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While in Japan I stopped by RG-ROKKO and peeked upstairs it seems like they have a repair shop maybe. I would reach out to Masahuru and see if he can offer custom DCC installations.

The kids are in Europe on vacation. So I commandeered one of the beddrooms and together the whole layout. The whole thing was design to fit on the dining table, but that's not an option anymore. Here you can see the transfer table, the access curves and one of the sections, not yet decorated. I added the decorated part, run quite a few trains and took pictures. Tried a filter to make the canopy look less like plastic. The level crossing. From the undecorated module. Level crossing, daylight. I even took the good camera and went a bit artsy.

Its the JR Research Cabin, They go on Koki.

Hobby Center Kato does have a customizing service, but from all accounts it’s quite expensive and i doubt would happen quickly. But worth a shot. jeff

BANDAI B-TRAIN SHORTY Decided to add lights to this little guy. Used the C12 light board since it is tiny and bi-directional. Just wired it directly to the 11-109 motor power and double-sided taped it to the body. Used fiber optics to get the light out into the cabs. Yeah, a bit wonky as I can't drill a straight hole to save my life, so I just used the curve of the fiber to get them out to the windows. I need to figure out what I can use to get light out more easily as I want to get the red tail lights on my HO EF65 going. I tried leds but it interfered with the body mount.

Hi guys, thanks for the info, unfortunately I’m from Malaysia, and the hobby is a very niche hobby there. We definitely don’t have a local train club where we are at. Anyway, we will be visiting the Hobby Centre Kato, and we will see what they have. Appreciate the info.

Just picked up a C11. Very detailed and awesome runner. Quiet and smooth. Neat thing about it is that it is geared the same as the C57 so they can double-head. How's that for power!

@Lessigen Though from reading the blog on wechat, Chang Ming is now doing direct fulfillment through them The CR200J was the first one. Curious how it turn out especially since it can be done through their official taobao store front.

Yes Im guessing that tomix and Kato catenary poles may take that spacing into consideration. jeff

Following that wechat leads to stuff i don't want to look at lol. Did you see the WSI Model LR1400 SX 1/50 scale post. That is something i will not buy as much i love to look at it.

Just a quick thought: Did you look into the additional space needed in curves?

So sorry to hear it has to be dismantled. Always a drag. But hopefully a phoenix will rise from its ashes in the future here. best wishes on the move. jeff

As you might remember, the work on Yamamura ran out of steam about a year ago as I recieved news of upcoming renovation work that would force me to move out of the appartment. Now the time has come to say good bye to Yamamura. 😥 My eyes have tended to be drawned to at all the most unfinished parts of the layout, but when I look at photos I took on Wednesday just before the dismantling started, I must say that much of what I see looks pretty good. I'll be busy with packing and stuff the comming few weeks, but I'll be back with some more photos and final thoughts and analysis of design decisions I made and maybe something about the dismantling of the layout.

This BBC documentary is mostly about the UK's efforts to develop high speed rail, but there is quite a bit of coverage of the Shinkansen and how it works. As well as some interesting details of operation and some nice footage, one thing I noticed is the sound that the early trains made. It's different to the modern ones, louder and whistling. Of course our Advanced Passenger Train (APT) failed. It could lean into corners, but ultimately was delayed and then cancelled. In 1970 we had just developed Concorde with the French, and their high speed rail did succeed. In the documentary they seen certain that we will be zipping up and down the country. The assumption is we will surpass the Japanese since we can learn from their efforts and build on them, but of course it didn't work out like that. It's remarkable how much smaller Japan seems because of their high speed rail and extensive conventional network. Tokyo to Osaka is similar to London to Edinburgh, but the latter seems much further.

Catenary Progress I have been working on the dimensions of the horizontal truss using the different track spacing for each manufacturer. It seems like I can replicate a similar look for each track system by increasing the trusses length by 5mm intervals. I started with Peco dimensions as they are very similar to the Shinkansen tracks on Yurakucho. I mirrored the spacing of roughly 16mm between the track and the legs on the layout and rounded it to 60mm. I added 5mm for Kato track at 65mm and 10mm for Tomix track to get a 70mm spacing. Then looked at the dimensions for a Kato 2-track portal. The space between the two legs is around 80mm, dropping that back to Peco the spacing would be a 75mm span: If I were to create six lengths of truss I could make three 'realistic' versions (60mm, 65mm, 70mm) and three 'regular' versions (75mm, 80mm, 85mm). I think that would offer a lot of flexibility. I would be interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Joe

That is the video. Looks promising. My goal is to build a chinese city themed diorama. I have been exploring taobao and 3d printing for that.

This is Yan: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/12MW3X73nYQ/

The E956 is a test mule. So E10 was next.

Apologies if I'm late on this, only just heard the news. Does anyone know why it isn't called the E9 Series? I've done some searching and I haven't found anything in English about why JR East have broken the pattern like this.

@Section31 you can put links here to facebook posts and youtube videos. Both are allowed under our guidelines as they provide embedding and user control of content use. cheers jeff

@disturbman i was referring to the one that was posted on khaho facebook page.

They do. No too surprising, Minitown used to be the manufacturer regarded for their high quality detail-wise. I was really afraid they were going to die after Covid and they cancelled their DF11G when Changming announced theirs. But it looks like they started working on new projects that Changming wouldn't tackle soon. I like the diversity that brings to the scene. I hope they would be successful with this approach, it could be too small of a niche. @Section31 I suppose you are referencing the Model Rail Magic video, which is a bit hard to do without a clear reference or a timecode, but no, Yan is not in that video. Speaking of Model Rail Magic, he posted a video about the Minicity booth as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgm_XG3q2ZM It showcases their upcoming locomotive carrier (what a beast) and the motorized N scale trucks that Minicity seems to be working on.

Dang, those look nice! The NDJ3 looks weirdly tall (prototypically speaking), kind of reminds me of the EMD F59PHI we have here in North America. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Capitol_Corridor_train_crossing_Alameda_Creek%2C_April_2024.JPG/1920px-Capitol_Corridor_train_crossing_Alameda_Creek%2C_April_2024.JPG

My question was the individual at the changming booth the owner. The person seemed very likable. They were talking on video with one of there vendors.

One of our club members here in the US found a shop in the Midwest that did DCC conversions on just bout any trains. He had a bunch of his trains converted by them [he hated doing anything electrical} at reasonable prices. These days though the shipping back and forth will be a chunk of change as well added on. There were a couple that had some issues that the chap then fixed for free, but at the cost of another round of shipping it back and forth. With decoder, labor, and shipping it will add up. I would look to see if anyone is local to you. Check you local train club if you have one. Anyone that installs DCC in trains will have no problem figuring out how japanese trains go together. jeff