The Shimbashi area of Tokyo

On our trips to Tokyo we have stayed in many different neighborhoods.  On this most recent trip we spent the last few days in Shimbashi near Shimbashi station.  The station is only 2 stops south of Tokyo and several JR lines stop here.  While the Tokaido Shinkansen does not stop here, it does pass through.  The photo below shows the view from our hotel room window.

The tracks are all elevated on a wide viaduct.  I've always found these interesting and would like to model a 1 or 2 track version of something like this on a future module.

These viaducts often house businesses underneath the track.  This particular one was wide enough to have a walkway running lengthwise with businesses on both sides.  This continued for quite a distance.

Just outside the Hibiya exit of Shimbashi station is a large open area called SL Square.  It's named this because there is a class C11 steam locomotive that is on display there.  At noon each day, a simulated steam whistle blows.  It was while visiting this square that I learned of the significance of the Shimbashi area in Japan's railroad history.  More on that in a future post.

2025 Hiller Trains and Planes exhibit

Last week the AsiaNrail layout was set up and running for the annual Trains and Planes exhibit at the Hiller Aviation Museum.  Peninsula Ntrak also had a layout and we had the connection to my Hot Springs Junction set up connecting the AsiaNrail layout.  In this scene is my Yufu 185 Series is on the left and Shinano 169 Series on the right.  This photo was taken on Paul's Shifin module set.

We had a few problems this time.  This was a triangular layout which has been done at least 2 times before but this time maybe some different modules were used in different places and the geometry did not quite work out.  We ended up having the staging yard with only 3 through tracks and 6 stub end tracks.  Also, we were not able to get the 4 way junction module to work correctly so the two branch lines connected to it had to be run independently and not interchange with the main loop. 

Paul's 3-way wye module was working correctly and that is what made the connection to the short branch that ran to my Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module.  Here is Paul's Ibusuki no Tamatebako train passing through the wye.  

With all the recent work I've done on the Musashi-Koyama modules in the past few months, they have a much more finished appearance.  We often don't have enough space to put up rope barriers around the layout but we did at this show.  I elected to remove the rope barriers in front of these module and instead relied my the plexiglass barriers and that worked out well.  Many a small finger print and nose print left on these barriers at the end of the exhibit.

Besides keeping busy with the AsiaNrail layout I was also able to run my E5/E6 combination for the first time on the Ntrak layout, shown here in the staging yard.  I also ran a full 11 car Yamanote line 205 series train.

This was the first show in a year that I have been able to attend with modules.  In spite of any problems we had with the layout, it was an enjoyable time.  More of the Ntrak members attended this event than had in the past and we had plenty of help with setup and tear down.  And it was great visiting with all the guys again. 

Visiting the Tomix layout in Kanda

While in Tokyo this past January I visited the Tomix World layout in Kanda.  This is a showroom of products and dioramas and a large operating layout.  There is not anything for sale here and the admission is free.  It's on the 7th floor of this building near the Kanda station.  The enterance door to the elevator is to the right of the Family Mart under the round window.

Of course I took a bunch of photos.  Here's some of the best ones of the large layout which had many different trains running. 

This is definitely worth a visit if you are in Tokyo.  Here's a link to their English web site to check for their hours.  https://www.tomixworld.jp/

The Tomix Pachinko Building - Part 2

After finishing how the lighting was going to work I moved on to finishing the interior detail.  The kit included 4 rows of pachinko machines and 8 rows of seats.  These were removable from the base but were made of a type of plastic that did not take paint very well so I had to spray them with an adhersion promoter before painting.  I had a bag of background quality figures and about half the seats got  occupants after their legs were cut off. 

The kit included stickers for pachinko machines and other interior surfaces that were part of the base.  A few more standing figures were also added.

The roof normally sits loosely over the original battery compartment.  To hold this roof on but have it still be removable, I glued a small magnet to a scrap of .030 styrene sheet and then taped that over the walls of the battery compartment.

Then a scrap of steel starping was glued to the inside of the roof with E-6000 adhesive.

The entire inside and outside of the building got painted.  The building itself was already glued together so I just had to paint it carefully by hand.  The outside of the building also got a bit of light weathering using detail wash with the roof section getting a little heavier treatment.

The railings that came with the kit were painted and installed on the sidewalk section and a few more figures were placed outside the building.  

The Tomix Pachinko building- Part 1

Years ago I found this Tomix building at a local train show for 10 dollars and when I built these modules I found it easy to fill in an empty space with it.  It already had some unpainted interior details so I thought some day I would like to finish this structure and light the inside.  That day has finally come.

