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The main national news event today in Japan, especially as it's a Monday, and also many people are starting their summer holidays. https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/07/f2214434e689-update1-shinkansen-bullet-train-services-halted-between-tokyo-and-nagoya.html *Apparently a tractor pulling a several wagons of ballast collided head on with what appears to be a tamping machine, causing both vehicles to derail. As the derailment spot is located in a rather narrow cutting, a crane couldn't be maneuvered in to rerail the vehicles, and instead jacks were used for the process, taking extra time. *The 2 tph shuttle services were all-station stoppers, essentially Kodama services.

Hi everybody! New to the forum here but I have been lurking for the past few months. My wife and I spent three weeks in Japan from mid-May to early June of this year; jumping from Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Odawara, and Kanazawa. I have been collecting HO Scale models (mostly modern Amtrak equipment) for years and am slowly building up supplies to construct a layout in our home. So, when we went to Japan, the only thing I needed to purchase as a souvenir was either a modern or iconic Japanese Passenger train in HO Scale. Of course, this forum and some other resources made me realize prior to that trip that N-scale dominates the Japanese market (for completely understandable reasons), so I tempered my expectations before we even got into the country. However, about a week and a half into the trip I felt like I hit the jackpot. I found not just one, but numerous boxes of HO Scale Zoukei Mura 0-Series Shinkansen at a Hobbyland Pochi in Osaka. They had two Basic-Sets, two A-sets, four B-sets, and eight individual motor cars all in their original boxes for sale (see below for a snip of sets available for the Zoukei Mura Shinkansen). After some deliberation with the wife unit about our suitcase situation, I got the green light to purchase a Basic-Set, an A-Set, and a B-set from the Hobbyland Pochi in Osaka. They were all being sold at full retail price despite being used models, however seeing that they were all in extremely good condition (A-A) and the yen is pretty weak to the dollar at the moment I didn't really mind paying retail too much. Fast forward another week, and I found another extremely good condition B-set at a Hobbyland Pochi in Yokohoma for well over half of what I paid for the B-set in Osaka so I snatched up that one as well. So yeah, I really wasn't intending to, but I arrived home back in the United States with a twelve car HO-Scale Zoukei Mura Shinkansen consist that I paid less than $750 for. I still feel extremely lucky and happy that I was able to find and come home with such a beautiful set. Here is where I am looking for some help from this forum... All of the HO American locomotives I purchased prior to this Shinkansen are DCC and Sound equipped from the factory. The future layout I plan to construct will definitely be DCC. In fact, I am likely going to pick up a Digitrax EVOX set this weekend during all the fourth of July sales. So, all that to say, I would very much so love to put a DCC Sound Decoder and Sound System into this Zoukei Mura Shinkansen that followed me home from Japan. However, I have no experience in buying, installing, and configuring DCC Sound Systems into existing locomotives since all my previous models have had DCC Systems installed at the factory. I haven't taken the car body off of one of my Shinkansen models yet, but in my research I saw that Zoukei Mura put provisioning in the motor cars to allow a DCC Decoder to be installed; specifically a LokSound v4.0 Decoder that Zoukei Mura offered for sale at one point complete with Zoukei Mura sound recordings of the 0-Series Shinkansen. The only place I have found any information about that older LokSound v4.0 Decoder was on a Japanese Volks Hobby Heaven online store URL. There are two problems with that Volks page though, the first being that Volks Japan doesn't ship outside of Japan and the other issue is that the Decoder is likely never going to come back into stock again since Loksound has moved to the LokSound v5.0. So, I ended up doing some more research and found that a Hobby Shop/Specialist in Great Britain (Roads and Rails) took it upon themselves to create a sound file for the 0-Series Shinkansen and offer it for sale on a LokSound v5.0 decoder. The Roads and Rails team even created a YouTube video to showcase the model's sounds, and to my uneducated ears it sounds pretty cool. Finally, here is what I am look for help on: Is the LokSound v5.0 Decoder a drop-in replacement for the Loksound v4.0 decoder? (Trying to see if the Road and Rails LokSound v.50 will just be a plug-and-play option or if there is going to be some custom fitting involved with that install) I would love to consist the entire train on a DCC Layoud and have three motors cars: Should I just get three LokSound v5.0 decoders (one for each motor car)? I don't think I really need three sound decoders (two at most), but I'm not well versed enough in DCC Systems to know if I need three of the same, relatively expense decoders in order to make consisting the train easy. Also note that I have never done any speed programming myself and do not currently have the tools and resources to do so. Do you think the Zoukei Mura Shinkansen's motors will be able to handle DCC Pulse Width Modulation okay? Most Japanese Model companies optimize sales (and motors, I imagine) to standard DC because that is what their markets demand. Though, I would like to think Zoukei Mura selected the motors for the 0-Series Shinkansen to be compatible with DCC since they added provisioning DCC Decoder in their motor cars and offered a Sound Decoder for sale at some point. To those of you much more well versed in the 0-Series Shinkansen: How close to the prototype is the Roads and Rails sound files (demo'ed on that above YouTube link)? I'm not a rivet counter but I am curious how prototypical the sounds are. Apologies for the wall of text. However, I don't really have any people close to me that share my love of model trains, so I kind of needed to express to some of those more familiar with the subject material my story of how I got the models and just how elated and fortunate I was to find them! I also obviously am looking for some assistance. Thanks for your patience and your time!

