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.

The JR Nikko line

In my previous post which was now almost a month ago I mentioned taking the Shinkansen on the way to Nikko.  When we arrived in Utsunomiya we made a connection to the JR Nikko line to complete the trip to Nikko.  This is a very short line of only 40 km and serving 7 stations within Tochigi prefecture.

Since 2013 the trains running on this line are 4 unit sets of the 205 series.

At one time the 205 series were very common in Tokyo but have been steadily replaced by newer models.  This photo was taken at Utsunomiya station.

The Nikko station has one of the old foot bridges similar to the one I built from a Greenmax kit for my Hot Springs Junction module.

Here is a look up one of the stairways of the foot bridge.  These type of bridges used to be more common then they are now and I don't see them much around the Tokyo area any more as things have been rebuilt and modernized.

Tobu has it's own line called the Tobu Nikko line that connects to central Tokyo with a transfer.  The Tobu Nikko station is very close to the JR Nikko station.  At the end of the JR platform the Tobu line passes over the JR line.  This 2 unit Tobu train is approaching the Tobu Nikko station.

Riding some of the newer Shinkansens

On one of the days we were in Tokyo in late March we made a day trip to Nikko.  We purchased Shinkansen tickets from Tokyo station to Utsunomiya to cut the travel time but also we hoped to ride one of the newer trains that are now running on the Tohoku Shinkansen line.

We were not disappointed and got to ride two Shinkansens that we had not ridden before.  The E5's running in 10 car formations are common on the Tohoku Shinkansen line as seen on the board shown here.

On the trip back to Tokyo we rode on this E3 which is not exactly new but we had never ridden on one before.  They also appear to have a new paint job from ones I've seen before.

I noticed that the E3 had these little steps that fold out when the train came into the station.  The E3 is a bit narrower than the other Shinkansens we had ridden with the seating arrangement being 3 + 2 as opposed the normal 3 + 3.




 I later learned that both the E3 and E6 Shinkansens are narrower so the trains can fit through narrower clearance areas on both the Akita and Yamagata Shinkansen lines.

As I often do, I got a photo of the train guide that is  in between cars.  As seen in the guide, this was a 7 car formation.

So it looks like now I"ll have two more Shinkansen models I will  want to add to my collection.

AsiaNrail at the NMRA Covention

The annual NRMA convention and National Train show is coming up in less than 2 months.  This year it's in Portland Oregon.  While I won't be attending myself, Paul Ingraham will.  He will have a smaller version of the AsiaNrail layout in the Layout Design SIG (Special Interest Group) room.  He will also be presenting several clinics on modular layout design and modeling Asian prototype during the convention.

This years convention will be between August 23rd and 29th.  Click on the logo to the left to access the convention website.

This LINK goes to page on the convention website that has the location and times of Paul's clinics.

Back from the N Scale Convention

I recently attended the 2015 National N Scale convention that was held in Sacramento, California.  This was the 23rd annual event put on by the N Scale Enthusiast organization and each year held in a different location.  Besides a show with layouts, they also have clinics, tours, auctions, manufacturers and sales tables, and other activities.  It's a busy several days and not easy to do it all.  This years event had almost 500 N scale modelers attending from all over the US and a few other countries.

The event was held at a Double Tree Hilton hotel.  One decent sized room was just for the layouts.  There were 4 layouts each representing something a little different in modular layout standards. Each layout group there could have put up larger layouts but we had to keep them small due to space constraints.

• Peninsula Ntrak - From SF Bay Area, about 130 miles away.  Uses basic Ntrak 3 track standards. This layout had Nn3 on one module, a large staging yard with lots of trains running, and plenty of detailed scenes. 

• San Luis Obispo Model Railroad Association - Brought their Bendtrack layout from about 300 miles away.  Lots of great scenery on this layout.  Bendtrack is a double track standard and uses end loops.

• Silicon Valley FreemoN - Also from the SF Bay Area I see them at most of our local shows.  FreemoN is a single track standard using junctions and end loops and track is code 55.  This group has fine scenery and details on all their modules.

• Sacramento Valley Ntrak - This is the local Ntrak club which uses some optional Ntrak standards such as the mountain division track and alternate blue.

It would have been great to have had the AsiaNrail layout set up as it would have been a 5th type of standard and of course being Asian prototype would have offered something completely different.  Paul was out of the country and could not make it to the convention so I had my Hot Springs junction module in the Peninsula Ntrak layout as the only representative of Japanese or Asian prototype.  The photos below are all from the Peninsula Ntrak layout.

The club I belong to, Peninsula Ntrak had this unusual triangle shaped layout to fit the space available to us.  We did this using a pair of 45 degree curved modules one of which is seen in the foreground of this photo.

My Japanese themed Hot Springs Junction module was in the layout without any of the AsiaNrail modules attached to the mountain branch line.

Next to my module was this new module done by Tom Knapp that had a Nn3 narrow gauge line looping behind the sky board.

Peninsula Ntrak's Julia Jackson won the award for the best module of all of the layouts with her 6 foot Jackson Corners module shown here.  This module has been around a few years now but still attracts a lot of attention.

Another new module that was in it's first layout was this club corner with a vineyard / winery and a festival.  The scenery was done by Julia who has been rebuilding the scenery on many of our club modules.





I really enjoyed attending this convention. The last one of these I went to was in 2005 in San Diego. I'll try not to let another 10 years slip by before attending my next one.

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.