Jump to content

All Activity

This stream auto-updates

  1. Past hour
  2. MD12

    Lets see your Koki

    I consider that as "I need Koki 200, and I need more budget to procure more fluid containers on is..." It might be a good time now as both KATO/ TOMIX are making Koki 200 recently.
  3. Wolf

    Lets see your Koki

    ... I need Koki 200 ...
  4. N-Osoi

    My plan from the ground up

    OK I'm up and running! Everything works. I used some 249 curves to make an asymmetric oval that fits on this temporary table. The M2 pack came with English instructions as well! All the trains survived their long haul flight. The Tomix motor is noticeably louder but it's a diesel so that kinds works. The interior light is ridiculously bright! I love how the head/tail lights automatically go white/red depending on direction. Is it true that new locos need a bit of running in? And I appear to have a few extra bits and decals to attach to my red wing... do Kato make English guides for that or is it a case of using a magnifying glass and Google translate for getting the right decals?
  5. Today
  6. MeTheSwede

    Suburban Station And Train Depot

    I realised today that this layout is built on two Tomix 8031 layout boards bolted together. (They come with holes and bolts for this purpose.)
  7. MD12

    Lets see your Koki

    This is such a dangerous thread that you would only want to buy more and more containers... Presenting some Koki 200, including some I purchased before and some new KATO releases.
  8. Something I have not seen listed here is the Japan National Railway booklet from 1960. 76 pages, softcover. From the last page: AR: Nippon Kobo Co., Ltd.; PR: Toppan Printing, Co., Ltd., no other publishing info, ie ISBN number. Lots of B&W photos and 3 large (over 2 pages) colour photos. Only 3 of the photos include steam locomotives, and only in the background. Purchased at a used book store in Sidney, BC Canada for $15 CDN a few of years ago.
  9. Yes, in case of broken tabs on the underside of the carriages, the solution would be to glue the coupler housing to them.
  10. Do you think the stairwell in your latest Tomytec building acquisition looks a bit tight? Welcome to a bar named "TiGhT" in downtown Shibuya. XL sized westerners may want to head somewhere else.
  11. RS18U

    The Introduction Thread...

    Thanks @cteno4 for the welcome. Yes, I can see how they could be addictive! The quality of the KiHa 81 is amazing, even better than I was expecting based on the Kato North American units I have. I may post some of my Canadian stuff at some time, things are a bit in confusion at the moment in the train room/office as I get ready for retirement. Then look out 😉
  12. Today a friend sent me my first Autocarrier and I got some parts to put together a Bluetooth speaker Tomix car for size reference.
  13. bc6

    Lets see your Koki

    ED75-775 thats a good start to a nice Koki collection.
  14. Where is the que of desperate folks waiting for the toilets to open!? Maybe kobaru makes some figures like this… jeff
  15. cteno4

    My plan from the ground up

    Good so temporary for now suits you well it sounds like. That’s the great thing about Unitrak is it’s super hardy stuff and lets you just play a lot over and over and over! Track planning software is great to try ideas quickly then make them with real track. yeah that sounds great, you could curve the shinkansen back in maybe r249 hidden curves. Most shinkansens can actually take r249 regular track, but just look awful. Curves could be hidden in hills on each end and rest out front your local lines and scenery, would only add like half a meter to your layout width. you could even fold a viaduct loop in with returns at both end and either hide the back tracks or run all 4 of the tracks into a single, short shinaksen station in the back of the layout. End loops could be scenery like fields, mountains or other town. This gives the front and center of the layout to the local tracks and scenery for that. But you are now talking more like 3m+ layout! one last thought on layouts is to think modular (like Ttrak) or sectional layouts. With modular you can go with a standard format like Ttrak or make your own. Downside is it sticks you to loops but it’s easier to store and perhaps play with others. Sectional is taking a regular layout and cutting up in sections that you can easily pull apart for storage, moving, or even taking to events to show off. Just requires looking at your plan for strategic places to create the joints and building bases to match this joint pattern. The modules don’t have to be the same size or shape. It’s a little extra electrical work to put electrical connectors between modules but not horrible. Our club layout moved to this format after we got tired of big on the fly setups! enjoy! jeff
  16. ED75-775

