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In December of 2022 I made first trip to Japan and fell in love with its rail network and history. I even went to the KATO stores in Tokyo and Kyoto and bought my first N scale and first Japanese model trains. Even made a stop at the Kyoto Railway museum. Fast forward to May of 2023 I had purchased more trains, track, and accessories to begin building a new layout. It took about two months to build and detail, but for my first layout since I was a kid, I’m happy with it. below, you see how it was built from ply board and foam. My initial track planning and laying, and later detailing.

The Takayama Line's KIHA40 and KIHA48 DMUs saw their last run on June 30th. These were based at Mino-Ota. They'll be replaced by KIHA25s removed from the Taketoyo Line following its electrification. KIHA40s have already been removed from the Taita Line (anyone ever actually ride this? :)) From July 1st, all local service on the Takayama Line between Gifu and Inotani will be operated by KIHA25 and KIHA75 DMUs. The last KIHA40 service was train 1731D which departed Gifu at 7:09 PM for Shimo-asō. JR Central continues to run KIHA40s on the Kise and Sangu lines, but there are already plans to replace them with KIHA25s, and plans to retire all JNR-era DMUs within the year. There will be a public announcement regarding the transfer of retired DMUs to Myanmar. http://railf.jp/news/2015/07/02/100000.html Last run, 1731D at Gifu, by hakase1990: 8-car formation (not in service) moving from Mino-Ota Station to the yard. Apparently these have Cummins engines. By AKE BOVOAKE:

Not really news anymore, but on Ompuchaneru I just noticed this pdf (dated March 27th) from JR Central: http://jr-central.co.jp/news/release/_pdf/000021810.pdf In the zairai line section, there's news about more 313 series EMUs and KIHA25 series DMUs, which look exactly like 313s. Electrification of the Taketoyo Line should be complete in spring of next year, and service will be operated by EMUs starting in June according to English Wikipedia. 28 new 313s will be built this year in preparation for this. On the DMU side of things, only 5 2-car sets of KIHA25s have been built, but they're getting 52 more, 16 this year and the remaining 36 next year. These will replace KIHA40s, of which JRC has 59, according to both English and Japanese Wikipedias. So, either 7 KIHA40s are safe or they're reducing numbers a bit. KIHA11s are post-privatization (1988), so if what I read is correct, they're safe. I've read that over the long term, electrics are cheaper to operate than diesels. Assuming that's true, I often wonder why there isn't more electrification when significantly large fleets of DMUs are ready for retirement. If electricity is more expensive in the last 3 years, surely that isn't expected to be permanent, and you can't depend on the cost of diesel fuel anyway.