How did you get interested in the Japanese RR?

[Sushi Train]

I'd love to go, but I'm not sure that I want to take a 6-year-old on a trip that crosses that many time zones. If we can save up enough, we may take him to Costa Rica in the next few years, but that's only one hour difference.

 

(Oh--yes, I'm in the US--in Virginia, about two hours southwest of Washington DC.)

 

Oh well, I can understand, being in Australia affords us the chance to visit more often even though this time im taking the wife and 2 boys aged 6 and 14.  :-\

[alpineaustralia]

Having travelled to Japan with a 5 year old - I can honestly say it is an extremely easy and child friendly place to travel. If you did a day ot two stopoever at Hawaii, it would be easy.

[scott]

Having travelled to Japan with a 5 year old - I can honestly say it is an extremely easy and child friendly place to travel. If you did a day ot two stopoever at Hawaii, it would be easy.

 

I can feel myself being brainwashed..... :)

[Sushi Train]

or a few days in L.A, with Disneyland for the little one  ;D

[quinntopia]

Since I'm still on the learning curve for Japanese RR's (well, I'm still on the learning curve of everything in life but that's another story), my interest is nascent but can be attributed to a couple of things:

1) An interest in unusual or different trains.  My dad's a big HO guy for American stuff, and while I got the train bug, the American stuff is not as interesting to me. The bug hit me after years of dormancy when I saw a Lionel "Phantom" locomotive back in 98 after my son was born (which in retrospect, looks like it could almost be a JR loco!).

2) I moved into European N Scale about 2 years ago (done with O), but have discovered that some of the most informative (non-US) blogs for N scale information is coming from Japanese modellers - like y'all

3) Capt. Oblivious' blog in particular was one I found very inspiring, and pushed me to accelerate my Japanese interests (you can say he converted me).

4) A couple of work trips to Japan, which ranged from jet-lagged exhaustion on the Narita Express to wandering around Shinjuku (which is a great place to wander around!).  I hope to get back there soon as I would definitely be able to appreciate it a lot more now (and cringing at the missed opportunities as I was into O Gauge [3 rail] back then) !

 

Photo of Shinjuku station from my hotel lobby. 

[CaptOblivious]

3) Capt. Oblivious' blog in particular was one I found very inspiring, and pushed me to accelerate my Japanese interests (you can say he converted me).

 

;D

 

BTW, that is an awesome photo of Shinjuku Station…almost makes me think I made a mistake in choosing Ueno Station as the focus of my collection…

[Guest ___]

Hey, don't knock Ueno.  :P That was my base of operation last year. While I enjoyed time at Shinjuku, Shinagawa and Tokyo, Ueno is a perfectly fine station. And it's groper free unlike Akihabara.  (Stupid gropers-I ahte them so much  >:( )

[Sushi Train]

groper? im intrigued

[SubwayHypes]

Wow quintoppia awesome picture!! My grandma taught english in a building that overlooked that same area, it was about 45 floors up, the view was amazing!  We would start class at 4pm and watch the city slowly turn dark.

 

Also, I love Ueno station, i think its good you are doing that.  You should try and make an underground line and accomodate the Hibiya subway trains!  You can also add a little zoo into your layout!

[SubwayHypes]

 

My main rail interest is subways, streetcars and commuter railways. The Shinkansen is merely a fast way to get to see other Japanese rail systems. :)

 

 

 

Nice we have similar tastes! 

[SubwayHypes]

 

 

Of course, I really don't have the money now either... but last weekend I caved and ordered a full set of Joban E531s off Hobby Search. Also planning on getting Greenmax's Keihan 3000 series and a full 11-car Yamanote consist when those become available. I don't know what became of ye olde 216mm Unitrack oval, so I'm just going to collect these for awhile until I have enough trains to justify an interesting layout. Also not sure if I'm gonna go with Unitrack or Tomix, or maybe a mixture... but then I don't have to make that decision overnight.

 

nice man!! you got the e531 joban i got the same train and i love it!  Yours looks crisp though, i see you got the double decker green cars, my e531 is a 5+2 so no green cars, but i have the green cars on my e217 yokosuka.

 

you got any pics of your fleet?

[SubwayHypes]

Tokyo was basically my second home.  Every summer since i was a baby my mom would take me and my brother to Tokyo where we would stay for as long as 2 months living at my grandparents 3 unit apartment complex.  Grandparents lived downstairs, and the top units were my aunties and my moms.  We had our own digs for free so no hotels!

 

 

I grew up around japanese trains, rode them every day.  As a kid i was obsesssed with JR trains, i have countless drawings and train books from that time.  my grandma supported my interest in trains by buying me railpasses, books, etc.

 

One thing i always wanted was my own N scale layout.  I used to see layouts all the time, espeically at the Ginza Matsuzakaya N scale exhibition, where they would let kids take 10 minute turns on the kato power parks.

 

Unfortunately my grandparents and mother never allowed me to buy any N scale stuff, since it was deemed too expensive and too sophisticated for my young hands. 

 

ALso unfortunately, my grandma passed away in 2006 and my mother and aunt decided to sell the property, so i no longer have a "base of operations"

 

I havent been able to revisit japan in almost two years, and i seriously get giddy with excitement thinking about my next trip.  In the meantime, to appease my cravings for everything Tokyo, i have started to build my own Tokyo based N scale train layout.  I figure if i cant afford to visit tokyo anymore, i might as well bring it into my house.

[Bernard]

Subway - any future plans to visit Tokyo again? Do you still have relatives living there?

[Mudkip Orange]

you got any pics of your fleet?

I had the opportunity to "acquire" some Kato track at a very nominal cost (i.e. free), so I now have a K1/M1 set, a circle of R216mm, a circle of R248mm, and an extra feeder track. I requisitioned two ancient Bachmann packs from my Dad's stash of HO stuff so now I can run the E531 and the Eizan 900 series at the same time.

 

I'm very seriously considering doing a hollow core door layout in the near to intermediate future. We shall see.

[NGT6 1315]

Well, I guess this was a coincidence of sorts for me. Last year I did feel like I needed to expand my model railway hobby in another direction, and about the same time I came across several forum postings as well as online retailers stocking Japanese N gauge items. Now, I have a habit of always wanting to find out as much as I can about unfamiliar things - which applies to pretty much anything, not just railways. And as I dug through what information I was able to collect I believe I realized the scale of the engineering achievement as well as the personal effort of all people involved in building the Japanese railways into what they are today - especially considering that Japan was, overall, rather late in introducing railways, and suffered terrible destruction as a result of WW2.

 

On a side note - the only thing I personally have some reservations about is the unforgiving attitude towards errors which seems to be so dominant in Japanese culture as a whole. I'm saying this because, funnily, I, too, have some sort of a perfectionist streak, but am also well aware of this being a double-edged sword - the more you strive for perfection, the higher the risk of being disappointed, and I'm speaking from painful experience here. Don't get me wrong, I believe there is nothing wrong at all in aiming for the best possible performance. But at the same time one should never forget that, in the end, we are all human beings and as such never immune to making mistakes, and therefore allow for others to remain human as well. Or, in other words, good enough should be allowed to be good enough. Sadly, I do have the impression that too many people forget this when it comes to such things as public transport.

 

Well, I guess this was my thought for the day .

[veejo]

I have a 2 1/2 year old son. It started with HO Thomas set, Then I discovered Tomix N scale Thomas (still need to buy one), which lead me to the Anime and other "colourfull" trains. Very Japanese, very unique, but great for a father son hobby, and they look so great on display. The bullet traisn don't do much for me though, they seem to reflect more an engineering achivement, which lots of countries do. But the Anime and other colourful trains are uniquely Japanese, and always bring a smile to the face of my son, me and guests when they see them. Visitors always say "wow, what a cool train".

[ToniBabelony]

I started out with H0-gauge modelling. Most of the time the most usual choice: German style, but after a few years this started to bore me and it got too expensive. After a while I switched to Japanese N-gauge which I find now more reliable, cheaper, more interesting and more fun then German H0-modelling.

 

Japanese trains have always fascinated me. To begin with old photographs of the coal and fish trains of Hokkaido I flipped through as a kid in the early nineties and later the Shinkansen as well. Now I think the Hokkaido steamers have left the biggest impression on me of all Japanese trains, though I tend to sway more towards the last decade of steam in the 40 Shõwa-era as IMO. This is because in this era the biggest and most interesting variation of railway material in the JNR and private company can be found. Old steamers can puff along a silently sliding Shinkansen with no problem. Also, a great feat' of Japanese modelling is that local areas don't seem to change much from 1945 to now (apart from asphalt), so the use of modern material in between classic trains doesn't disturb the ambiance at all. One can pretend to operate a museum line with the occasional commuter train in between and so on.