    Lets see your Koki

    Amateur hour, tutorial-level content incoming... OK, not much to see here, but I am heading back to Japan in May so there’s a good chance I can do a spot of levelling up! Most of this came from Rokko or Zenmarket with the exception of the Kato 10-815 (TradeMe). Alastair
  17. N-Osoi

    My plan from the ground up

    Thanks again Jeff, Yes I think it will be temporary stuff for a while. As a kid I just liked re-arranging my tracks and running trains in various patterns and shapes... this still appeals to me but now I also want to build scenery, so the island idea sounds great, or just a bunch of buildings that can be re-arranged as necessary. I don't foresee ever having enough space to run a 'proper' length Shinkansen (or 8-car Yamanote line) that won't look silly anyway 😄 . What would be cool though (dreaming here) is a small layout with local trains, but a separate viaduct track with hidden ends that has a Nozomi speed through it every minute or so 😎. Anyway enough posting, time to set up some trains and track.
  18. Yesterday
  19. I’ve had a couple of these couplers come apart on me over the years but mostly requiring reassembly after shipping. One I needed to glue the tabs to keep the thing together. Just a slight tolerance issue or maybe bent tab in factory assembly. Better to do this with the whole assembly off the coach. But considering they’re used on a good portion of my many blue trains amongst other rolling stock, 1 or 2 out of about 70 coaches is pretty good.
  20. Sorry about the poor quality of some of the recent pictures. A lot of it seems to be down to the lighting. Layout lights only in a dark room seems to work best so it's a question of making the effort to do that every time. Toilets tried in place. It still needs a platform socket cut for it.
  21. When tabs get that tiny they do get fragile and need a lot of care when removing or attaching. To make them sturdy then requires them to be pretty bulky which then makes the hosing look way oversized. They are pretty tiny! jeff
  22. cteno4

    Lets see your Koki

    Good to see shorties represented! jeff
  23. cteno4

    The Introduction Thread...

    Welcome @RS18U, glad you found us! bBe careful Japanese trains can become addictive, get enough of them on your layout and when the lights are out late at night they knock the other trains off the layout and onto the floor or behind things! Great you have the family attachment to Japan. Keep us posted on what you get and if you feel like it start a topic on your Canadian layout in the layouts forum. cheers, jeff
  24. bill937ca

    My plan from the ground up

    Most JR stock is 20m long. There are some legacy private railways like the Keikyu run 18m stock which is more amendable to sharper radius curves. https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10915447 Keikyu 2100 series is a two-door limited-express train. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keikyu_2100_series
  25. cteno4

