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Rainy day, so I set to work on the subway station 90mm high with track either side of central platform with post supports for roof. Each section 200mm long Escalator entrance and exit at either end. Front arches for viewing, back wall has flat area for billboard signs etc. The holes at the end are designed for a feed through LED rope light, Ceiling is arched and there are 4 rows of 3mm diameter holes in the ceiling.

If I'm reading this right, you are advocating for doughnut layouts and that sounds great. I'm all on board for less is more with T-Trak and grouped into smaller themed layouts rather than 'ooh look how big it is'. Don't think that will catch on in the larger world, but super for when it is done. As a spectator and a modeller, even my eyes glaze over with the big long runs and 120-car coal trains running through all the short scenes. Smaller set-ups also make it more feasible for a 'backdrops will be used' rule, and plain sky ones provided if needed. The modules that are missing them to make the whole presentation a bit jarring.

I would like to swap out the Rapido couplers on my GM cars with Tomix 0381/0382 couplers. I've tried to insert a completed coupler with the square piece on the coupler and it doesn't fit into the bogie. Of course, without the square piece it fits but is a bit floppy, Is it ok to use it without the square piece? Is the TOMIX 0381/0382 the best route to go or is there a better alternative? EDIT: I've added pics of the assembled coupler and the "square" piece. Picture of the coupler in question. https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10009875

Ttrak is a great way to learn scenery design and techniques as it’s in a limited space. If you screw up it’s easy to revise. Many get to a full layout build without much scenery experience and it can be a big fail/frustration point. Scenery is really something personal to which techniques work best for you, also helps to experiment with techniques some to see what to what out for or limitations to the technique. Also never go from a tiny test t9 a huge application of a techniques as it’s a recipe for disaster. Best to scale up in a few steps so you see any scaling issues and build up your practice at the technique (scenery is a lot of practice to get better). cheers jeff

Here is a rough idea of what might happen.... it is an "as I go" project, so who knows what might happen at each layer or what sort of "city" might get built. I do have that spiral building from the Mt FooGee layout I could build and have it go up into the next level... Might have an "all floors" elevator, maybe a cable car or ski-lift as well.. lots of random ideas.. 🙂 Any kooky or strange suggestions duly considered. 🙂

Seoul has lots of great museums, I particularly enjoyed the National Folk Museum and the War Memorial of Korea. I loved the photos I saw of the library at Starfield, but visiting it was basically full of tourists trying to get their photo of the same thing. Gyeongju was interesting for all the archaeological sites. I previously mentioned the places we went on the east coast and near Busan. Foods, I really like tteokbokki, japchae, kalguksu, galbijim. It’s worth trying gimbap, bibimbap, bulgogi, sundae (it’s not what you might think), jajangmyeon, barbeque (can be expensive with Korean beef). Super spicy is not my thing so my recommendations are a bit biased that way. There’s a dish I think is called ganjang gejang which are crabs marinated in soy sauce that was good to try but not my thing. It was also fun to try different food from the convenience store, I especially liked the little banana milk. in Seoul we stayed at Toyoko Inn Seoul Dongdaemun Number 1, if you’ve stayed at Toyoko Inn in Japan, or any business hotel then it is very similar. The location is good, there’s a convenience store and restaurant district nearby, and hopefully the lift at exit 4 of the Dongdaemun History & Culture Park station is fixed by now. It’s only a few stops from Seoul station, and not hard to get to Yongsan and Cheongnyangni. We didn’t do any tours. I found the KoreaTravel reddit pretty useful for research, generally someone had already asked my question.

Pravus is a Spanish supplier of structure kits in both HO and N scale. Many kits on their store are listed as "exhausted", presumably sold out. There is a online catalog. N scale 1:160 starts on page 18. https://online.fliphtml5.com/fmdlq/twkv/ Sample instructions https://www.parvus.info/docs/N1006doc.pdf

Thanks. You are completely right. In fact I had already decided to go with the Zoukei Mura. It is a nice model. I had the basic 22/25/26/23 set an the restaurant & green car 35/15/16/35 set when I saw the model power. Completely different quality level. Not comparable. But the model power toy has the small windows as a nice deviation to the "real" model train. Up to now I found another 25/26 set and one 26. I need one more 26 to pair the second 35. Sold out everywhere. It probably will take a while until the train in completed.

Ah... it never came to my mind to do that. Usually, I just look up his tables manually. 😅

Whee!

OK managed to put most of my track to use, also laid some cardboard down but uh yeah haven't done much cable routing. I seem to have no voltage drop despite only one feeder. I think what I will do is make a T-Trak module for some practice of various things, incorporate it and just add to it gradually.

JR East opted for soothing blue lighting on platforms to reduce “jumpers” although many main hubs have platform gates too. Also stops chancers trying to make the leaving train and delaying everyone, adding to the driver’s time-keeping stress.

Indeed. A loyal customer, he's my best vendor

Subscribed! 😄

I have, however been toying with an idea for the bottom section,.. The back part will be behind scenery, and contain some set-up tracks. The following images may give you an idea what I might do with this section.

Started on a new compact layout with a footprint of 2.1m x 0.5m. It will have multiple spirals at one end, linking 6 different levels. Not sure what each level will be yet.. time will tell... 😉 Here are pics of the first 2 layers of the spiral section.

Some more Kato track arrived yesterday.. and I bought some timber and some plywood.. did some building. I still think I must be marginally crazy even attempting this layout. Further pics etc in the layout section, under "Crazy Spiral layout....

