Most recent visit to Japan

It's been a while since I've posted anything.  That's because Nona and I have been traveling in Asia.  Our trip took us to Osaka and Hiroshima in Japan, Shanghai and Hong Kong in China, Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and then Singapore.  We ended the trip with a week in Tokyo.  This was my first time to any countries in Asia besides Japan.  I found each place we visited to be interesting and a little different from any other places I've been too.

This was the view from our hotel room window near the Hazomon Metro station in central Tokyo.  That's the new Tokyo Skytree in the distance.

Because we were so close to a Metro station and the connections were good to everywhere we were going, we actually went for the full week not riding any surface trains in Tokyo.


Whenever we have visited Japan I've always come away with new experiences, new modeling ideas, and new trains that I wanted to buy.  This latest trip is no exception, and I'll be expanding on some of this in future posts.

Modeling a bicycle parking area

Many residents of Tokyo use bicycles for shorter trips in their neighborhoods or to get to the train station. It is common to find a large number of bicycles parked in the areas around any train station.

This photo I found on the web is an example of what I am talking about.  This is right next to the tracks and it looks like there is a station platform in the background.    I wanted to create a similar scene on the Musashi-Koyama modules.




In the August 2013 post Modeling Japanese bicycles I prepared a number of Tomix bicycles and that is mostly what I am going to use to populate this parking area.

TomyTec kit # 095 represents a small, covered bicycle parking area.  While I did not assemble this kit as intended, I did use some of the parts from it to make this scene.  I wanted a more open scene so I did not use the awnings but they will get used in other scenes.

The base is made from Evergreen tiled styrene sheet airbrushed brick color then a wash of cement which settled into the cracks.

I made by bike racks by removing every other vertical post from some roof top railings from a Tomix building kit.

Here is the finished bicycle parking area just a short distance from the station entrance.  This is also the place to catch a taxi.

Shinkansen train collection

Like most who collect Japanese train models, I have a collection of Shinkansens, also known as bullet trains.  All of my Shinkansen trains are models of trains that Nona and I have actually ridden on.

On the page I maintain called Japanese Train Collection I have up to now only shown my models of non-Shinkansen trains taken on my Musashi-Koyama module set.  This was because I did not feel the Musashi-Koyama module set offered the proper scene to display or photograph Shinkansens.  However the Ntrak lines on the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module are perfect for the display and photography of that type of train.  I have now included photos of my Shinkansens on the Japanese Train Collection page.

Details & lighting inside the sake shop

Back in September in the post Building a TomyTec sake shop, I had built one of the buildings from TomyTec kit No. 089 and installed it on the Hot Springs Junction module.  With an open door and some details already part of the kit, I felt this could create a nice little scene. Now I have gone back and added some more details and lighting to the inside of the building.

The kit had come with a couple of low Japanese type tables and an interior wall.  I added additional interior walls as view blocks as the building as some other open doors and I wanted to avoid the see through look.

The 4 figures were selected from various TomyTec and Kato sets.  The seated customers are local workers, perhaps from a construction site. (towels around the necks) who have finished a days work and are enjoying a few drinks.



The wall posters are from a sticker set that came with one of the Tomix building kits and the stock of sake bottles on the back wall are printed from files provided on the Quinntopia blog.

If I was going to detail the inside then I needed to light it so the interior could be seen.   I use bright white LED light boards from Atlas locomotives that are left over after installing DCC decoders.

On this building I added a view block so the same light did not shine out the upper floor windows.

Here is what a visitor to the layout might see peeking into the shop from the front of the module.  Depending on the angle of view, slightly different parts of the interior can be seen.

A little bit of weathering has been applied to the outside and the building is now permanently mounted on the module. A couple of the nearby trees have been relocated to allow for better viewing of the scene.  I still plan to add a few more details to the outside to complete the scene.

Hot Springs as an Ntrak only module

This past weekend the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module was used in Peninsula Ntrak's layout at the annual Thanksgiving train show held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, California.  This was the first time I had this module in the layout without the AsiaNrail layout also attached to it.

