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I want a small new project for the new year. I have quite a few Japanese (and other) projects in progress from early last year but put them all down when some serious real life things happened. This is my attempt to get moving again without any baggage from before. I'm planning this to be a simple Unitram based double loop with points to allow it to be extended off each end. My idea is to make the center loop a detailed city center with street trackage with the extensions being double track private rights of way ending in stub terminals with crossovers. I'm home sick today, so I started playing around with the pieces from a V50 and V53 to get a feel for what will work, how big it will be and what parts I still need to find. This central loop will be mounted to portable benchwork. I'm not sure if I want structures in the center of the loop, I'm thinking a park might be nice, but I don't know if it would be plausible. I'll probably run my little fleet of Modemo Toden Arakawa cars on this. I'm hoping this will be a fun project that I can take to shows.

While speaking with cteno4 at the JRM display in New York, he mentioned that the front-view videos posted here are useful as examples for layouts. Yesterday I happened upon the video below, which shows some very close-up detail, if covered with snow. This is a walking tour around the Yanaka neighborhood, which is on the inside of the Yamanote loop between Nippori and Nishi-Nippori stations. Uploaded by taoyakani, his text with the video indicates that the path of the walk is Miurasaka (slope) → cedars at temple town → Kan'eiji ( temple) → Yanaka cemetery → Nippori station. The recording was made starting at 1:47PM on February 14th, 2014. Start near the bottom of Miura Hill: http://goo.gl/maps/7kLZ9 Kan'ei Temple: http://goo.gl/maps/03O0A Nippori Station: http://goo.gl/maps/AnmqJ