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EH200-24 is the newest addition to my roster.

Scratch built the second bridge for this layout. Styrene (my favorite material) was used for the bridge and the supports were made from XPS foam. I'm learning a lot more techniques with weathering and when to use powder vs. washes. I compared the bridge I made last year with the same base color and I much prefer how the weathering turned out this time, with weathering powders of black and rust. It also helped that I used an airbrush vs. hand brushing. With the supports, I painted a solid color then applied two colors of washes. Lastly, I dry brushed with Silver Grey to act as highlights. I still have two pieces to scratch build, a shed and turntable (inoperable, just for decor).

Oh wow thats pretty cool thanks for posting this.

I obtained a set of Micro-Train 1015-1 couplers (diagram below). A little bit of surgery would be required due to the (low) height of the Kato floor . . . they seem to be meant for a floor height of .279" / .293" we will see how the 2004-1s fare once they are delivered. Their shanks are below the coupler's horizontal center-line. Far enough to avoid cutting any underframes? We will see.

I was only in Korea twice. Once when my son (now 21) was about 4 or 5o and we were on our way to Japan. They wanted us to do a 14 or 16 hour layover when booking the (free Delta Skymiles award) tickets. I asked if we could stay a day and they said we could do that so we landed, took a bus into the city, stayed at a hotel in Itawon, and went to the war memorial museum (free outdoor part only). It was fun for the day. Two nights and one day. In 2015 my son and I took a side trip from Japan while we were there and went to Korea for around 4 days to visit a British/Australian guy I met at the Apple developer conference (WWDC) that spring. He showed us around various places. The big palace establishment and some other places. But I mention this mainly for the opportunity to mention the food. The Korean fried chicken is the best. We went to some local place of his and it was awesome but I would think a lot of the chicken places will be comparable. Definitely a must. We did the obligatory Korean BBQ -- the grill at your table thing -- and that was awesome too. I also like the ox-tail soup I've had a few times in Korea but my son was not so impressed. We flew over from KIX on Peach airlines and back again. Coming back the plane was late leaving Incheon by a couple hours due to traffic and we got to KIX after the last train for the night so we had to take a taxi to a nearby hotel and stay the night. Luckily I had my phone and could book a last minute hotel online. Sorry to not have more to say.

They have Japanese shinkansen... I visited Korea for about 3 hours when passing through on the way back from Japan. Had to go from one airport to the other. Luckily did not need a visa as I didn't realize I would be changing airports. You can imagine the sinking feeling when I scanned my ticket and the machine said "WRONG AIPORT"! Anyway, the only thing I can really tell you, apart from the train being clean and comfortable, is that I couldn't pay for it with credit card. Maybe someone else knows more, but I had to withdraw some cash to buy the ticket.

Going into service on tourist runs from Phnom Penh to the Thai border if anyone is looking for a fun scenic layout: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/ataglance/3094/

As of last night, our itinerary for the trip has been finalized! It definitely isn't what we originally had planned but we were able to fit in a lot of things we didn't think would be possible while still having a pretty leisurely schedule. We have a little over a week of days totals where we can just wander around and almost all the other days really only have one thing - such as a tourist train or activity - scheduled that we have to get to on time. So should be lots of time to explore at random, which was one of the things we wanted to make sure we could do. We also found a lot of pretty cheap accommodations so that helps a ton with the budget in terms of leaving room for lots of yummy food and any souvenirs we may (absolutely) pick up. Below is a map of the areas we will be visiting during our month-long trip to Japan. It's not quite everything, though, as it's mostly just the places that are specifically set in our travel schedule. We'll be starting in Tokyo and working our way down to Kyushu. Most of the trip has been planned so that we don't have to take the Shinkansen. It should only be about two or three times aside from one long trip back from Kyushu to Tokyo at the end of the trip. There's a couple of weird spots both location- and schedule-wise where the Shinkansen is probably the best option despite the short distance. Anyway, very excited and relieved to get the planning done. Now it's mostly a matter of waiting to leave and making sure we have everything we need for the trip. I tried a test pack and wasn't able to get everything down to just two backpacks, despite one being a rather large travel backpack. So we'll likely still have to bring one carry-on suitcase, but maybe we can whittle down what we bring over the next month. Thanks for everyone's comments and suggestions. If you have any more, feel free to throw them in still as we're still compiling things to potentially do during the free time we have. I'm, at the moment, trying to compile some cool trains I'd like to ride that we won't necessarily need to schedule a lot of time in advance. Any suggestions for those, in particular, would be much appreciated!