 

When it comes to real trains in Japan, I like the feeling of local lines best. The larger railway lines don't really do me much. Only the Keisei-Honsen at Keisei-Takasago interests me, as there is the hustle and bustle of 5 lines coming together and 4 railway companies' trains (now maybe 5 with the opening of the new Hokuso Narita section?) running through one another. There aren't many stations like that where I experienced such busy traffic in Tokyo and beyond. Anyway, the best rides I've experienced were on the JR East Senzan-line, the Enoden, the Enoshima Monorail and the extremely short Keisei Kanamachi-line.

[Nozomi]

Well, as my original post in the 'introduction' thread was rather short, I now let you know a bit more about how I came to the Japanese RR model hobby.

 

30 years ago my first phase of RR hobby began, I was just about 11 years old. An uncle who worked for Swiss Railways bought my nice birthday present. A Fleischmann N-Gauge Starter set with some track, power, a loco and some coaches. Within a few months the layout grew to quite large size and the yard had to be enlarged almost monthly (we weren't Rockefellers but my father had died the same year and my mother was ready to spend a lot to keep me 'happy'). I yard was filled with models based on mostly Swiss and German prototypes. This went on for until I reached the age 15. From that point on women were my favorite pastime and I lost the interest in model RR. I have to add that the lack of EMU's / DMU's in that time didn't help either to keep me interested.

 

The following 25 years I was still interested in the RR subject but more in using the life-size trains in real. I had great trips with French TGV's, Thalys, Eurostar, ICE and so on. During a 2year backpack trip I used the Indian Railways for thousands of miles. I also had a great train ride in Mexico (barranca del cobre, I guess).

 

Well in December 2008 I read an article in the local newspaper that another RR model hobby shop in Zurich had to close and that great bargains should be available.

My thought was just to visit the shop and if they had a model of a high speed train at a good price I might buy it..... Well they had a beautiful KATO N-Gauge 10car set of the Thalys PBKA (based on TGV) which I took home.

 

My original plan was to display that train and have a look at it from time to time. BUT it took only 2 days until I could not stand it any longer not to see the train running.

 

Since that day I bought lots of tracks and quite a lot of trains (mostly High-speed from around the world). I also bought an N700 shinkansen and ever since I’m spooked by shinkansen trains. I ordered one shinkansen set after another and got more interested in the Japanese train universe. Japanese model RR is very diverse, dozens of interesting trains with sometimes mindboggling designs. Even better the models are actually available from great retailers in Japan at very reasonable prices.

 

I have been so occupied with shopping train sets that I did not had the time to think about the layout I want. My biggest concern is the space requirement for stabling the sets (usually longer than 7 cars) because I don't really enjoy to de- and re-rail such long trains. I guess everyone who owns the Kato N700 set knows what I mean. I want most of my sets ready for use in my layout's yard. Another concern is that I want my shinkansen's to be able to use every part of the layout. So there will be lots of planning in the coming months...

 

So that's my story so far with the model RR hobby. The next big chapter will be my trip to Japan in February 2010 where I will spend 2 and half weeks in Tokyo and plan to do nothing else than hunt for train sets and ride trains in and around Tokyo. Of course I will also do some day trips with Shinkansen trains... I can't wait! And yeah... that Nippori bridge looks interesting...

(I have to add that travelled to Japan many times in the last 10 years but I only took a shinkansen once... a shame really)

[Bernard]

Nozomi - I think we both had the same feelings about displaying trains and running them. My first Japanese set was a 181 series and I would set up an oval on my desk at home and let it run and then display it on the shelf. When my wife and I were looking at houses the real estate agent must have thought I was nuts when I went into the basement with a measuring tape and marked off the floor. The agent turned to my wife and said there is plenty of open space in the basement. My wife Pam replied, not when he starts making his train layout there won't be. What he's doing is measuring the max. area he can use for his layout.

I just had to get my train collection up and running. 

[marknewton]

That sounds familiar, Bernard. I was doing much the same thing, only with sheds and garages rather than basements. And our estate agent was equally puzzled by my wife Paula's insistence on an backyard big enough to accomodate a circle of 5" gauge track! 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.