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Lithuanian railways freight diesel locomotive 2M62M-0949 with a mixed freight train and Belarusian railways freight diesel locomotive 2TE10UK-0195 (Gomel depot) with heavy loaded freight train, Vaidotai, Lithuania

Ahh the old I need this so since I’m paying for big shipping might as well look for some other bits to throw in and not pay much shipping for! I never fo that! 😜 jeff

Just a bunch of random stuff that PlazaJapan miraculously still had on stock, as I initially just wanted to get a KoKi and the Foliage XD

Thanks! I could use assistance for several things as it progresses, but the big one I’m asking people for is additional suggestions for anime and video game references to include. I have a list already, but I’m open to suggestions. This is what I’ve brainstormed so far: Super Mario Bros Legend of Zelda (Hyrule Castle) Sonic the Hedgehog (Green Hill Zone Speedway) Donkey Kong Star Fox Animal Crossing (Nook Inc) Portal (Aperture Science) F-Zero Monster Hunter (Astera Steakhouse) Final Fantasy Godzilla (Himself, Monarch [MonsterVerse], Otaki Factory [Singular Point]) Star Wars (ships, Corellian Engineering Corp., Mos Eisley Cantina) Pacific Rim (Pan Pacific Defense Corp) Jurassic Park (InGen) Pokémon (Silph Co, Stadium) Mobile Suit Gundam (Anaheim Electronics, mobile suits) Samurai Jack (Himself) Ultraman (Science Special Search-Party) Galaxy Express 999 (GE999) Toonami (Broadcasting service) Belle (U) Hatsune Miku (concert advertisement) I don’t think I’ll be able to place everything directly, but subtle thing such as signage and advertising can suggest their existence in this world.

And a most pleasant face at that!

Wow! After thirty years of riding the rails in Japan, it’s nice to see a face attached to the most pleasant of voices!

Latest tram acquisition. A Tomytec Brunswick City Tram GT6S body and the TM-LRT04 power unit.

And motormen loaded with choice words in "meneghìn" dialect, ready to swing them at any auto driver who commits the foolishness of crossing their path... Cheers NB

Looking forward to lots of picts! Have fun at the show. cheers jeff

TBH the Ge6/6 I or Rhaetian Crocodile would be an interesting choice, though so would the G 3/4 2-6-0T tank locomotives or G 4/5 2-8-0 freight engines if you wanted to get into the RhB ‘Nostalgie’ fleet. Meanwhile I’ve now consolidated my RhB container cars together to maximise on space, I just need some different road numbers for the Lb-v and Sb-t wagons so I can put wagons to spare containers. Alastair

Got the notice that my *other* new Kato C11 has come into stock at Hobbysearch, now the question is which of the two I have coming will arrive first: the secondhand one or the brand new one? Either way I’m still going to get two shiny new C11s! Thoughts are now turning towards cases for some of my other rolling stock. At the moment I’m being squeezed for space and could do with a few recommendations on who has the best cases. I keep hearing good things about the Casco ones on this thread. To give an idea of what’s triggered this tangential thought, here’s how I currently store my collection: Turns out a 27L clip-lock container was great for a small collection, but mine ain’t so small now! The majority of stuff inside is Kato - all in individual cases - but there’s a smattering of Popondetta and and a few Tomix strays inside, plus most of my track. This part of the cupboard also houses my Märklin H0 tinplate stuff plus in the other containers, some of my video gaming stuff and some DVDs and VHS tapes for good measure... and yes, I am old enough to know what VHS tapes are! And up the top, the rolling stock in its cases plus a few games and more books. I have a *small* library stored throughout the house, garage and attic... most likely over 200 books... and surprise, most of them are about trains! The gap at right normally houses my two Kato V-sets which are going to have to move. Someone on the Märklin-users.net Facebook group once told me that my hobby would be like a gas, it would fill the space I gave it. How right he was! Alastair