Hi, Actually you can get from volks (which own the zokei mura brand) online store, by checking the shopping guide they support international shipping and the 26 is still in stock. Enjoy! 26 item page https://hobby.ec.volks.co.jp/item/4518992503202.html shopping guide https://hobby.ec.volks.co.jp/ext/guide_shipment.html

To add to the sturdiness as well as reduce stress on the wooden dowels (which are the only things holding the control panel built, admittedly rather anomalously, out of solid wood beam stock) I bought these iron angles that I plan on attaching underneath via screws so that any weight from leaning on the control panel won't come to any detriment of the structural integrity of my layout table. After all, I want this whole thing to be built to last. Afterward, it's finally time to make serious progress on the landscaping.

I just noticed my new greemax 50745 Kintetsu Series 19200 Sightseeing Limited Express `Aoniyoshi` did not have any mention of the tn couplers to use even though it looks like the proper mounting holes are there. But I do seem to remember earlier gm sets having the recommended tn couplers in the instructions. jeff

Really? What the model number?

Thanks for the detailed info on Seoul. The museums, especially the National Folk Museum and War Memorial of Korea, sound interesting. Starfield library's popularity is understandable despite the crowds, given its iconic appeal. Gyeongju's historical sites seem like a must-visit. I'll definitely try tteokbokki, japchae, and ganjang gejang. Toyoko Inn Seoul Dongdaemun No. 1 seems like a convenient choice, despite the lift issue at Dongdaemun History & Culture Park station's exit 4. Using the KoreaTravel subreddit for research sounds promising. Thanks for the invaluable insights as I plan my trip!

great idea Grant. I have purchased a couple of modules of station area that Scott in Christchurch built a few years back, which i am planning to integrate into my 8 x 4 city layout with extra straight modules to connect them and provide a decent run. No reason why you couldn't build curved modules for home connection to straight modules and simply take the straight modules for show display. My only problem is getting the Christchurch modules which is going to involve a road trip at some stage. At least I can stop with relatives in Blenheim on the way down and back.

Did I also see an Alfa Sud in there? Amazing! Great layout.👍

There are no option in the instruction booklet for body mount options.

After showing my current layout a couple of months ago, and seeing how people responded to various aspects of the layout, and the practicalities of moving and displaying a layout, I have radically changed direction. I am thinking about two options. a) A long (5-6m?) sectional layout to show Shinkansens going full speed through a rural/peri-urban environment with a double track local line with station running beneath it, e.g., something you might see between Nagoya and Kyoto on the Tokaido line. b) An urban Shinkansen/local/metro scene within Tokyo where the Shinkansens are not yet running at full speed. The is would have tall buildings and a lot of inner city detail. Maybe 4m long in one section. Think of the are between Shimbashi Station and Hamamatsucho Station. Both would have fiddle yards on the back side of the layout and control from there too.

Exciting. I am following you in September. Have fun.

Just five sleeps to go. I'll be in Tokyo for a month, basically taking a small backpack, laptop, one change of clothes (don't worry, I plan to buy more once there), travel guitar, camera, JR pass (anyone in Japan want to meet up for coffee/beer/sake?), credit card, and no wife (she has been gracious enough to let me travel alone). I plan to write in the mornings, and then explore after 2pm. Much excitement. 🙃

Absolute banger of an episode. I've really been struggling with the show recently but I enjoyed every minute of this one. If only they'd drop the government mouthpiece/tourist-centric focus and just focus on what makes Japanese public transport absolutely untouchable!! They used to, so we all know that they know how to do it. -Edit - sorry edited to say that "banger" in this case is a good thing, in case it's interpreted otherwise!!

Got my Tomix station from Hobby Search this past month. I wish they would make the decals precut!! They are a pain in the REAR to cut well. Finished one. Need to finish a second center section and order a third. Looks like a half-Shinkansen needs at least two more center sections (from the default set, one more than I currently have).

