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Thanks for the advice. Tokonami returned my email about ordering and shipping within Japan very quickly. Once I email him a list of the items I want along with my address in Japan, he'll send a shipping cost estimate before my order is confirmed. He says to allow one day for shipping to my address on Shikoku. Impressive service, and I look forward to ordering from this shop.

Jeff, you're right about Unitrack being available here in Australia, my local shop even had the small track pieces pack and the short 15 degree curves. A few Oz-based online sellers too but then you might as well use Amazon or Plaza. We have a great exchange rate against the Yen at the moment, so buying direct is pretty good if you don't use expensive shipping. Thanks for the feeder info, at the moment I'm running the M2 track kit which is probably 5m worth with no issues on a single feeder, but then again everything is shiny and new.

Thanks for all the great info in this thread. As a model railroader who gave up on sectional track in the late 70's for flex track and Shinora and later Peco turnouts I find the thought of going back to sectional track to be a bit intimidating, especially on the issue of flexibility. But my goal is to do up a Japanese portable layout I can display at local train shows or possible Japanese cultural events, so sectional makes sense.

Thanks @cteno4 for moving it to the right place. And thanks @Tony Galiani and @railsquid for your comments. I have been noticing that some vendors at the couple of shows I go to each year are asking rather high prices these last 5 years or so (starting pre COVID) in my opinion. These 3 kits were being offered by an N scale specialist who only deals with North American items so he, like me, was not sure what these were worth. So we ended up at $10 each. I think he was just happy to get rid of them.

Yes there is some wiggle room. I can also point you to how to create custom length pieces as well. yes Tomix track is not exported much, there was a distribution deal in the us for a short time with Walthers, but it was much more expensive than purchasing from Japan and did not last long. Importing it yourself is easy, just shipping and duty added. Unitrak I think is distributed in Australia which might help on price and picking up packs locally like it is here in the us. But lately the price of Unitrak here in the us has gone up some along with domestic shipping and some inexpensive Japanese retailers like plazajapan could supply cheaper including shipping from Japan (no customs duty here) than shipping from domestic distributors in the us. but for what you are doing bit work equally well physically. You may need a few more feeders. Usually folks do them around every 2m, but we do Ttrak setups at 3m spacing with out a lot of power drop evident. But you can start with three and see if you have voltage drops and just add more strategically to fix. It’s also easy to cut a slot through the roadbed and jsut solder feeders onto the bottom of the track. Then put a blob of epoxy over the slots and wire end and it’s super secure and you and use larger gauge wire than the 22/24g wire in the Kato feeders, Cheers, jeff

Thanks Jeff that's a useful response. I've tried to adapt one of the online Kato plans (to use fewer/available parts), and yes I now realise that there's those packs of tiny track pieces which will solve a few issues. I'm sure a few mm across 2m of my layout will be OK, I've noticed a bit of flex when sliding it around. Also Tomix seems very hard to get in Australia. I might see if I can get that book ... although if I look at the author in Amazon I can see that they have also published other smaller books that have (free for me) Kindle editions! So if I make something like the layout above, would 3 power feeds be enough? It would be 9m (30ft) of track.

So I caught a train at Pattaya in 2007 with a view to getting to the Sattahip port and container terminal at the end of the eastern line. Sadly it terminated at Ban Plu Ta Luang The train was hauled by Alsthom ALD 4303 Even as we arrived I realised there was a lot of interesting stuff here I had no inkling there was a carriage shop which was converting ex JR West coaches to BTCs for SRT Some of them were pretty rough but here is one ready for the interior to be fitted out There wasn't a soul around to ask questions, the place was deserted The station building, with the ubiquitous Tuk Tuk outside So close, but so far. The station nameboard shows Sattahip as the last stop In the sidings were a whole load of very rusty SW Salt wagons. Oil Axleboxes, Vac Brakes etc I really need to weather my scratchbuilt 1nM model of one of these a lot more More soon Kev