Hello there, news for the 2022 exhibition. Our space has grown to 10m by 15m. We have a (early) map where our place will be. Now it´s up to us to fill the 150m² (~180 square yard) Shiniji has made some wonderful large radius curve modules. I´ve been working on small radius curves with tunnels, a large elevated tracks section, and some pivoting projects. bye, Tibor

The "Quarantine last date" later changed to the ambiguous "8/9/22", which I presume is the utterly confusing US way of writing August 9th 2022 (it sure isn't September 22, Reiwa 8; ISO 8601 FTW), and this morning there was a big-ish popup on the phone screen saying "Thank you for your cooperation" and nothing else; upon starting the app, the main screen had changed to a very different menu showing various generic health/SOS/medical things (no sign of the previous options for showing quarantine status), and I uninstalled it. There is a lot of on-going confusion about the app. In particular it's not obvious that you can register via the web portal on a PC and fill in forms, upload documents there, then link that with the app; doing that via the app itself is evidently not very easy. Yup; vaccination proof not required for "Blue" countries (I uploaded mine anyway because the more docs the merrier, though it wouldn't accept the Squidlet's, as he only has two but the system insists on three). For "Yellow" countries (where I might be going soon) proof of vaccination is needed to avoid quarantine. As of the time of writing, that is. It's certainly confusing... but still an improvement on the previous system: which involved this very long line of chairs (hundreds of them) stretching from the arrival gate to the quarantine station.

That Facebook group about traveling to and from Japan has had many people comment on the spurious app quarantine pop-up and the consensus is you can ignore it. For others who read Squids description: The MySOS app now pops up a screen in different colors. If you come from a Blue country you basically get in to Japan, as I understand it, with nothing more than the app (and I think proof of your covid test you uploaded to the app before travel ). No vaccination proof necessary as I understand it. Countries are grouped by the prevalence of Covid, the countries efforts to combat it, general vaccination rates, or whatever. US and U and many others are Blue, which is the best. I am not an expert on this and have just been reading about it on the FB group dedicated to such things, and I could have misunderstood.

This is really cool: Mizuma Railway in Osaka prefecture is going to run signs advertising Train Crew on their actual trains. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1618290/view/3400798954887571211 I wonder how this came about.

Yeah, it's not a problem per-se, I was just mildly amused they seem to be back to the old behaviour, which implies they are already dealing with a lot of incoming foreign non-residents.

The JNR kiha 40 is a must for me, I may also be tempted to get more Kiha 47s....

Now here is something different. This is tram 15 in Milan Italy. We are just beyond the ring tram line around the center of the city. The green trams are Eurotrams built 1999-2002 by Adtranz. You will also see one yellow and white Sirio built by AnsaldoBreda. The Sirio line of trams is now part of the Hiitachi line of trams and has its own Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitachi_Sirio Not all Milan trams are like this. The remaining Carrelli's built in 1928-1930 have metal on metal construction, steel wheels, K35 controllers and air brakes with thumping compressors. Add to that lots of stone streets and masonry structurers. Great fun and sight and sound not to be missed!

I've been wondering about Kuga. He seems to have the best job in the world.

The government plans to start vaccination against Omicron from October. This will be the 2nd booster, the 4th vaccination overall. I read that the government also plans to downgrade COVID to a less serious disease, but I've lost the link now. Apparently lateral flow tests were not easily available to buy due to some legal reason related to their accuracy level, but the government intends to change this so that tests are more widely available.

I'm happy they are going to release the Kiha 40-1700 JNR Colour for the Kushiro Depot Anniversary in N as well! Might get the JR West Kiha 47s too as I already have them in the yellow Hiroshima line livery for my Yamaguchi Line stuff

Kiha, Kiha everywhere 🙂

August announcements have come early 🙂

Never had a problem with them, just say “sainyukokudesu” (再入国です) and go to the usual line. Alternatively, say 在留カード持ちです。

Yes please keep us posted! Looks like fun to be had. jeff