    My plan from the ground up

    Track radius and layout size also depend a lot on the equipment you want to run. Shinkansens won’t run well of r249 or look good on r282 and to run a 16 car shinkensen you need a longer layout, even an 8 car train can look strange in a shorter layout. Shinkansens also don’t protypically run (but it’s your rr you can run them where ever you want!) on regular tracks and most put them on viaduct track and this quickly increases layout size. If you stick to smaller trains like 1-4 cars then life can be easier on a small layout with shorter mainlines and tighter curved as well as smaller sidings needed. You will find the model railroad hobby, and layouts specifically, is all about tradeoffs and finding the permutations that give you the most within your limitations. You first have to work on what are the variables that are most important to you, then determine any basic interaction of those variables (ie layout side to train length), then fiddle with the variables to find the best permutation of values that give you the most back for your enjoyment! But the good/bad thing is it’s an everlasting fiddling which some hate, but I find as my interest and situation changes it’s fun to have a hobby that can flow with you. Ok [yoda mode] off. a hot glue gun, xacto, ruler, and some chipboard or heavy cardstock (scrap boxes or cheap stuff at the craft/art store or even corrugated cardboard) are your friend. It’s really quick to mock up a building size/shape. You can even draw some windows on it or cover with some construction paper or spray paint. Basically you just want the space filled so you get the idea of how the buildings look next to tracks, where it’s good or bad when structures hide trees, and just mainly see what you like (some like dense, others more sparse). There are a number of free printable pdf structures out there as well. Print them on cardstock or on paper and glue to cardstock, cut the out and paste together. PM me if you want some of them I have collected off the web that are free. Also some sources to get files pretty inexpensively if you are into doing these. It is an inexpensive way to get something together quickly as buildings can get expensive and are items that can be more expensive these days to ship. It’s also not wasted time as the basic skill sets of cutting and gluing are very key in the hobby and it’s a bit of innate skill but mostly just practice, practice, practice that gets you wielding an xacto and glue bottle like a pro! Also best to practice on stuff that doesn’t matter if you screw up! You can also just put a piece of fabric down on your table to look more ground line and poke holes in it to run wires underneath it to hide them. It also catapults some Unitrak on a table of floor into something feeling more like a layout and helps increase your enjoyment which is important in the early phases as you can get frustrated at steps and continuing to play some and keep it rich and varied helps a lot in not getting stuck somewhere. many folks just stick to temporary layouts for a long time or forever. The first 5 years of our club was temporary layouts set up on the fly at train shows. We put down construction paper on the bases for roads, concrete, dirt, etc areas and plopped in buildings and small scenery islands. This can make quite a fun layout and be especially helpful to have fun and start learning more layout design and scenery techniques until you have decided on your layout. Here is a great article on doing scenery islands like this and scenery just around building bases to really push a temporary layout into something that looks great, but can easily be put away! It’s also the best way to get into doing scenery. If something screws up no big deal, little lost and do again to figure it out, best way to learn with minimal loss. Then you have bits of examples of scenery to allow you to visualize what you may want on an eventual layout. This lets you test out scenery technique on small bits to learn and see what does best for you. Just about every scenery bit has like 5 major techniques to do them, each with their own benefits and risks and I always find one just speaks to my hands and skill and gives me the look I want for a desired investment of time and money. beware the sankei bug it’s addictive! Takes one or two of them to get started on how it all works and see if it fits your skills and patience level. But I find them very zen like to do and nice satisfaction from them. I’m a big woodworker and sankei uses a lot of interesting joints built up from layers of the laserboard that speak to me! They are reasonably priced and with their colored laserboard you don’t need to do any painting or edge touch up to have a very nice little structure! cheers jeff
  26. N-Osoi

    My plan from the ground up

    Am I right in thinking that the difference between Kato's #4 and #6 turnout is that #6 has a larger radius, therefore a more gentle curve? Also, you can't really mix and match track brands easily, I assume? My local is out of all Kato turnouts/points (Do we use points here or turnouts?) And one more question - Kato seems to have a large range of radius curves. I've had a search and is it right that *most* Kato trains will be OK on R249 curves? I randomly bought some of those to reach the tax-free threshold at one shop 😄
  27. RS18U

    The Introduction Thread...

    A quick intro. I am in Western Canada and have been an HO scale/gauge model railroader and interested in the prototypes since the late 1970's. My main interests are Canadian Pacific in western Canada in the mid 1970's and Canadian west coast logging post WWII. My father had strong business ties to Japan in the 70's and 80's, and my wife's family all originate from Hiroshima, so we have this tie to Japan that goes back a fair ways. We just finished our 4th trip to Japan in 10 years and as usual enjoyed ourselves immensely. This last trip was all about Kyushu while the one before was Hokkaido. All by rail of course! Since I have the interest in railways already, I have taken an interest in how the Japanese have managed to do such a great job. I don't have any intent to change what I model, but I will do the odd bit of Japan starting with a purchase I made this last trip of a Kato KiHa 81. Will be searching the forum for info on what detail parts Kato provides to add, and which of the many decals to apply. Looking forward to the forum!
  1. Load more activity
×
×
  • Create New...