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Yes, you just walk through.

This reminded me of a question I have. If you have a pass that is just a ticket, like the JR East ones for example, what do you do at unmanned stations that only have IC card stands? I mean the ones without gates, where they just have a pedestal with an IC card touch pad on it, and no staff. I don't think they have anywhere to put the ticket in. Presumably you just walk through.

KATO C30-7 REMOTOR Restarting this project to remotor to coreless. The current motor does require quite a bit of power to start moving. I added a capacitor to assist. This loco is the one that I use to push the Tomix vacuum car around. It actually may be better to leave this one alone as the higher voltage is actually good for the Tomix vac, but I had put a coreless in that one already and it spins very high anyway. Motor is a 816 that I got from ebay. Shaft is 1mm while the Kato motor is 1.5. I got the shaft adapters from Tramfabriek a while ago and they fit perfectly. I just need to remember not to push too hard on the shaft or I will kill the motor like I did back then. Designed a 3D motor mount to fit inside the plastic cradle. The power leads will run on the outside of the mount and will touch the frame halves.

Thanks, I’ve stayed at Hirafu Station Guesthouse a couple of times, will have to see if we can get to Futamata-Honmachi on a future trip.

Ok, I guess the museum is long gone since I cannot find it. That's a bummer I never heard of it. Had been going to Sasebo from '94 to '21.

Changming will be releasing a new and updated model of their HXD1C (which explains why they were on display at Beijing): some details have been refined, made smaller. The big update seems to be the pantograph which is now made of metal-etched parts.

Kusojiji, It was at the "Transportation Museum Park"....which was a little bigger than the Loco itself, tucked away in a corner in Sasebo City, apparently only until 2019. I do have some photos ..I'll post em when I find where I put them. 😁

Planted all the trees into the diorama, no more toothpick placeholders. Added some mini trees/bushes made out of seafoam trees and Noch leaves, a technique that was derived from Modellwagen. The scenic elements are at a good stopping point so I'll start building up the scene on the dirt ground.

@disturbman Thanks. I was looking for those, i will pick them up from you closer to when the CR400AF-Z delivers.

Yep, definitely!

IMON just put a big load of second hand HO up in its new releases list, no photos yet but the prices seem reasonable https://www.imon.co.jp/webshop/new-item

I also took some pictures of some steps of the conversion

That's more or less the assumption we had all reached. Which really put in question what happened with this model for so many issues to have surfaced. The fact that Masaharu also took the step to remedy issues on models, or sent them back to Kato, says a lot. I think he is a great source to introduce people to servicing, he always was very clear on the stepped to take and what to do. And his 3D modeling projects were very interesting/entertaining as well. I wish he would make more of these and resume his "salvage or scrap" series.

@Section31 by "standard NEM coupler" do you mean Rapido couplers? Kato andTomix don't do anything NEM, but they use Rapido couplers. If that's the case, Changming has them, but we are the only one to retail them. They use to pack a pair inside the box of their early locomotives, but they stopped doing so a while back. When they more or less released what I call their 3.0 locs.

On the P70 wagon it's not so difficult. I have to: Remove the bogies and the frame Unscrew and remove the original Changming coupling File down 0.5 mm on each side where the original coupling was screewed (the NEM pocket width is 1 mm larger than the Changming "box") Put a small amount of cyanoacrylate glue to glue the Dapol NEM pocket Wait a bit to let the glue set Insert the Dapol coupling in the NEM pocket Make some test Screw the bogies and refit the frame on the chassis That's all. It seems a lot of work, but it's not really such an hard job

That does look like a production error. jeff

@jingpeng Appreciate the update. i am interested in doing the same should it be not too hard. I would love to use the standard Nem coupler on N-Scale Kato/Tomix/European feright transport on the Changming Freight Locomotives.

Yeah the lamp wire is best for smaller trees that have skinny trunks and limbs. Ive seen folks do hybrids with wood or floral wire for the trunks and main branches and using lamp wire for the finer end branches, but these are folks into doing larger and super detailed trees. Might check around any used shops for an old simple bladed coffee grinder to chop foam. I got caught using our coffee grinder the first time i experimented chopping down some premade foam by my wife, hence why i got a used one for hobby use… I tried making the sponge/foam ground foam once and the grinder worked well on it. I had used a tad too much paint on mine so it came out a bit too hard to use, but figured if i ever needed some custom colors it’s a useful technique. I have used the grinder to chop stuff finer a bit to give some more variety of sizes of foam. Last year i picked up a very inexpensive mini usb travel grinder that ive not used yet, but looks great for just whacking up a small amount or blending some colors together. I think it was $4. Keep posting pictures always great to see folks variations on scenery techniques. Cheers, jeff

Well now it looks like back to 10% for the next 90 days [we shall see on that] for china. Guess the kids not getting xmas toys But still no news on how you will pay for customs duty with USPS shipments coming in from japan post or the fees involved. Heard a couple of folks get hit with $40 ups customs fees but due to the fact they were shipments that apparently did the expedited customs form and not the when we get to it form that is sposta be cheaper, but we shall see. Anyone get any duty charges in the US from china? Outland just started shipping to the US again and the way they talk it sounds like the price has increased a title to cover the tariffs and they make no mention of paying duty so im wondering if their shipper is prepaying the customs duty. It looks like the shipping went down [I think it was $8 and now $6}. I sent them an email asking about duty payment. From Outland: As our shipping carrier has provided a clear way of practice and updated pricing for shipping service to the United States, we have resumed the shipping service to US on all sales channels, including this official store, eBay, Amazon...... Please note that the shipping time could be longer than usual as the processing capability of customs department is still unknown. In regard to the latest agreement between China and the US, we have lowered the shipping cost accordingly, however, the product price is maintained at a level slightly higher than the past as the tariff is not removed completely. Jeff

That Meitetsu train is lit. I'm not much versed in Meitetsu trains, so I'm not surprised this one escaped my attention, but it's funky enough that it should be better known. Surprised no one ever made a model of it.

So, it's not a Micro trains conversion, but as I've some Dapol Easy shunt stuff, I've tried converting one side of 2 P70 wagons. The Dapol couplings are way bigger than the Changming ones, but it's the price I have to pay if I want to shunt easily Here's a link to a short Video of Dapol Easy shunt of how it works with kato Unitrack magnet

I wonder if KATO will re-release their Oha34 Passenger Car Family, they're in the 2025 Catalogue, like the DD13 and the D51 before they announced the re-release. I really hope we see the 17m Oha27 Family again.

Very interesting article, with some facts I was not aware of: As of March 2020, 48.2 percent of 9,465 railway stations in Japan were completely unstaffed, marking an increase of about 10 percent over the past two decades, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Among the 4,368 stations operated by the six Japan Railways Group companies, nearly 60 percent have run without staff since August 2023, with the trend likely only to accelerate amid Japan's aging population and shrinking workforce. Since we like visiting rural areas of Japan this could be an option for us at some point. https://japantoday.com/category/national/feature-japan's-unstaffed-train-stations-getting-rural-revival-on-track

It is actually Andersen: https://www.andersen.co.jp/shop/kanto/shop-45.html Enjoy! And thanks for those links. Tony

For reference then this is the shop in Ueno: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6pZb5BDx77Zn92wK9 The staff speak English. And the one in Ginza: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7VjGqs3azvhBrRYi6 I will try out the Danish Pastry shop!