Whatever option is listed in the instruction booklet to use.

The train companies don’t do a lot at the festival anymore. Unfortunately with the headquarters change from NYC to LA, JR East does not have a tent. Jr Central had a table in the big tourism tent, but little in the way of presentation other than a head car model of a 700s.and no mag lev demonstration. Gone are the great days of our tent being flanked by JR East and JR Central tents! We always joked we’re the neutral zone. JR East was always so wonderful to us. jeff

@cteno4 did any JR companies have booths this year? It's been quite a few years since I came down for this event but I recall speaking with American and Japanese employees of JR East, iirc. Was there a JR Central booth as well?

I will temper my above comment that we do a lot of details off scale to see them at any distance and make them look right to the viewer. Since we usually look at model scenes at least a foot and usually 2 feet or more, we are at like 150’-300’ scale feet away. At these distances are visual memory is very different than it is in our normal interactions with our environment at a few feet to a few dozen feet so our expectations on details we see and how we see them will change. Our field of view also gets way messed up when viewing a model and thus warps how we see details in the model compared to our visual memories of looking at the real world. We hold a vast data set of visual memories of then real world around us to help us to quickly process our visual input and to calculate faster what we are going to do physically to interact with that world. I’ve used this example a lot of sidewalk height. They should be 1mm high at the very most to ne at scale. But when you look at 1mm model sidewalks at a couple of feet away our mind says something is wrong as the vertical height disappears. Make the sidewalk 2mm high and then it looks right at a distance, but now the sidewalks are practically knee high to walkers and wrong up close. It’s always a bit of a tradeoff. This is because we have tons of very strong visual memory of sidewalks up close with us having to navigate them on foot and in cars all the time. Also up close in real life we look at them sideways so see the visual height much more side on, but when looking at a model scene we are almost always looking at the scene from a height as well as a distance so the at an oblique angle to the side of the sidewalk so its height is diminished visually. Also we usually don’t look or interact with a real life scene at greater distances of like 100m so we just don’t register these oddities, but when looking at a model we switch our brains into examining the scene and thus accentuating these oddities that our brain usually ignores as we may only interact with a distant scene looking for a particular thing like a shop or other specific thing and again our minds then ignore the details looking for a specific thing. some of this can be be helped with coloration and contrasts to help visual details stand out a bit more at distance so when you study a model scene at a foot or two and thus help get us deal with seeing the things our visual memory is now expecting to see (but in real life at those distance we would not see much but just don’t remember those distance views much at all. textures definitely fall into this category as at scale they are so minuscule they would not be visually discernible. Sand for instance is a really tough one and one that has that odd visual close memory attached. Even very corse sand in real life you can’t see the grains past a few feet away and it’s actually a blob of color with just a bit of texture and maybe color texture as well. At scale and at a bit of distance all that would be gone and it would be a pretty much uniform surface texture. But do a beach scene like that and our minds eye says tilt! But put down the finest sand you can find and our minds eye says “yes beach!” but up close you see the sun bathers are saying on a gravel beach! In this case if the manhole covers I’m thinking a lot can be done with the printing to accentuate the details than you could ever do with a decal on top of a etched cover, I think the two are just going to fight too much and then look wrong. At 6mm across max I doubt decal softener will end up giving any real texture to the surface of the decal from the etches in the cover below. I worry even applying a decal to a road will make the decal stick up too much, but dull coat layer may fare it in well. years ago I printed a bunch of streets for my street car 25mm Ttrak modules. I was inspired by one of the forum members (I think in England) doing a terminus street scene for a small show layout and they had great success printing out their streets and adding tons of details, even tire and oil stains. My first round was simple and had a second round I started with with more detail, but never finished it, but I was amazed what could be done to accentuate details to get over the above dilemmas, just took a lot of experimenting. Road texture is another thing that is not 3D at scale at all by scale, but we again have a visual experience and expectations for it being there even at a distance and printed textures can help bridge this. i find this fascinating that what we think we see and how we see it not perfect reality! This is one of the aspects I love to play with in modeling to mess with the viewer’s visual memory to your advantage and try to make them see things not really there. cheers jeff