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If you’re planning on being Mario at any point, it would be a good idea to get in the Nintendo World first. When it’s busy, it goes to a timed ticket entry and once they’re gone, you’ve had it for the day. If you can download the app, you can apply for an entry ticket much more easily once it gets full and switches to timed entry. You’ll also need to part with more cash to get a wrist band if you want to play all of the interactive games around the area, including all of the blocks you’ll see people hitting. Saw many tourists on my last visit wondering why they weren’t getting a coin noise or what was behind some of queues. This will also track your progress on rides like Mariokart whereby there’s lots of different achievements you can unlock, should you wish to. The wrist band also works as an amiibo if you have any Nintendo consoles and Mario games. For the wrist band you’ll need to have the Universal app to show you how many coins and keys you’ve collected as well as Achievement stamps. Most other areas tend not to need timed entry. Sometimes Harry Potter area can get busy but not as much since Nintendo World opened.

Ok I'll work on it. I never thought of myself as an article writer but I am willing to give it s shot thanks for the suggestion.

Post a topic on your build if you get a chance, I’m sure folks would love to see how they went together for you! The question gets asked quite a bit about the greenmax car kits. jeff

Thanks Jeff, Some day I hope to detail the cars with stickers.

I've had success using wooden toothpicks to help get shells off, both N and HO scales.

It’s one of the most fiddly parts of the hobby I’ve found over the years, along with getting some bogies off (usually nasty microace ones), and separating tabs easily on some motorized chassises. A lot of it is just diving in and fiddling and practice. I know it takes me a bit with a cranky mech when I havnt messed with a cranky one for a while. keep at it and if you have issues try and take some pictures if you can and post. i forgot one other way to hold body clips un hooked is to use those thin wooden coffee stirrers and just shave the front edge to a 45 and use to keep clips undone as you get all 4 (or sometimes 6) poppe open. jeff

Nice job on those bc! jeff

Thanks. What were your feelings on the Tokyo diorama kit? How do they compare to sankei and amagi modeling idea kits (if you have done any of those). I’ve been meaning to order a could of the Tokyo diorama kits to try out. cheers, jeff

It is a Tokyo Diorama Factory kit, with extra detailing added. Grtz! Huib

John, cool! Sounds like a good price I think I paid close to that several years back with Amazon.jp new. I think you’ll love the book. It’s fun to just pick up and flip through now and then. His perspective sketches just get my brain churning fast. Very enjoyable. jeff

Jeff - I couldn't agree more! I got a pretty good deal on it from someone in Japan on eBay (think I paid $40 shipped). It's exactly what I was looking for. John

Thanks for your advice and experience. I’ll keep trying and hopefully get it completed soon.

Fun little book for the Dr yellow fan https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4863102860/ref=sspa_dk_detail_1?psc=1&pd_rd_i=4863102860&pd_rd_w=lHEzN&content-id=amzn1.sym.f293be60-50b7-49bc-95e8-931faf86ed1e&pf_rd_p=f293be60-50b7-49bc-95e8-931faf86ed1e&pf_rd_r=ASXWR1NG3ZC0Z0WTFX60&pd_rd_wg=82b7u&pd_rd_r=ac94d567-156a-41c6-8c01-6e4a9b347918&s=books&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWw jeff

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Did I say YES!? 😜 It’s mentioned a lot around the forum when folks look for inspiration for small to medium sized layouts, it’s the best book I’ve ever seen for layout planning inspiration. His sketches are wonderful and work really well to stimulating your imagination. He does lime every other layout in Tomix finetrack and Kato Unitrak so you get both sides of the coin. The track plans are fun and even ones with a lot of track he manages to make room for buildings and scenery bits so it does not get into a spaghetti bowl. i believe it’s out of print currently, but still around in shops new and used but the prices I’ve seen are much higher than when I got it like 6 or 7 years ago. It may take some snooping around to find at a reasonable price shipped to the us. He published some ebook additions to the book and they were on Amazon for a while but not buyable outside Japan. There are some workaround to that, but not sure if they are still around. its a great book, probably my favorite model train book. jeff

It's written by Kunihiko Ikeda. It consists of 25 layouts using Kato track and 25 layouts using Tomix track. I have to say it's exactly what I needed for layout inspiration. It's very well illustrated and everything I could think of is explained for each layout. Anyone have thoughts on this book?

Looks like you had fun! Is Harry driving trams now? jeff

Nice. A kit or did you lasercut your own? jeff

I was going to get 2 train/track sets and one or two track only sets, but from what I could easily dig up for reasonable prices shipped to the us the third train/track set was a better deal and some extra scenery pieces. I figure between the three sets they should have plenty to play with. If they find the kids going nutz with it I’ll research more sets out. I did notice what was available changed since early in the year when I began talking to the center to when I went ahead with the purchases. I probably should have just gotten 1 train/track set to test it out, but the staff thought it would be a hit, so I splerged. jeff

Earlier tonight at the Sydney Tramway Museum we held our annual “Trams After Dark” event. As we normally finish running about 1600, this is a rare opportunity to ride and photograph our trams at night. Tonight we used three trams, a Sydney crossbench car, a Sydney corridor car, and for something different, our Nagasaki car No.1054. Although it now runs on standard gauge trucks, it was originally built for the 3’6” gauge Sendai tramway system in northern Honshu. When that system closed in 1976 five of their fleet were sold to the Nagasaki Electric Tramway Co., who converted them to standard gauge. Regardless of its gauge, it’s an interesting car, and great fun to run. Cheers, Mark.

