Street markings

I have always wanted to apply some sort of street markings on the Musashi-Koyama modules.  Adding the small expansion module with it's streets seemed like a good time to do it.

Shown in this photo is a Kato set of road stickers that is part of their Diotown series of products.  I would need quite a few of these to get enough of the white striping and they seem to be hard to find right now.  I did not even see them last year when I visited the Kato store in Tokyo.

On the Hot Springs junction module's station platforms I had used Builders in Scale HO scale yellow highway striping to create the platform edge warning line and had liked the results.  I posted about this in June of 2014 in a post titled Scratch built platforms - Part 3

So I picked up two versions of this same product in white at my local hobby shop.  One version has solid lines just like the yellow one and the other version has dashed line of varying lengths.

I was concerned that being HO scale the lines might look over sized but they are actually just a bit slimmer than the lines that are on the bases of some of the kits.  This photo shows a side by side comparison of a TomyTec bus stop base and my striping work on the Musashi-Modules.

To do the boundary lines I used a .010 x .250 strip of polystyrene as a guide lined up along the edge of the road and held in place with blue painters tape.  The painters tape I used is the type that is for delicate surfaces.  It takes a bit of practice to keep the lines straight.

I used a narrow paint roller handle with a hard plastic roller to press the lines down once they were in the right position.

Gentle curves like the one showed in this photo can easily be made.  I also did sharper curves around a 90 degree corner but those were quite a bit harder to do.

I had originally planned to use the dashed lines product for the cross walks but realized that it would create too narrow of a cross walk.

So I cut a 3/4 inch strip off the end of the solid line product to use for the cross walks.  This would scale out to about 10 ft or 3 meters which is about right.

When applying the cross walk lines I used a square cut piece of polystyrene sheet as a guide to line up the edges and the spacing between the lines was just done by eye with the spacing between the lines being the same as the line width.

The line ends were close but not perfect.  This flaw seems to be the most noticeable so I used a straight edge and a hobby knife with a new blade to even them up using the two shortest ones as a guide.  The cut off sections were then gently pulled away.




When all the basic lines and the cross walks were done, all of the streets were given a little weathering with Bragdon weathering powders and a coat of Testors Dullcoat.

Basic layout of expansion module

After experimenting for a few days with placement of features on the extension module the photo below shows what I decided on.  This layout is freelanced but based on some features that do exist at this location. There is a wider street, that intersection has traffic signals but the intersection is 4 way.  There is a small Tokyo Police Box (station) on this street which is a two story building. When the surface rail line was in service there was an electrical sub-station next to the tracks and the Police station was in a slightly different location and was a small one story building.

The seam between the two modules is at the top of the darker road surface.  As there has been good results using a joiner-less track connection on the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module I am trying that out again here with two tracks.

Streets

The streets are done with 2 layers of .020 Evergreen polystyrene sheet which has been secured to the module with Liquid Nails for projects.  On the original modules I had airbrushed all the streets with Floquil SP light lark gray but this paint is no longer available.  On the expansion module I have airbrushed the streets with some Floquil grimy black which appears way to dark for my liking.  What I will probably end up doing is hand brushing all the streets on all three modules with Model Master reefer gray so they will match.

Sector plates

The three areas around the streets which have been air brushed with Testors concrete are .040 thick sheets of polystyrene sheet with an addition .040 thickness of sidewalks.  These "sector plates" are not attached to the modules and can be removed and taken to the bench to work on.  When installed on the module the sector plates are held in place by the buildings which have 4-40 screws extending through their bases.

Modeling Japanese Buses

As great as the passenger rail systems are in Japan, there are also a great many buses.   It makes sense as there are going to be places where the trains don't go and a connection can be made by bus.  Bus stops are often just outside a train station and can easily be included in a modeled scene.  Lucky for us modelers that TomyTec offers some great models of Japanese buses.  Below are examples of three basic types.

Bus tours are very popular in Japan and this is a model of a Japanese tour bus.  There are many companies that run these tours and some of the buses are quite colorful.

There are trains that go to the airport but another option if you have a lot of luggage is an airport shuttle bus.  These make stops at many of the major Tokyo hotels and several of the train stations.

This is a model of a typical city transit bus.  They are smaller than American transit buses and less luxurious than the Japanese tour and airport shuttle buses.  The same Suica card used for the trains also works to pay for a bus ride.

All of these bus models have fantastic details both inside and out.  Even the license plates are readable.  This one is from Shinagawa-ku which is the same general area of Tokyo where Musashi-Koyama is located.

The transit bus body can also be used with a motorized chassis to work with the TomyTec Moving Bus System.

This is the package that the transit bus comes in. Included in the package are some bus stop signs.  The tour and airport shuttle buses come in a cardboard box.

The transit bus was given to me as a gift and I will be using it along with some bus stop shelters that were also a gift on the new extension of the Musashi-Koyama modules .

