My first N guage layout - Truck Terminal Diorama

[JR 500系]

Hi people!

 

Thought of sharing with you guys my very first N guage layout, a truck terminal Diorama! Indeed, after clearing out the space where my Lego used to be, i finally had space for Tomytec! To be frank, the Tomytec truck terminal picture really captivated my heart and i went straight in, with the intention of creating my very first N guage truck terminal diorama...

 

Without further ado, may i present to you my IN-COMPLETE (about 80% complete) Truck terminal diorama!

 

View from the front... I'm missing the main gate which i have already oredered from PJ but have not arrived yet...

 

Here's the railroad office building from Tomix which i used as the main adminstration building/ offices..

 

A small nice little cosy corner to rest under the trees...

 

The container trucks are parked way in to un-load/ load

 

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View into the truck terminal... I need LED lights inside man...

 

Here's the container lifter at work, loading a 40foot container onto an awaiting trailer

 

Upper right hand corner shows some un-loading works from a container...

 

Another view of the container lifter at work...

 

A waiting bus to ferry the workers to the nearest train station

 

Another view of the main office building

 

Here's a close up view of a guy checking out the goods inside the terminal...

 

Some more unloading from a pallet inside the terminal

 

A last view of the truck terminal...

 

I'm missing the main gate, and also probably will be putting in more trees and also draw up the road markings with directional signs to make the entire disorama better looking...

 

Comment & criticism very welcomed! Thanks for r4eading this!

[Hobby Dreamer]

Nice job! ....  a real showcase of Japanese N scale quality!!

[KenS]

This is a nice idea for a diorama, and I like the look so far. You mentioned trees and road-markings, but I suggest you add a few light poles as well. Terminals rarely shut down when it gets dark, and outside lighting is a typical feature. 

 

With the office building there, you probably need some employee parking (unless it's assumed to be outside the fence, which is probably better) or at a minimum a couple of "visitors" spaces and (for a modern U.S. design) a reserved handicap space or two. And maybe a "reserved for employee of the month" or "reserved for director" space.

 

Another good detail to add would be a truck scale. That could be a small marked area just inside the gate (perhaps with a small shack next to it) so arriving and departing trucks can be weighed.

[Mudkip Orange]

This is fracking cool. I love trucks.

[JR 500系]

Thank you for the kind comments guys! Appreciate that! 

 

Your input is great for new ideas KenS! Indeed, i have planned for a vistor carpark, but have yet to draw them in yet... Also looking at it, it seems too small for that visitor carpark so i might extent the layout abit more... With regards to lights, i have already purchased them and asking my good worker to assist me in the soldering (cause basically i dont have much time to do it myself and also i SUCK bigtime at soldering)... After all that painting, the next step will be to add in more details like directional arrows, numbers for the parking bays, a parking for that container lifter, a parking for smaller trucks etc. Love that idea to add in a truck scale and the Director's park lot! Nice! Thanks KenS! 

 

Then there is to stick the exterior barricade in, the gate office and gate in, stuck the entire layout on a wooden board so that i can easily wire the lights and carry the entire layout around etc... Much to be done...

 

Hoping for more time to improve further...

[JR 500系]

Finally, a good Sunday where the Sun is un-forgiving and staying at home is a must, an with a flare for some works:

 

May i present, the completed Truck Terminal Diorama!

 

The overview

 

The security gates & office are fixed in, and so are the lights! Wanted to also light up the guard house, but... More on that later

 

The car park is the first thing on your left after you check in at the guard post, with even parking for motorbikes!

 

This is the main office building for the terminal, with lights!

 

Some reserved parking at the rear end

 

Here's a shot at the lights inside the terminal, from the truck's point of view

 

Some unloading works from a container at the top right corner

 

The container lift is working hard loading/ unloading containers from trucks

 

Let us have a look at the terminal at night, shall we?

 

The terminal never sleeps!

 

Here's a view from the guard post

 

A view of the office building at night

 

I'm quite pleased with the effects, but i think more lights are needed though

 

A closer look at a 'K-Line' Mitsubishi Fuso truck

 

Some trucks parked awaiting loading/ unloading

 

You can leave your trailer there if you are in a hurry

 

I've remove the trucks for a better view into the terminal itself.. Looks like i need more pallet/ loads/ people/ maybe some pallet truck and stackers inside...

