2016 Los Altos Train Days

This past weekend I had all of my Japanese prototype modules in a joint AsiaNrail / Peninsula Ntrak layout at the Los Altos History Museum as part of their annual Trains Days event.  It was a busy time for me as I was the coordinator for the Ntrak part, and had modules in both layouts.

We had a triangular shaped AsiaNrail layout connected to the rectangular shaped Ntrak layout through my junction module.  The Musashi-Koyama module set was right out in front.




This was the first time for my Musashi-Koyama modules to be in the layout in such a way that they were carrying through traffic.  Everything worked fine mechanically and with the track but we did identify some changes that need to be made electrically to make using both tracks easier in this type of operation.  I'll have plenty of time to work on that before the next show.

With several other people from the JNS Forum helping out and bringing trains to run we had a great variety of trains on the layout.  Shown here are just a few of them on Saturday waiting in Paul's staging yard for their turn to get out.

Here is someones 583 series train passing through the grade crossing on the new extension as to the Musashi-Koyama modules as it pulls into the station.  Hopefully by the next outing I will finally get some crossing gates and both grade crossings.

On Saturday I did run my Kato E5 set for the first time on the Ntrak layout.  It ran great until it lost one of the axles on the lead truck of the lead car.  It came off somewhere and we could not find it.  Luckily on Sunday while we were disassembling the layout the stray axle was found.


The show was a great success with over 2800 people visiting all the layouts including ours.  This was the 8th year the show has taken place and it seems to have become a regular event in the community.

Storing and transport of small modules

For my larger modules I have shells made from 1/4 inch plywood that bolt on to the module frame and form a crate that protects everything on the module but what about a small module like the small extension to the Musashi-Koyama AsiaNrail modules that I have been working on.

I have found that for the small modules I like to make a custom cardboard box.  Here is the small extension module in it's box ready to go to the up coming Los Altos Train Days show.   This box was cut down from an empty wine case.

To secure the module within the box I used the 1/4-20 tee nuts that are already on the module and secure the module with two bolts through holes made in the box.  The same method is used for the small transition module between Ntrak and AsiaNrail.