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Nice Huib, what materials and methods are you using for your armatures and flicking? jeff

Some detail shots of the station and farm.

As the layout came together. I pulled up the tap from the tracks and began test runs again. All but one of my switches work remotely, power worked in all sections. For the time. I’m happy with it.

After starting on the ground cover, I began to experiment with foliage. I remember seeing many small gardens and farms when I travel through the countryside of Japan. Between Tokyo and Kyoto, later between Sasebo and Fukuoka. Thinking on that, I arrange some ground cover and foliage to mimic those small farms and gardens. Later I would add premade rice paddies from Tomytec.

The first set of 50 trees is about done. Up next: creating 30 or so pines 😉 Grtz! Huib

Two videos by railway consultant, and apparently former Meitetsu employee, Itsuki Nishiue. Detailed looks at the inside and out, useful if you’re modeling either of these types, and I would imagine generally interesting to this audience :). The 273 retains the tilting ability, which I thought would be eliminated. Very appealing design overall. And of course it’s great to have this document of the 381 as presumably none will be preserved :(. If I’m reading correctly, the Kyoto Railway Museum doesn’t have a 381. Hint hint.

A nice segment from Ehime TV about JR West’s KIYA 141 Doctor West inspection train. Here, JR Shikoku is borrowing it for use on the Yosan Line in Ehime prefecture. It starts at Iyo-Ozu and proceeds north toward Matsuyama. Later, a Plasser & Theurer multiple tie tamper operating around Iyo-Komatsu.

Thanks jeff 👍

Looks great! I agree the red makes more sense! jeff

Red or Blue?! I will putting the first set of fire escapes up for sale in the next couple of weeks. I just need to order the packaging once pay day rolls around again. I the mean time I have been working of the escapes with half landings. These are going be a little wider than the first set and not as steep. These steps are set at 46 degrees. I have been looking for examples of the steeper narrower 57 degree steps with a half landing but I haven't managed to find any. I have made these steps the same dimensions as the external steps I released at the beginning of the year. This means you can interchange parts from the two etches such as having a full length flight of stairs at the base of the escape: I just need to work out how I am going to do the top landing. There are couple of options shown below: The red steps make the most sense to me as you would be walking down to the next floor on the outside and it's less likely that someone would open a door in your face 🥴 That said from the examples I have looked at the blue version is slightly more common. Most of the blue examples I have seen do have supporting columns on the corners of the landings which might explain having steps leading down from the outer side of the landing. I have also seen some examples of the red style with a longer landing to attach to a post so maybe not: The supporting columns would be easy to add with some styrene rods. Not all of the pictures I have seen have these supports when the landings are all fixed to the exterior of the building. If anyone is interested I could also make a version with the steps facing out from the building: These would always have columns to support the half landing. Please do let me know which style of landing you would like at the top and if you know of any steeper 57 degree stairs with half landings please do let me know. Joe

I suppose having the trains set up on the track while on the go can't really work. Even if they are just stopped and not running, they would fly all over the place on bumps, lol. About the controller, it is 12V for N scale, right? In that case I could run the controller off the power of the cigar lighter. That would be cool, lol.

There is already a large and convinently placed plate steel located above the engine of the car, so there's need to stare at the rear mirror any longer. The Traffic police should be happy about you looking out through the windscreen at all times. The windscreen wiper engines operate at 12V, so this is a perfect place to hook up the power for the model railway on the hood and the train can then be operated using the windscreen wiper switch on the steering wheel. 😁

That’s what T scale trains do. But then you need steel wheels and rails. It is effective with tiny T scale as you can even run the trains upside down hanging from the rail. That won’t happen with n scale unless the wheels are made from rare earth magnets! There’s a thought maybe put some rare earth bar magnets in the bottom of the chassises and some plate steel under the track roadbed. jeff

Another preview of the CR400AF: https://www.facebook.com/100064165236162/posts/836677085147792/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Need to figure out how to magnetize the wheels or tracks or both so you can run it WHILE driving. 🤣

A local train inbound from the Nagoya direction. It seems I accidently spilled invisibility paint on the catenary poles on this section. 😄

Nahhh, I don´t think so... here are my reasons why the section of the route cannot be set: 1. Alternative route to the Moruran Main Line for passenger and freight traffic in the event of unforeseen events, for example the eruption of Mt. Usu in 2001 2. Tourist traffic for skiing and hiking athletes (Kutchan and Niseko area) 3. Conversion of the route into a third sector railway line But maybe JR has other plans too? Resumption of the SL C62 Niseko? In any case, it would then be possible again, as the arrival times for tourists would be significantly shorter than in the 1990s. Edit: found this Informations.... I didn't even notice that Cathy Cat left the show. I was just wondering why this extreme moderation is no longer there and the show is moderated more calmly again. To me the people looked similar! 😂

@cteno4 The controller could be the radio knob in the car or the centrifugal forces of cornering like a roller coaster?! In any case, you'll get a lot of attention, even from the police 😅 🚔🚨👮‍♂️👮‍♀️ If you're lucky, you can convince him of the idea and he'll play with it himself...

Or for anyone who has flown RyanAir, no seat allocation at all. First on the plane gets their choice 😄

Super something to keep me entertained behind you at the stoplight! Looks good to go. Just need to run the controller up to the front see so you can run it via the rear view mirror (well I guess I was running a train won’t be an excuse when you rear end someone though…) jeff

When using the Kato Digitrax 29-352 FL12 DCC Decoder, you can use CV61 and CV64 to choose which F function allows you to turn the headlights on and off. Either F0, F3 or F5. See the table below. F0 is the default value. I have not tried that myself, but I assume you could program the two FL12 decoders at the coupling ends to react to a different function key (for example F3). This would allow you to use the F3 key function to switch off the corresponding headlights, while keeping the other two on. Marc

That's a typical grass matt

That's an old post from 15 years ago. This layout is similar.

So, I was wondering, what is the track sitting on? Is that a grass mat, or did you scenic the area? Thanks!

So... is this a very good idea or a very bad one, lol? (might make a proper thread for it in the layout planning section if I ever make it a real thing)