 

Here's a view of the power supply from the back...

 

One last look at the teminal itself...

 

Comments & criticism very welcomed! Thanks for viewing!

[Hobby Dreamer]

Great job! even without the lights its very cool .. and much cooler with the lights.

 

There are some flood lights in N scale available and these might work well to light the whole yard, in time.

 

You've got the best yard I've seen and certainly something to aspire to!!

 

Rick

[cteno4]

Jr

 

It's coming along very nicely! You are inspiring me to do some little dioramas like this!

 

Scale model lighting is tough. Really need to. Have two brightnesses -- one for daylight and a lower one for nighttime. Also light does not scale well linearly as it's brightness drops with inverse square of the distance, so it gets tricky

 

For daytime internal lighting really can help compete a scene's visual detail as most buildings have internal lighting on in the day and it reall effects how those detail just at or within structures. On scale models the light in the day usually needs to be a bit artificially high for the effect to accentuate details and see that from any distance as the light brightness drops off fast.

 

For night lighting things need to be softer as if you look at most structures lit at night the light is usually pretty soft and only a small external area is lit up. Also with night lighting the internal sources tend to come from several different internal sources, so it looks best to use more smaller, dimmer lighting sources.

 

Last problem is that styrene does not block light so well so the whole structure can end up glowing. Some line their buildings with foil to block the light transmitted thru the plastic, but this is a problem if you want internal details. What you can try (along lowering the brightness and doing more smaller sources) is to put a little foil reflector behind your led so that it's only shining away from the roof or wall the light is next to.

 

Keep more photos coming its a wonderful little project!

 

Cheers jeff

[KenS]

Very nice.  It looks good as it is, but as you say more lighting would be an improvement.  I'd light at least the guard shack (interior, and maybe with a streetlight just inside the gate to light up entering/exiting vehicles.  A couple of pole lights in darker corners of the yard, or small "spotlights" mounted on the sides of buildings would help show off the rest of the space.

 

Building interiors (walls painted beige or some similar "office" color at a minimum, furniture and figures if you're feeling really detailed) can go a long way in improving the appearance of lit buildings.  Check out Quinntopia for some really inspirational articles on building interiors and lighting. I use photos of interiors glued to the walls myself, as I'm too thumb-fingered to make small furniture. However this adds to the challenges, as the light source needs to be between any interior detail (walls, figures) and the window to front-light them, and that can be hard to do in some buildings.

 

As Jeff noted, "glow" through the plastic is a problem with interior LEDs. My approach (which I adapted from Jerry/Quinntopia) is to give the inside walls a coat or two of flat black spray paint followed by a coat of white primer.  That makes the interior opaque and provides a nice reflector to get stray light bouncing around (it makes for a less directional light source).

 

I hadn't thought about day/night lighting before, but that's a good idea.  You might be able to do that by having a large resistor you could switch into the supply voltage to drop it. Done right, that should dim the LED somewhat (not a huge amount, but some).  The only problem is that if your LEDs add up to a few hundred milliamps (which is easy to do) and you want to remove something like 3-5 volts, you could easily need a 1/2 Watt or larger resistor, and those can be hard to find (and larger ones get quite expensive).  I'll have to give that some thought for my own lighting.

[Bernard]

I really like the lighting effects you got....show different times  - dusk to night...nice work!

[3railgreg]

JR500, OUTSTANDING diorama of what is a common scene no matter where in the world you live. I used to drive tractor trailers here in the US, but have since left. What a great inspiration to try some diorama work. Thanks for posting your work!!

[JR 500系]

Thanks guys for the kind comments! I'm flattered!

 

Yes i need to do some modifications to the roof of the terminal. The lights are over-loading out of the roof right now and it looks really wierd... The lights in the office building looks good, just that there might need to be some walls/ people/ furniture inside as KenS has mentioned.. Now it looks abit scary like a huanted office building ~~

 

Wanted to put in some light posts which i have at the right side of the terminal, but i have to do some 'underground' routing to hide the battery and wires by removing the 'road', cutting up the styrofoam below and planting the lighting system inside, much like what is done in real life. Quite some work to be done there and if time permits, will definately get down to making that improvement.