@SL58654号 as nice as it’d be, Kato would be very unlikely to do a C53. As @Kamome has mentioned from speaking to them directly, Kato doesn’t have any plans for new steam locomotives for a range of reasons. Add to this that it’s a type which last ran outside of living memory for most, plus it lived within a fairly narrow geographic area, and it’s suddenly less appealing. Your best bet would be to hunt a Micro Ace version down and just accept the less than fine detailing on it. Today’s trip to Osaka turned out to be a bit of a bust. I thought that I was supposed to be going to Universal Studios Osaka but that’s Sunday’s activity apparently, because I misread my ticket date! Oh well. At least I know how to get there now. What I also didn’t expect is that Universal-City Station is next to a JR Freight yard, and that on passing there would be both an EF210-300 and an EF66-100 parked in the sidings where passing travellers could see them! Further into the yard, something else caught my eye… one of the M250 freight units! Too far away for a decent photo, but it was there. Ditto when I wandered back to the station and hotel area, and spotted something hiding behind some bushes. Five WaMu 80000 box wagons, which as far as I could tell, were complete and on their wheels, but completely inaccessible to wandering railfans. The rest of the day turned into a wander around the Umeda area visiting the Lego Store, Mandarake, Yodobashi Camera, and the local Hobbyland Pochi store, from which I surfaced… into a downpour. And with no umbrella handy, I had to leg it back to Osaka Station. This was made more challenging in wet sandals which made me feel as if I was going to slip over! I also spent some time hunting a VR railway museum exhibition at Osaka Station; so far there’s four VR spots across the complex with another four to come in the next few months. I picked off two of the VR exhibits, the 485 series electric unit and the 1800-class tank locomotive. The VR component, apart from enabling a 3D model that you can take a photo of, also links to a short history of the vehicle in question. I also briefly stopped in at the Kato Store Kyoto this morning to see about their mini-diorama making event. By buying a mini-diorama kit, you could assemble it in the store’s ’back room’ overlooking the station. With money and space tight right now, I decided not to participate. Plus, I thought I had a theme park to get to! Alastair

Snack? Anyone?

I obtained another issue of とれいん "Train" magazine (October 1986) in the mail. In it are photos of and an article on the famed 或る列車 cars shown in blue. As I love old Japanese imported locomotives, the same goes for passenger cars. The reputation for luxury that these five J. G. Brill 🇺🇸 passenger cars earned immortalized them as the JR Kyushu Sweets Train of today. Why the cars were thought to be gold in color I can't say. This blue livery seems more realistic, but we do know for certain that these exceptional passenger cars (PC) had stained glass windows. A handsome observation platform with long windows. And American-style passenger cars look sharp with buffers and chain couplings, I think. They are perhaps my most favorite Japanese passenger cars of all, at least among rolling stock that didn't survive scrapping. They remind me so strongly of the wooden passenger cars on the Strasburg Railroad in my home state of Pennsylvania, USA. 🇺🇸 How I would love to have N gauge models of them, even if I need to build them out of any kits available.

Layout progress is slogging along slowly but surely. In the meantime, while Hisatsu Sen-Again have helped to pass the hurdle of keeping the line safe from abandonment, our next desired challenge to undertake is what'll come after the railway is rebuilt. What is the Hisats Line without steam? A poster was made today, and they asked for my opinion - I told them to place "REVIVE" in capitals on top and the number below. Note the QR code for our website. All in all, how can I not be excited by the chance to endorse such a cause with my layout project?

Absolutely positively wonderful stuff, @ED75-775 🇳🇿😄🇯🇵 You look as though you've had as enjoyable a visit as I could have wished! You photographed my favorite engines there, too! Many thanks. I don't see why a KATO C53 45 wouldn't be a highly collectible, must-have item though, especially if it were released as a Kyoto store exclusive.

There are a number of innovative ideas in Pura-rail. Also, they get the latest trains first, 36+3, Tobu Spacia and now even E8. I even quite like the Real Class EF66 blue train, although the prices are a bit high. The 3 way autopoint (turnout) is quite a nice option, essentially it switches tracks 1,2,3 consecutively as trains pass over a switch on the incoming track. Great for multiple train management. I gave my kids a crash course (pun intended) in effective signalling and train control for a 3 platform station and a passing loop. Think we had up to 5 trains running, all of which converged onto a single track section. The groove that flicks the switch is under the motor car, on SLs this is usually under the tender so the loco goes one way and the tender another. Lots of fun-filled stress and inevitable collisions. The station we have is a city station from a few years ago with working safety gates and station announcements which was awesome. Had one shinkansen elevated platform, 2 regular platforms and room for a passing in track under the elevated section. One word of caution with using Shinkalion toys on Pura-rail, some of the earlier versions used standard sized pura-rail wheels, ideal. We also had some of the later ones (Whichever the series where when they combined with other passenger trains - something “liner”) Some of these used smaller removable bogie wheels which would not run on the track quite as well. Not sure what the newer ones are like as my kids have grown out of the series, although they won’t part with the toys. Must be the 4th generation or so by now.