Thanks! The commuter trains here in Perth have no such guards and have a large gap. Every consist has this gap in the middle too 😬

Thanks a bunch for sharing your experience and tips they're super helpful! Customizing your transport card sounds pretty neat, even if the Namane machines aren't everywhere. And good call on using Kakao Taxi and booking train tickets ahead of time; it definitely saves a headache. Your train journey from Gimcheon to Yeongju sounds picturesque. Shame about the lift situation in Seoul, though. Thanks for the heads up about the JR ferry and budgeting tips! Just curious, did you have any favorite spots or must-try foods? Also, do you mind if I ask where you stayed in Seoul? Lastly, I'm considering a day tour. So far, I'm looking at this guide https://gowithguide.com/korea Did you have any experience with them? Or do you have any favorite local guides? Appreciate any pointers you can throw my way! Cheers!

Apologies for any confusion. I'm seeking advice for Korea.

This thumbnail or short video of 225 and 223 joined together may better illustrate.

I just found a Book Off in Paris - large selection of Japanese language books - couldn't help but feel there might have been some train books there but searching through there would have been a big effort. Now they just need to open a Hard Off and you could Chunnel over to see what they have! I was quite surprised to find it but for all I know it could have been there for years. Cheers, Tony

Yes, that's it. Between cars in the same set there is a vertical metal mount with a rubber strip, but the gap to cover is smaller.

I have several, all relatively cheapo ones. I can never find them when needed and recently bought one at Home Depot from "Commercial Electric" to use while figuring out stuff in the house, but will then use it on the work bench. In the last couple years I bought a couple from Ali Express or Banggood, including one I can't figure out where everything is auto sensed -- like I said, I can never find them when needed. None of my are nmr brand or expensive and all work fine for testing continuity, resistors and stuff, low voltage DC, and simple 120V/240V wiring.

Get a public transport card, we ended up with a Namane cards because you could customise the design, but T-Money is a bit cheaper. I think Namane has to be topped up at Namane machines which aren't that common but there were enough around. These are for subways and buses, vending machines and convenience stores (but convenience stores we never had an issue with international cards/Apple Pay). Google and Apple Maps are useless, get Kakao or Naver. Taxis are cheap, use the Kakao Taxi app to book, easy to do with no Korean. They can be busy, it was a struggle to get one at 5.30am on a Monday to get from our hotel to the airport, we should have booked ahead. If you're heading out of a big city at the start of a weekend or back in at the end of the weekend trains will be super busy. Book ahead, you can do that before you arrive using the Korail website. Train fares are pretty cheap, we couldn't see any advantage in buying a Korail Pass. The Korail website isn't great, but it does work. The vast majority of ticket machines and some smaller country stations can't take international cards, booking online is easier. Country trains are all booked seats (and I think some standing can be booked if all the seats are taken), and there are no ticket barriers at stations. Tickets were hardly ever checked, unless we were in the wrong seat, ie. they assume if there is a ticket sold for the seat and you are in it that all is OK. My favourite was travelling on the line from Gimcheon to Yeongju, the Mugunghwa trains that run on the line are hauled by Korail GT26CW-2's whereas pretty much everywhere else we went was electrified, or using a DMU. There's a nice cafe at Yonggung station in the old goods shed. We were also able to visit Samcheok Haebyeon on the Seatrain which was fun, we had some lovely seafood in a restaurant behind the beach. On the same line at Jeongdongjin there is a railbike along the beach that looked good, and a museum of time in a string of old passenger cars. And this is where the hotel up on the hill is built as if it is an ocean liner, looks pretty spectacular. While staying in Busan we caught the subway out to Haeundae and then went on the Haeundae Beach Train, the noodles and shellfish at the 31cm restaurant at the terminal, old Seongjong station were great. There's a nice walkway along the line and we walked back about halfway and then caught a bus to the subway. I found Seoul too busy, and the tourist spots were heaving, still fun to have been though. There are less escalators and lifts in the subway than in Japan, at the station near our hotel the lift was out of service and so we had to haul our suitcases up about six flights of stairs. I wrote a bit about accessing Korail timetables, the Korail site makes it a bit difficult to see a full view on what trains are available when. We also caught JR ferry across from Fukuoka to Busan which I enjoyed, but if you get motion sickness I wouldn't recommend it, I wrote up the issues I had when booking tickets on the Queen Beetle. We were there for ten days and spent less than KRW250000 in cash, you can get almost everything on an international card, except street vendors. Food was great, and cheap, in fact everything was fairly cheap, except the flight back to Japan, but we wanted to use a full service airline. Make sure you eat in a convenience store at least once, they have microwaves and boiling water and seating, I enjoyed it. We found booking accomodation to be difficult, it seems a lot of hotels don't open up booking until 30 days in advance, or we were looking in the wrong places. We ended up using a hotel chain we stay at often in Japan (Toyoko Inn) in Seoul, using booking.com to book a hotel in Busan near the station, and using AirBnb in Gangneung, all were fine and pretty cheap. I was hoping there would be the equivalent of HARD OFF in Japan, but I never found it. If anyone has any tips it would be much appreciated. There's a thread on here about model railway shops and I was able to visit one of the ones in Seoul, mostly Japanese stuff, and their GT26CW-2 model was unfortunately not for sale. In the 1980's and 1990's South Korea was where a lot of the brass models of Australian rolling stock were made so it's interesting that it seems to be a very small hobby there. Anyway that was a bit of a brain dump, hope it's useful, happy to answer any questions. I'm sure you will have a great time.