香生州電鉄／カオス電鉄 (Kaosu Dentetsu)

I've stumbled upon another blog about the building of another layout. This one is however of a totally different calibre then the previous one I've posted, as this one is more of a layout built for fun and creative outing, rather than realism or logic. The quality of the detailing is a bit shabby at times (sometimes even not very logical, as using clay putty for building 'restoration'), so don't expect high standards.

The layout itself is based on a fictive railway company called: Kaosu RR (Chaos RR I presume) written with the characters 香 (KÔ/KYÔ/kao/ka [fragrance/aroma, smell sweet]) 生 (SEI/SHÔ/ha/o/u/iki/i/nama [life/raw/pure]) 州 (SHÛ/su [state/province, sandbank/shoals]). Not really a logical combination, but one could say it's called 'Pure Incense Province Electric Railway', quite different from the English name implication. I presume it has something to do with animé culture...

Anyway, there are a lot of creative ideas put in this layout (repainting and reorganising rolling stock), elevated station under elevated track (though it's too low on this layout), an integrated layout in a modular layout and creative use of other materials not originally intended for model railroading. Next to that, the creator has his cozy meetings with his mates, which proves, all the more, model railroading a social hobby. :)

http://kaoden.blog.so-net.ne.jp/

Some interesting photos and ideas... 

I really like the bridge

http://kaoden.blog.so-net.ne.jp/_images/blog/_ed9/kaoden/DSCF1980.JPG

It takes a real effort to build anything but he has captured the essence of Japan and has some interesting features...

Thanks

Rick

The work is a little slapdash, but the flavour is great! It feels very, very Japanese :)

He is quite fond of putty, trams, and busses, though.

Despite the clay, I think it looks pretty good.  He's done a great job with signage and little details (lots of vending machines in one street scene, for example).

It's definitely a bit rough in places, but a lot of that roughness is in detail that you can see in the close-up photos, but which would be much less obvious from 3-4 feet away when standing.

I like it, it doesn't look like it's been taken straight out of a Kato box. There is a lot of that clutter and roughness in Japan if you look close and long enough. He's given me some ideas for T-TRAK modules.

I really like seeing other nationality work. They challenge my thinking about what is possible. These and the "wall hangings" did a lot of stretching. ouch. Good stuff!!

I realy appreciate Japanese readers sharing these finds. Thanks!!!!

I'm glad to see so many are pleased by this layout.

In the meantime I've found the YouTube channel of the builder (Ushipoo). His video's don't get much viewers and he doesn't upload often, but I've subscribed anyway, just to show some support and with the hope of new videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/usipoo

I noticed the sound effects in his videos, I wonder if they are from the Tomytec sound unit? They don't sound too bad in the video if they are.