There is a little wiggle room with unitrack so a mm (or even a few) here or there be tolerated when it gets spread out over a larger distance of a loop. You can also use the straight expansion piece to get an odd straight length easily. These have a limitation that you shouldn’t put them right next to a curve as some trains can derail on them a bit. But is a good way to experiment and once you figure out the length you need there is an easy way to make custom length track pieces to make things fit better. You can resort to fiddling with combos of the 4 tiny track pieces (29 & 45.5 and 64 and 33 &38mm). track planning with loops with a few different radius curves with wiggles like this will give you the exact same headaches of alignment if you use Tomix or Kato track, it’s issues of geometry that both will share just a bit different. I would hazard a guess it’s actually a bit harder to find a solution in a smaller loop with Tomix as the track separation geometry is 37mm vs kato’s 33mm so larger jumps in radius to try to find a permutation in a wiggle. For the usual range of curves on a little layout like this Kato actually will have a an extra radius available to use compared to Tomix. Tomix does have some standard parts to deal with crossovers better, but you are not doing that here. Overall Tomix does have a larger variety of track, but in this case it doesn’t really help you. So you are fine with untrak here. the 50 small layout book I referenced before shows a lot of more wiggly, small, complex loop plans that are demonstrated in Kato and Tomix track so there not an issue if what kind of track used that one os superior in these small wiggly loop plans. jeff

They're part of the Tomix core range of buildings and have been around since forever (probably the 1980s). The station building is a bit of a classic, and is a pretty solid model especially bearing in mind its age and is popular for modifying/kitbashing. This is mine: lower-station-2021-10-09_02 by Rail Squid, on Flickr The shop buildings are a bit simpler, but still in production and are also an excellent base for kitbashing. $30 CDN for the lot sounds pretty reasonable.

Well, someone on eBay is offering the wooden station for US$110 .... Actually, I think you got a very good deal. That particular eBay posting is way high and not the norm but a search will show that you paid much less than the going rate for these. Cheers, Tony

Kato has about a third of Tomixs pieces. No variations of straights and curve match. This match lining up tracks like a few posts up weird or difficult.

What restrictives issues ? I'm interested for the future

Well its a bit late for that now 😅 but if I make a stand-alone more permanent layout I'll use a more flexible system.

Use Tomix instead. Kato always has these restrictive issues.

I've been playing around with RailModeller and trying to work out a simple 'double loop'. It's so hard to design something that will a) join up nicely and b) not be completely symmetrical. Anyway this is what I've got, will probably add sidings along the straight at the bottom. I assume a few mm out of line can be made up for with some 'give' in Unitrack? And will I need more power feeding points?

Put both steamers on the track, move lever, done? On a more detailed note, it works just like that in DC. You simply run both locomotives on one line and one Power pack. Most notable thing to look at for smoth playing would be if both locomotives run more or leas at the same speed. Just put them both on the track with some distance, and see how much they close in/move apart during different speeds. Of the distance is not much, you cool to go. If the speed difference is significant, risk is that one loco pulls or pushes the other into derail. Its just a matter of trying out really. Some tuning you could do is removing the traction tire on the slower locomotive, so it just "grinds" a bit but practically gets dragged if the speed gets too slow. Kato/Tomix usually do this on double powered units, like an E5/E6 combo where the E6 usually has no traction tire (for kato it gets delivered without and you can buy a boogie set with traction tire, Tomix is exactly the other way round), or like Kato does with their DE10 were you can also obtain boogies without traction tire.

I did a search and did not find much in the way of Canadian model trains so I figured I'd start one. This can be place that those who model Canadian roads can post photos, asked questions and hopefully answer some of the questions. I have been modelling Canadian Pacific in HO scale since 1979, with a focus on the mid-70's era although with lots of time creep either way as will be seen as I post more of my efforts. I will start with these 3. Hope you enjoy. First up is the model that got me started ohh so many years ago. This is a brass (Alco Models) RS 2 painted in the as delivered paint scheme. Used by CP to dieselize some of their eastern lines. It came with an open frame motor and drive train that was pretty poor, this has been replaced by an Atlas (Kato) RS 3 drive. This is a Baldwin DRS 4-4-1000. It was used to get rid of steam on the Esquimalt and Nanaimo railway. It is a Stewart (now Bowser) model that my sister gave me. Has a few mods but is factory paint. My first real kitbash. It is a SW 1200 RS and was built from an Athearn SW and parts from a Canadian company, Juneco Scale Models. It has a can motor but needs better trucks.

Not sure if there is already a thread for something like this (I found some for new stuff, but not used/bargains), if there is Admin please feel free to move and let me know. I found these 3 Tomix kits at the local train show today (Nanaimo, BC), purchased for $30 CDN for all three. No. 4002 Wooden Station; 4008 Town Stores with Pavement; and 4015 Corner Stores with Pavement. They seem complete from what I can tell, including decals/stickers. They are all marked Mokei Imports with original marked prices of $39 for 1 and $50 each for the other 2. Being new to the Japanese aspect of model railroading I have no clue if these are decent kits, and if I overpaid. These were the only Japanese prototype items at the show.

