Search the Community

Here are some photos online of the new 7700 series Arakawa trams in Tokyo. Note: they are rebuilds of the 7000 series (which were themselves rebuilds) ... they retained the car bodies, and HVAC systems ... everything else (trucks, electrics, etc) is new ... they also enlarged the passenger doors so they are now a meter in width they cost ¥130M each to rebuild as opposed to the ¥180M for each 8900 series tram they are planning to have 8 ... 2 green, 3 maroon, and 3 blue and the other color variants official press release: http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/INET/OSHIRASE/2016/03/20q3h200.htm (Japanese)

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.

There will be an open day at the Arakawa Line Arakawa Depot this Sunday, from 10am to 1pm. http://www.kotsu.metro.tokyo.jp/newsevent/news/toden/2014/tdn_p_201405124624_h.html Toden #7001 in the revival "akaobi" coloring, debuting last November: