Traveling but never far from trains

It's been awhile since I've posted anything here.  We did a cross country road trip from California to New York and back that covered almost the whole month of April.  While I wasn't able to work on any of my hobby projects while away, I was able to enjoy some prototype railroads both past and present.

The primary purpose of this trip was to visit family in Ithaca, NY and to make some repairs to their house after an upstairs water pipe had burst during the winter and caused some damage to a downstairs room.  That's why we drove, so I could bring all the tools I would need.

Their property borders on what used to be  a Lehigh Valley Railroad line.  From what I have read, it was most likely abandoned around 1976 after Conrail took it over.   Many miles of the abandoned right of way in this area of New York state have been preserved with plans to develop a system of  walking / bike trails that will connect some of the state parks.

This is the view of the house from the RR right of way to give you an idea how close it is.  That's Lake Cayuga in the background.

This is the right of way where there had been a Lehigh Valley track between Ithaca and Geneva that ran close to Lake Cayuga.  I walked about 1/2 mile of this route and could not find any evidence that this had once been a railroad.




In the city of Ithaca itself the old station still stands and appears to now be used as some sort of financial institution.  Next to the station are several LV passenger cars and a caboose that appear to be in good shape, and an old engine of some type that is not.  Also near the station building next to a road bridge over a canal is thru girder railroad bridge that appears to line up with where the tracks would have been near the station.  For photos check this link: http://www.abandonedrails.com/Ithaca_to_Geneva

On the trip back the weather was better and we took some extra time to make a couple of sight seeing stops.

I had seen the ad for the Golden Spike Tower in Model Railroader magazine and that was my pick for a place to stop.  It is just off I-80 in North Platte, Nebraska.  That's our 13 year old Chevy Silverado in the foreground that took us on this long road trip with no problems.

This view of the locomotive facility is just a small part of what can be seen from the tower.  There are both enclosed and open observation decks with many displays posted to help explain what is going on.


During our visit, there was a retired UP employee available to answer questions.  There are 2 hump yards that can be clearly seen.  It was all very interesting and I'm glad we stopped by.  If you have a chance to go here, I suggest bringing some binoculars and a telephoto lens for you camera for seeing / photographing up close.  For more information about the Golden Spike Tower visit http://www.goldenspiketower.com/

Hopefully now I can get back to making some progress on my modules and other projects.

Building a TomyTec Hot Springs Hotel

Seems like I'm building most of the buildings for the Hot Springs Junction module before I really have the module ready but that's OK.  I've now moved on to starting the hotel which I plan to have toward the opposite end of the module from the station.  TomyTec offers 3 different Hot Springs hotel buildings in their extensive line of pre-painted kits.

The one I choose was No. 66 shown here. This is a great kit. Easy to put together, the instructions are clear, and like the Aoshima Apartments kit, everything is pre-painted. I built this kit without modification but may add a different foundation to it depending on exactly how it gets positioned on the module.

The sheet below came with the kit and shows the other buildings that are available along with a complete scene.  In my experience of sometimes having stayed at places like this, they are most often not close to a train station and are serviced by taxis or or buses and that is what is shown here.

Finishing the Green Max station

After adding the window glazing to the inside of the station building, the building and the outer walls got glued to the base.  Also a few figures were added to the scene.

I was happy with the results so far but was concerned that after the roof was put on the scene would be lost in the shadows so decided some lighting was needed.

I used 3 small surface mount LEDs to light the open areas under the station roof.  The inside of the station building is not lighted.  I used copper foil tape to create the contacts and built the whole assembly on the top of the ceiling before installing it.  The red and black 22 gauge were will go down through the building and module base.

So here is the finished station with the lights on.  Not too bright, just enough so the details show.  This station is now ready for the module.  Platforms will be needed and I am planning to scratch build or kit bash those to fit the space.

Stickers for the Green Max station

Japanese train models and building kits come with stickers, not decals as I have been used to working with.  At first I found these hard to work with but after repeated attempts and trying different techniques, I have been getting better results.  These stickers are colorful and add quite a bit of realism to the finished structure.

This is the set of stickers that came with the Green Max station kit.  In this set there are many of the types of signs you would expect to find around a train station plus some advertising signs.

After figuring out exactly where you want to place a sticker, it time to cut it out from the sheet.  I have found the best way to remove the selected sticker from the sheet is to use a straight edge and sharp hobby knife on a hard surface.  Press lightly so that only the thin sticker film is cut and not the backing paper.

The sticker film should then be peeled off using the tip of the hobby knife.

The back side of this particular set of stickers had a foil look to it.  Later an accidental scratch on the front of the sheet revealed the same foil look suggesting that this is a foil sticker.

To apply the sticker, orient the hobby knife so as to give the desired angle to best place the sticker on the model as shown in this photo.  In this case, there was a raised frame around the edges of the sign location so size and positioning was more critical.

Painting the small Green Max station

I found this photo on the Internet of one of these kits that had been completed and liked the colors used for the building and roof.

Here are some of the major parts after being painted.  I did keep close to the same color scheme but reversed the base and trim colors of the building using Floquil antique white for the walls and reefer white for the trim.



Floquil oxide red applied with an airbrush was used for the roof and I decided to give it a little more variety using engine black for the railings.  Not shown in the photo I used Floquil concrete for the base.  The base was already about the right color but I find that everything looks too plastic unless its painted so I paint nearly everything in an unpainted kit.

Realizing that it would be hard to reach many of the details after the building was fully assembled, I hand  painted those at this stage.

Next I'll be working on applying some colorful signage to this station.

Modeling Tokyo taxi cabs

Any model scene of Tokyo should include some taxi cabs, this is especially true when a train station is part of that scene. I have been wishing for some time that TomyTec would release a set of modern taxis.

Recently I got my wish when I found these 4 taxi sets by TomyTec and Kato on ebay.  The TomyTec set included 2 Toyota Crowns and 2 Toyota Prius models.   The Kato set had 4 sedans but I'm not sure of the make or model.

Here's a comparsion of the 3 different models.  The TomyTec taxis have all the same great detail of their other recent vehicles.

Both TomyTec and Kato taxis even had green license plates like the taxis do in Tokyo.  The TomyTec taxis all came with the same rooftop lantern but the Kato set came with a variety of lanterns as separate parts.

So now I have the beginnings of a Tokyo taxi fleet. During the subway construction period I model there was no proper taxi stand at Musashi-Koyama station.  A short distance from the station the taxis would line up along the street.

Building a small Green Max station

Cold, wet weather has been keeping me from spending much time out in the garage where the work was on the foam insulation board scenery was taking place on the Hot Springs Junction Module.  As I also need a few structures for this module, I decided that it would be enjoyable to spend some indoor time building a nice Green Max structure kit.

Green Max #27 is very similar to many small train stations  that serve outlaying areas or secondary rail lines.

I picked up this kit at TamTam in Tokyo during my November 2011 trip.

The instructions for the Green Max kits are on the back of the box and are in Japanese.

The illustrations are good and use numbers that match the numbers on the spues.




Unlike the Green Max houses and Green Max stores where I made some modifications, I plan to build this one just as instructed.

The Green Max kits that I have assembled have always had very clean parts and never any flash that needed to be trimmed.

At the last train show I attended I finally purchased a proper spue cutter so my cuts on this one hopefully also wont need much trimming.

I used the base to align the station walls while gluing the walls together but will leave the base unglued as I plan to paint it separately   On these Green Max kits there is normally a lot of detail that needs to be hand painted after the structure is given a base color which is usually done with an air brush.



The way this building is laid out, I decided to leave two outer walls of the building loose so I could get to the details on the inner walls.

To be continued