Here is a view of the front of the module as it appeared in the layout.  In this layout, the module was much more visible to the visiting public than in the junction configuration with the AisaNrail modules in front of it.

Here is a view looking down the length of the module.  My JR 115 type train can be seen at the station platform.  The line that would go the the AsiaNrail track is long enough to switch this 3 car train into the station stub track.

In this layout fellow Peninsula Ntrak member Joe Giacomini's American prototype 8 ft module set which also as the mountain division was next to the Hot Springs Junction giving us a total of 12 feet of mountain division track to run the 115 on.



For this layout, I mounted the control panel on the back of the module and this worked out just as planned.  Between Joe and I we have a total of 18 feet of Ntrak modules with the mountain division track but no way to complete a turn around.  We are discussing the possibility of using a portable automatic point to point system in the future.  Perfect for double ended Japanese passenger trains.

Passing through the Hot Springs Junction module on the Ntrak red line is one of Paul Ingraham's Australian freight trains.

One of the details I added recently is a fisherman on the bank of the river.   He can been seen in this photo between the tree and the bridge.

One of Peninsula Ntrak's original club corners was re-built several years ago by members Earl and Julia Jackson as a Japanese village on the inner side of the curve and an agricultural scene on the outer side of the curve.

Another type of movable track bumper

Back in the summer of 2011 when I was getting the Musashi-Koyama module set ready for it's first exhibition I posted about making Movable track bumpers.  These were designed to be placed on the road bed where the track ended to prevent a train from going off the end of the module.  These have worked out well but I was going to need more for the 2014 Los Altos Train Days layout because both modules were going to be used.

Here is a photo from the original post. The original bumpers had used 1/8 inch styrene tube that fit into hole drilled through the cork and into the sub-roadbed.

The additional bumpers I have made are done the same way but instead of styrene tube I embedded track nails with the pointed end pointing down as shown in this photo.

The advantage of doing it this was is that no pre-drilled holes are needed so they can be used on any module.

Overhead wires for Hot Springs Jct.

One of the things I've been working on for the past several days was to get all of the poles installed that would simulate overhead electric wires.  In theory, my free lanced Hot Springs Junction module could be one of those places in Japan that uses Diesel rail cars as those are more common in the more remote mountainous areas.  But the trains that will be run on the mountain division and AsiaNrail lines will include electrics so I wanted to include the wire structures.  Kato, Tomix, and TomyTec all offer versions of this type of model in N scale.

For most of the line I used TomyTec kit No. 020 shown here.  I picked this up on one of my trips to Japan and it looks like I paid 690 yen for each set of 3 double track structures.

I needed single track structures so I cut out the middle section to get two structures from each as shown in this photo.

After removing the model from the spue and cutting out the middle section, I touched up the paint.  The brown of the pole was close to Floquil rail brown and the green of the cross arm was close to an old bottle of Polly Scale paint I had around.

To mount these type of poles I drilled out the inside of a 1/8 inch styrene tube to give the pole a snug fit.  Then drilled a hole in the scenery and glued the tube into the hole.  The tube was then painted a concrete color.

This is a very similar method I used on the Musashi-Koyama modules and that has worked out well.

As with any other track side details it is important to maintain the proper clearances from the tracks, particularly on the inside of a curve.

It's also not that hard to scratch build overhead wire structures for those places where needed.  Here is one of 4 identical ones I made to use between the platforms at the station.

The pole was painted a gray color with the colors of the cross arm, braces, and insulators being a close match to the TomyTec pole structures.

Here is one of the four installed at the station.  For these I drilled a smaller hole and glued the exposed wire on the bottom of the pole without using the plastic tube sleeve the way I did on the TomyTec poles.

Here is the over all view of the station area with all of the poles installed.  I used 13 of the single track poles plus the 4 scratch built double track poles.

Eventually I would also like to have overhead wire structures on the Ntrak lines as well.  The 3 track type of the style from Tomix that I used on the Musashi-Koyama modules line up just right with the Ntrak track spacing as shown here.