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 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 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.

Details for the Tomix condo building

The Tomix condominium building has lots of potential for adding details and scenes within the building itself or around it.

There are 2 units on each floor with all but the top floor having a balcony.  The top floor are smaller but have a good sized patio area instead of the balcony.

Each unit has planter box.  I suppose the inner wall could be cut away to make the balcony larger but I wanted to try to represent some plants.

I found that some left over beams from a RIX Products bridge kit cut to the correct length fit right into the planter.   The tops of the beams were painted brown and some scenic material added.  Then grass tufts were added to represent some plants.

Here is one of the completed planter box units inserted into a planter box in one of the top floor units.  The patio furniture for comes from Preiser set 79554.

On the other top floor patio I used one of the laundry line parts from an Preiser unpainted figure set that I have had around forever.

In reality a more modern building like this one would likely have a washer and dryer in each unit.

In the raised area at the front corner of the building I added some grass, shrubs, and a Woodland Scenics tree.  Some school children from a Kato set bring some human life to the scene.

There is still much more that can be done with this building but for now I need to stop and get other things ready for the convention layout.

The Tomix condominium building

I have had one of the  Tomix # 4034 condominium buildings on the left end of the module bolted down but left unpainted since 2011.  It was time to finish and and make it something more unique.

This is a really well designed building model and additional kits can be used to make it as short or tall as you want.  It holds together without glue and can be taken apart for painting.

I air brushed the building sections with Testors sand and wrote the color and part number on the inside of the 1st floor in case I want to add more sections later and need to match the color.  All the patio areas and the roof top were painted concrete and the entry doors dark gray.

The base was brush painted with concrete colors on the sidewalks and building foundations. Reefer gray was used for the parking area.  The gate to the parking area came from the Green Max fence set with the lamps added from a TomyTec festival figure set.

The stairs are separate pieces that stack on top of each other and match the walkway on each floor.  These are another well executed part of this model but my only complaint would be that they don't include some sort of cap piece to go on the top of the column.  I went through all my scraps and found something to make my own.  The blue arrow in this photo points out this piece I added.

The top part that is above the elevator shaft got a coat of Testors dark green and the entire building was given a wash with Testors brown weathering wash which helps to bring out the brick detail.

Several sign stickers are included in this kit and I chose to use the one that did not have any English writing.

This model has lots of possibilities for details and I will get into that in the next couple of posts.
 

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.

Hot Springs Junction wrap up

Over the past few weeks I've been working on finishing all the little things that I wanted to have done on the Hot Springs junction module before the N Scale convention in Sacramento.  Some of those I have covered in more detail in recent posts.  In this post I will wrap up the rest.

Traffic Mirrors

I wanted to add a couple of traffic mirrors on the winding narrow road between the station and the hot springs hotel.  These were scratch built in a similar way to the one I made for the Musashi-Koyama modules in the December 2011 post Seeing around the corners.

Wood rail fence

I felt the edge of the cliff in front of the hot springs hotel should have some sort of fence.  I wanted some sort of wood fence that would fit in with the scene.

I found the Peco NB-45 fence set to be just the thing.  Like the Kato gutter set featured in the last post, this set gives you plenty of material to work with.

Overhead wires

In last Novembers post Overhead wires for Hot Springs Jct. I had identified Tomix 3005 overhead wire structures as being just the right fit for the Ntrak lines.  6 structures were assembled, painted, and installed along the Ntrak right of way.

At this point, the module is packed up and ready to go the N Scale Convention.    This has been an on and off almost 3 year project from the time I started to rebuild the old module and I consider this module to now be 100% complete. I don't think I've ever been able to say that about any other layout or module I've built and it feels good.  Of course there will always be something to be repaired or renewed on the module, or prehaps some tempting new products that come along that I will want to add.

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.

Modeling Japanese bicycles

Bicycles and motorcycles of all types are an important element in a model scene of Tokyo.  This post is going to be limited to bicycles.  Look at almost any random Google Street view scene of Tokyo and you are likely to see some bicycles.  Fortunately there are several options available for N scale bicycles.  I have not tried them all but here are the ones I have used.

TomyTec offers two sets which include both bicycles and motorcycles with riders.  They are well detailed and painted.  The riders are separate pieces if you want to use the bicycles as parked.  Several of the other TomyTec building or scene sets also have bicycles included as part of a scene but they are separate pieces and can be used by themselves.

For bicycles without riders Gold Medal Models offers a set of 10 etched metal bicycles and a couple of parking racks.  These have been around for quite a few years and are widely used in the US to model bicycles.  Being etched metal they are quite thin and it can be a challenge to place a rider on one and have it look right.  Also I felt that while they are the same overall size as the Tomytec models because of the thinness they just did not look right when placed together with the Tomytec models.  I used them as parked bicycles in separate scenes as shown in the post Finishing the Green Max houses.

Sanki offers a set of 4 riderless bicycles that are of a paper stock.  The handle bars are separate and I found quite difficult to attach to the frame and then very delicate.  These models are undercoated black but can be painted.   At 280 yen for a set of 4, these were the least expensive N scale bicycles I've tried.

What I've had good results with for parked bikes are these plastic models from Tomix.  They come in two different styles and are unpainted except for the tires, seats, and baskets.

Because I don't really like the molded colors of these bikes, I end up repainting them starting with the frames.  I've hand painted the ones shown in this photo but they could be airbrushed as well.  After the frames are painted, I go back and touch up the tires with Floquil grimy black.

Here are two of my completed bicycles with some details added, mostly by painting.   I do all this painting and detailing before removing them from the spue.  By adding details like this, it is possible to make each one unique even if they are the same color.

I found that the sport model bike is quite delicate at the front and had best results by cutting that first, then the back, and last the bottom.

When compared side by side there is quite a difference in the sizes of the Tomix and TomyTec bikes.  What I have been doing is using the Tomix ones as parked and the TomyTec ones as being ridden since those come with some riders that seem to fit OK.