I want to operate double header passenger excursions on my Little Nevada, and I have three steamers, 844, 4014, and 4449, doing double headers is the plan for my layout, I did look through Google, and there are some help, but didn't help that much, for context, I only have the KATO standard controller on a simple loop, you know, the blue color one that in the starter packs and which every N scale user probably has, and I don't know if this could work or I have to use a different controller, any suggestions and help is greatly appreciated. -Dillon Trinh, The Little Nevada operator

Thanks for sharing! This article indeed sheds light on the interesting history behind driving practices. It's intriguing how various historical events and local contexts influenced these norms. The case of Sweden's tram system adapting to the switch from left to right-side driving is particularly fascinating. It shows how innovation and adaptation can play a crucial role in transitioning such systems smoothly. The statistic about the global split between left and right-side traffic is also quite eye-opening. It's always fascinating to delve into the origins of seemingly mundane practices.

Are these Tramway Koki 5500 and Chiki @marknewton?

With the C11 now fully built, and in the process of preparing for priming, I started thinking about a layout. I initially thought about doing a full oval around the room, but for the IMON locos I probably need quite a big radius, which means going around the room isn't doable. With that in mind, I'm looking at a bit of a different idea. Where I initially wanted to go with a single track JNR branch through station which was in the process of getting (partially) double tracked and electrified, I'm now looking at a single track JNR terminus station with runaround track, that is getting connected to a faster route that's under construction. The green track is the original terminus station. This was a small station that really only existed as a transloading stop for logs brought down by the forest line (the grey line in the track, obviously nowhere near final). Due to the high quality wood, some local businesses have started up, such as a sawmill and some wood working shops. This is causing the town to grow. There's probably also some other things I have yet to come up with that is causing the town to grow. Due to the growth, JNR has decided to move a line that's under construction to pass by the original station and create a stop for local trains. This line (in orange) has been built up to the station on the east side. On the west side construction is continuing. The original station platform is under regular service, where the new platform is available for special trains and track construction deliveries. The original platform also services a passenger train on the forest line which brings workers from the town to the various logging sites. The brown line is going to the lumber yard / transloading station. The radius here could probably be smaller, since only shunting trains will be running here. The forest line will of course also go there, including various sidings, as well as a line that loops around and then continues in the front of the layout, through the town, towards the sawmill. The forest line will also get a loco service building here. In the current plans, the JNR tracks can hold around 5 20m coaches. However, after doing a runaround, the loco would need to push the coaches back in order for the loco to not block the turnout. So, either I need to increase the length, or go for max 4 coaches. Still plenty decisions to make. Also, the green boxes are basically the sections I was building for the N scale layout. The big one on the left is the helix which is still in place and will probably remain in place (as I'm still planning on building something at some point 🙂 ). The other sections are 90cm deep, which is of course too much considering the H0 layout will essentially be on the height of the upper deck of a multideck layout. The sections will be a bit shallower, and probably also shorter so they're easy to handle.

I might be the only forum member who shops there in person, but alas as of April 26, Charles Ro will be closing their retail store and shifting to mail order only. I've never bought a lot there as they specialise in Lionel, but they were within convenient walking distance for odds and ends. I've been shopping with them for over 50 years, starting with their original walk-up location near North Station in Boston.

Wow, I wouldn't have guessed it was that long ago. Time flies!

Admittedly, the site can be quite something, but once you get used to it it's fine. Use Google translate and some pattern recognition and you should be fine 😛. Otherwise you could use the English site for browsing. The JP site is basically one big stock tracker, you actually need to E-Mail your order to RG-Rokko (or call, since you're in JP) . It doesn't have any order functionality like the usual style of online shopping. Tokonami-san (guy running RG Rokko) also speaks some good English, so contacting him in English should be no problem, though you definetly should specify that you want the item shipped within JP and not overseas, as this affects pricing/taxes and shipping. @Yavianice had a pretty good trick, so I'll just blatantly steal it for this (Sorry 😄 ): If you have the item number google: "railgallery-r" followed by the item number This should hopefully bring up the correct "table" on the site containing information on whether or not the item is in stock.