In an effort to attract more ridership post-corona, JR Tokai has started a campaign, with the slogan- "lets go, somebody is waiting to see you", emphasizing more personal or leisure trips to intermediate destinations on the Tokaido Shinkansen, in particular Shizuoka. Shizuoka is getting an additional Hikari stop (on an evening "down" service i.e. departing Tokyo) starting March 16, the first addition in 16 years. Currently a total of 37 Hikari (combined up and down) services stop daily in Shizuoka, with the aforementioned train in the spring timetable revision this will become 38. *at 0:55 the scene is an "up" Shinkansen service crossing the Toyokawa River, with Toyohashi in the background.

Recently I've noticed, that the Kato Shinkansen 100 (10-354) was "missing" a pantograph on the lead car (see the pic). And I was wondering if that was prototypical... It just seems somewhat odd and awkward to have that empty space. I also found pictures of a Shinkansen 100, where this space was occupied by a pantograph, which makes me want to install one myself

Full article: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14860082

First time for a TV station to visit the normally off-limits mainframe that is the Tokaido Shinkansen COMTRAC sustem, which controls the routing of trains on the Tokaido Shinkansen. The system will be upgraded this October to the latest generation, which will handle schedule disruptions more quickly, especially at terminal stations (namely Tokyo Station). (COMTRAC segment is up to about 5:30 in the clip): JR Tokai news release (pdf in Japanese) includes diagrams seen in the TV news report: https://jr-central.co.jp/news/release/_pdf/000036204.pdf

Catch copy (slogan) is "let's go out and visit/meet someone". Many lineside scenes from the passenger window familiar to those that often use the Tokaido Shinkansen, as well as on-board experiences (rock hard ice cream...) another version, focusing on the journey itself, lots of views from the window:

An interesting program about JR Central's Hamamatsu Works. I've seen some other documentaries about this facility, but this one is recent and is edited in an interesting style, not a lot of talking. Kinda good to chill out to 🙂 This is on TV Aichi's YouTube channel.

Footage from earlier this year of the testing done between Maibara and Kyoto, at speeds up to 360km/h. Note how appreciably different the passing speed is between the revenue service top speed of 285 km/h and the trial 360 km/h. The nighttime environment is also nicely atmospheric.

Some updates to JRC's Hamamatsu Shinkansen shop have been featured on Shizuoka Broadcasting's YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEXXi8XQ2sI

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003344992 Scenes at Kawasaki Heavy's plant in Kobe:

http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/high-speed/jr-central-tests-sic-power-modules-on-shinkansen-train.html?channel=523

With the spring timetable revision coming into effect March 14, maximum operating speed on the Tokaido Shinkansen will be raised from 270 to 285km/h. An exhibition run with passengers was carried out this Wednesday. The top speed of 285km/h was reached at eight locations between Toyohashi and Mikawa Anjo Stations. With the new schedule 1 train per hour will be run at the higher max speed. The journey time between Tokyo and Shin Osaka will be shortened by three minutes. http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20150225/k10015737711000.html

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201409180073 *not mentioned here, but mentioned in the original Japanese print article, the actual main purpose of the speed-up is not to reduce the total travel time (though that is the general public advertising point) , but rather to facilitate faster timetable recovery in instances of accidents, bad weather, etc. Back in JNR days, the average delay in shinkansen services (in one year) typically ranged over two minutes, while this past decade, this has been reduced to under a minute- in the case of 2003, six seconds. However, last year, the average delay figure rose to 54 seconds. Presumably this technical development will help get that number back down again.

So I'm pruning my YT subscriptions, and of course I'm still subscribing to RailKingJP's channel, but I thought I'd check out a few of his more recent videos. In this installment, he stands just below a bridge that carries the Tokaido Shinkansen over the Sagami River. Looks risky. location of bridge: https://maps.google.co.jp/maps?hl=ja&ll=35.390926,139.373937&spn=0.003582,0.005381&t=h&z=18&brcurrent=3,0x6019ab4b1a823665:0xd50a2e859d1939a1,1