sharma]

I've done a little more today - the DTSO car now has its ends and the body inbetween. The castings for the MU connectors and seats are done but very little regarding the bogies and underframe boxes so far. Thre are some nice pics of a 455 drivers cab in one of the MLI magazines (220) so there's enough information to draw the various cab desks and controls.
This pic show the basic car:

The roof transverse framing at the far end of the car is not present in all 455 sub classes - a feature that wasn't apparent until I stood on the bridge at Clapham Junction watching these units pass underneath. However, it is present on 455/8 cars - as well as various Sprinter DMU classes. In this class, the driving car isn't the power car so the underframe is relatively uncluttered. The power car [MSO] looks (above the solebar) just like any trailer but the bogies are quite different and there are large numbers of boxes bolted to the underside.
The MSO car will be done sometime soon once I have co-ordinated the various photographs of the underframe equipments.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

With different cabs and a dropped roof section in the MSO for a pantograph you could have a classes 319, 320 and 321.

Classes 319 and 455 were frequently see operating side by side on the Central Section out of London Bridge.

 

[Arun Sharma]

The cabs of the 455/8 that operated on Southern services were somewhat modified:

But nothing terribly difficult to change. I will happily admit that I do prefer the Southern livery to the SWR one. The MU connectors are the same - the only real change is to the front of the corridor connection and the cab headlamps. I did produce a 7mm class 456 cab for somebody once:

which would sit well on the Mk3 bodyshell as well as form an easier base to convert to a class 319.