Difference between a yard and a meter

When I started building the Musashi-Koyama module set in 2010 I tried to follow the AsiaNrail specifications carefully.  Everything in the AsiaNrail standard is metric, track spacing, track set back from the modules edge, etc.  The one thing I had overlooked was the dimension of the module frame.  I built a pair of modules 36 x 18 inches !

The depth of the module is no big deal but the length is.  This module set has been in several shows now and the way we have worked around it has been to use it as an end terminal on a branch line.  That's OK but it would be great to get it into the loop part of the layout and Paul has a nice 2 meter long staging yard that would match the length on the opposite side of a loop if this module set were the correct length.

It seemed like the best way to correct the problem would be to build another small module that could be attached to one end and bring the length of the set up to 2 full meters.  The length of the module would need to be 6 - 3/4 inches and the depth could be anything up to the 14 inch depth of the main modules.

So I built this small extension that can be attached to the right end of the pair of modules.  It is 6-3/4 inches wide and with it added the module set will be a full 2 meters.

With the top and bottom sealed and cork roadbed in place I am now mulling over what to do for scenery on this extension.  I do have a number of items already that will fit in well.






Anyone who has built a display layout or modules knows one of the biggest motivators to getting things done is having a show to take the layout to.  Because of schedule conflicts I have not had the opportunity to have modules in an AsiaNrail layout for almost 2 years and have been working on an American prototype home layout instead.  It is now planned for there to be a joint Ntrak / AsiaNrail layout at the Los Altos Train Day event on September 17th and 18th so I am motivated to finish this new small module and perhaps get some for scenery done on the main modules.

Adjustable height leg system

To make the height of the track correct so that the AsiaNrail layout can interchange with an Ntrak layout Mountain Division track using the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module, the AsiaNrail layout has to be lowered from 51 to 43 inches.  Back in the fall of 2014 we did a layout exhibition using this configuration which included for the first time the Musashi-Koyama modules and at the time I simply shortened the legs.  All of Paul's AsiaNrail modules have adjustable legs and that's what I need to have for the Musashi-Koyama modules as well.

When I had shortened the leg assemblies to 40 inches I had to make new top cross boards.  Those boards never got painted as I knew I would need to someday make the height setting adjustable to use the modules at the 51 inch height again.

This is what the leg assemblies looked like after I had done that first modification.  Now I am cutting again at the locations shown in this photo.

A new pair of legs was added to the upper section inside of the cut off sections of legs that remained at the edges of the top cross boards. 1/4 inch thick plywood strips were added to one side of each leg so that when put together the legs are sandwiched in between.  10-24 bolts and tee nuts are used to hold the leg at one of two different heights.

Here is a photo of one of the completed leg assemblies set in the lower position.  A leg height of 40 inches will set the track height at 43 inches with the screws at the bottom of the legs at about halfway in their 2-1/2 inch adjustment range.

The black parts are the original structure and the unpainted parts are new material.  When finished everything was repainted with a black enamel.

Here is the same leg assembly set at the 48 inch height.  This sets the track level at 51 inches.   Some modifications were also made to how these legs go together in their stored mode for transport.

With the experience of modifying this set of legs I will be building an entire new set of legs for the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module.  I currently have two 4 foot Ntrak modules but only one set of legs.  An adjustable leg set for the Hot Springs Junction module will allow it to be used in either an Ntrak layout or in an AsiaNrail layout.  It will also allow me to have both of my Ntrak modules in a layout at the same time.

Beyond the Palm Arcade

It's been way too long since I've added anything to the Tokyo in N Scale blog.  The modules are for using in a display layout and I have not had any opportunities recently to display the modules so my focus has been more on my home layout.  Hopefully I will get a chance to display the modules this year.

During our trip to Japan in November 2011, Nona and I took a walk all the way through the Palm Arcade to see what's on the other side.

This photo shows what it looks like at the far end of the Palm Arcade.  It has a structure very similar to the one at the station end.

We were surprised to find that the street itself continued on for as far as we could see and that it hosted a busy retail district of it's own.

Eventually we came upon this rail crossing and small station.  This is the Togoshi-ginza station on the Tokyu Ikegami line.  It's one of those old time small stations similar to Green Max station kit # 27.


It was another pleasant afternoon exploring Tokyo.

Surprise package from Japan

It's common for Japanese people to exchange gifts, especially when visiting or being visited.  Recently we received a package from some of our friends in Musashi-Koyama, Tokyo, Japan.   And along with a couple of purses for Nona and some food items, there were some N scale items.

I received a Tomix suburban house, and a transit bus, and a set of baseball players from Tomytec.  I know our friend Tamami picked these out because she always gives me N scale items when we visit Tokyo.  Even though she is not a modeler herself, she seems to know just the right items that I can use.



Both the Musashi-Koyama modules and the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module have items that Tamami has given me.

I've got a couple of old modules that were given to me that I've been wanting to refurbish and perhaps I can make more suburban scene on one with a baseball field.  The inspiration for this idea is one of the first Japanese dramas I saw years ago.  I can't remember the name of it now, but it was about some high school baseball teams and where they played was next to some railroad tracks which we were fairly sure was the Chuo line.