Making Custom TriMet Locomotives


catnippertom

catnippertom

That Oregon Guy
I am pretty new to the model railroading hobby and I am looking into creating some custom locomotive shells through Shapeways or a similar thing like that. I have been searching for a while for models of some locomotives that are local to me and none seem to exist even through custom models. The first is the WES Commuter Rail's WES Colorado Railcar Aero DMU and the second is the Siemens SD660 Trimet "Type 3" MAX Lightrail. I feel like for both there are existing chassis that would work but a body needs to be designed to work for both of them. I know these things can be designed in a program like Rhino but I am a 21-year-old college student so I am not going to shell out the crazy amount that Rhino wants to pay for it. Does anyone have any idea about any programs that are similar to Rhino but are free? And does anyone have any good ideas involving chassis to use for the two locos?
 
I think you may be looking at this the wrong way round, if your designing the bodyshell you can design it to fit any chassis you wanted to, but to be pro-typical you need the distance between the two truck center's as well as the distance between each of the trucks front and rear so as to be as close to the original as you can get, so first you need to have those measurement's, take it down to 1:87 scale, then look at which models fit that criteria, otherwise, you may as well use any chassis you can lay your hands on.
 
Smudge617 said:
I think you may be looking at this the wrong way round, if your designing the bodyshell you can design it to fit any chassis you wanted to, but to be pro-typical you need the distance between the two truck center's as well as the distance between each of the trucks front and rear so as to be as close to the original as you can get, so first you need to have those measurement's, take it down to 1:87 scale, then look at which models fit that criteria, otherwise, you may as well use any chassis you can lay your hands on.
Click to expand...
That is something that I needed to get squared away for sure. I want to get the measurements going and designed out in order to find a donor chassis. Starting to tinker with the measurements is key to finding out the most prototypical donor.
 
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