Tomix buildings like these often come with a nice sidewalk section that interlocks with the structure base.  This set had this front sidewalk plus another section for a parking lot in the back.  When I first installed this on the module there was no room for the sidewalk so I left it off.  Now that the modules are developed further, I decided to use the sidewalk so I cut the parking lot section to fit and moved the structure back just a bit.

This building has a sign in the front that lights with 3 LED's connected to a circuit that makes them flash in sequence.  The light was barely visible through the sign and I had considered replacing it with something else.  What I discovered was that the LED's were positioned too far behind the sign for the light to be effective.  I found that if I fitted styrene tubing over the LED's the light was more focused so decided to keep the sign. 

I built a small 3 volt regulator circuit to replace the pair of AA batteries that had been powering the sign.  The load is very small but I still added a heat sink and did a 24 hour test to be sure this circuit would stay cool.

To light up the interior of the first floor I made a ceiling out of .030 styrene sheet and glued it to the existing plastic piece that holds the lighted sign and front doors and windows in place.  5 surface mount LED's were inserted through holes in the ceiling and scraps of decoder wires were used to connect them to a PC board from a Kato GP50.  This was also something left over from a decoder installation.  These will run on the 12 volt DC power circuit with a current limiting resistor.  The photo below shows the top side of this ceiling.

To be continued .......

Finishing the Palm shopping arcade

The Musashi-Koyama Palm shopping arcade is a one of the main features of my module set.  While it was one of the first things started on these modules back in 2011, it has never been finished.   For the past several weeks I've been going through the modules and finishing things area by area.  It's now time to finish the Palm shopping arcade.

A pair of Tomix corner buildings form the entrance to the Palm Arcade.  The finishing of one of these was covered in detail in the previous post.  This second one is modeled after some businesses that are still there and I could use those as a reference, creating some similar signs to those that are actually there.  The first floor of this building is a bakery and the second floor is a pawn shop.

The flooring for the arcade was created using Microsoft Visio.  Patterns of tiles were copied from those seen on Google street view images.  The patterns were made smaller and closer together toward the back to suggest a force perspective in the scene. This took quite a bit of trail and error before I got it right and it fit into the unusual shape.  The final printout was sealed with glossy packaging tape to give it some shine.

The original printed image on the back wall was from a photo I had taken.  After test fitting the cover I was not satisfied with how well it looked with the floor so I found a better one on Google street view.  This also took many attempts to get it into the right size and position.  Then a photo of the front of a Diaso store was pasted along the wall on the right side.  There is actually a Diaso store within the Palm Arcade but it's in a different location.   A pair of LED light boards from Atlas locomotives that were left over from decoder installations were used to illuminate the inside of the arcade.

Before re-installing the structure that included the roof, I added some figures.  I found that the canopy glue that I have been using to stick figures down was not holding as well on the glossy tape surface of the tile floor to instead went back to using E6000 adhesive for this job. 

Here is the finished scene.  The actual location goes on for over 2000 feet but my model is only 5 inches deep.

Finishing a Tomix corner building

This Tomix corner building is one of a pair that I modified about 14 years ago to form the entry of the Musashi-Koyama Palm shopping arcade.  They along with the rest of the arcade structures have been sitting on the module all this time with a primer gray color while I worked on other areas of the modules.  The photo below shows how it looks with the other structures removed.  The modifications to this structure had been that part of it on the left side had been removed to make it fit in the space available and the windows had been covered with a styrene siding.

Up until the late 2000's, the actual location that this model is based on had been a yakitori chicken place.  That's long gone now but I wanted it in my representation of the area as it was in the 1990's.  I recalled noticing what seemed to be a take out counter and my wife remembers it having both take out or eat in options.  So leaving out the clear plastic front door insert, I made a counter and back wall attached to the base.

And here it is with the building re-installed to see that everything still fits OK.  I plan to add lighting over the counter area and some detail as well.  The opening to the right of the counter will be the entrance to the restaurant.

To light the area of the take out counter I used 2 surface mount LED's glued to a piece of clear window material left over from a kit and dulled with sandpaper to defuse the light.  The LED's were connected to a leftover board from an Atlas locomotive to use it's current limiting resistor. Scraps of decoder wire were used to connect the LED's to the board then 22 gauge wire was soldered to the inputs of the board to connect it to the 12 volt DC buss under the module.

A sign was created for this business and attached to a sign board that was in my stash of parts.  The sign board and exterior trim was painted yellow and the visible interior walls were painted a darker yellow.  Some menu board images from the internet were shrunken down to side and pasted to the wall behind the counter.  In these last two photos it will be noticed that tile flooring has been added.  How I did this will be covered in a future post.

To finish this building the visible exterior walls were painted white and the roof received some 3D printed details.  Then the roof received some black weathering wash which really brings out the detail on the items on the roof.