 

Looking forward to more projects like my own 2mx2m train/ city layout finally! Thanks for your comments again guys! 

[JR 500系]

Almost a year after the completion of this project, I decided it's time to change it again. With the arrival of a newer (and more space economical) office building with loading bay, I decided to change the layout and make it smaller instead.

 

Pictures are works-in-progress. I'm still working hard to complete the road markings and the front entrance/ fences. Basically, the main office and the side loading caters for both trucks and trailers alike. Trailers are to move to the side loadings for better safety while the front caters for the trucks and private parking. Some pictures to show how I connected the lighting wiring.

 

This time, lights are added to both the side loading bay, the container office, the main building's loading bay and the security guard house right in front. (not installed yet) Hoping to finish and share pictures this weekend!

 

 

[Densha]

Why not incorporate it in your train layout? Would make for a nice scene me thinks...

[JR 500系]

Why not incorporate it in your train layout? Would make for a nice scene me thinks...

 

Hi Densha:

 

Yap, but I needed to complete the whole terminal module first before placing it into the layout.

 

Work has been very bad, but finally finished it today!

 

Quite nice if I may say so myself! Love that terminal building!

 

Comments very welcomed!

[Martijn Meerts]

Looks good.. Any reason you used such heavy wire for the lights? Would've been much easier to hide the wires if you used something like the wires used to install decoders, or even the really thin lacquer coated wire.

[cteno4]

"wrapping" wire is great for this. its like 30g wire that is stranded but tinned all thru the wire. minimal but tough insulation on it. you can get it down to like a penny a foot if you buy a larger spool of it (like $8 for 250m). plenty of amp rating to run a few 3 LED strips off a single lead. it bends well and stays bent pretty well due to the stranded wire being tinned. also it is easier to work with than solid core wire, bends and gives a little easier. since its tinned it also is super easy to solder to and makes great pressure connections (the tinning of the wire is there as it was used to do temporary circuit connections by twisting exposed ends around IC component leads to do breadboarding).

 

wonderful stuff for doing internal LED building wiring. then just have the a lead for the whole building plug into your power buss on the layout with a single slightly heavier lead and connector (jst connectors are great for this)

 

really best bang for the buck and easy to work with.

 

the fine decoder wire is great but is expensive.

 

heavier magnet wire also works and is pretty cheap but bit more difficult to work with but you can hide it much much better (perfect where you need to run wires out to things more visible as the only insulation is just lacquer paint on the wire.) soldering it takes a little getting use to as you burn off the insulation as you solder it and just a little practice needed there for good soldering and not melting off lots of insulation up the wire.

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

wrapping wire:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=wrapping+wire&_sop=15&_osacat=12576&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC2.A0.H0.Xwrapping+wire+-heat&_nkw=wrapping+wire+-heat&_sacat=12576

 

jst connectors:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/20pcs-Battery-Plug-JST-RC-Model-Socket-Connector-Cable-Wire-Male-Female-10-Pairs-/360827700197?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item540301c3e5

 

and of course a little heat shrink!

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xheat+shrink&_nkw=heat+shrink&_sacat=0&_from=R40

[JR 500系]

Hi guys! Thanks for the comments!

 

Well I used those wires is because when I purchased the LE bulbs they came with them so I might just use them. The other LE strips, I bought these wires easily and cheaply from my nearby electrical store so it became easily accessible to me. I do agree they're pretty thick, and hard to bury them underground, but since they rather inexpensive and readily available so I guess they'll have to do for now. Thanks Jeff for the ebay links by the way! Will keep those in mind...

 

Now is how to integrate the terminal into the layout perfectly.

 

I need the moving bus junction to be released so that I can judge and plan correctly the bus route, since that basically sums up everything and all other buildings and structures go around and along it.

[cteno4]

ive often thought of trying to build a layout like this doing small dioramas that could then pop onto a layout. problem usually is size and shape of stuff!

 

jeff