Nekomori - a temporary layout and scenery

[medusa]

Another grey and rainy weekend, always a warranty for really bad photos... so time for Medusa to play with her new model railway accessories.

 

 

Wanted to see the poured concrete supports on my viaduct. Some time ago I found a photo of a Kyushu Shinkansen line construction side which had a similar setup. Crossing a valley, the side supports were poured while in the center part of the valley they had only precast concrete supports. (Unfortunately I cannot find the link any more.)

 

For the catenary supports, I exchanged the bases which belong to the two types of supports. So, on the straight part I have now the single catenary poles on the narrow bases. In the curved parts I put the broader catenary bases bases on the poured supports, it fits as well as the narrower ones.

 

As you might notice, I have also a new green cotton fabric. It is darker than the other one and will be used with another background photo for a more northern scenery. Tohoku, maybe Hokkaido and also for Sibirian Taiga when the NIOE 88 comes into play. ;)

Edited February 11, 2017 by medusa

[velotrain]

With the catenary supports so far apart on such (relatively) tight curves, I should think that the pantograph would "come off the rail" ;-)

 

The supports are closer together on the straight than the curves, when it seems it should be the opposite.

 

Is there no way to support the catenary where there isn't a pier?

[medusa]

No. The catenary bases are put atop the supports. You can have supports (and thus catenary bases) amid a viaduct track piece but not the catenary bases without supports. You can see one of the base pieces in another post:

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/12208-what-do-you-do-today-on-your-layout/?p=150998

I modded it slightly for use with different supports (two single-track viaduct supports side-by-side).

 

But since the curve radius of the viaduct is anyway not realistic at all (R481 comes to about 80m radius at 1:160) maybe we can bear that.

[medusa]

Weekend and sunlight and a new train to play with... set up some place not far from Nekomori since I haven't enough track at the moment to do it all...

 

 

Crossing the mainline under the viaduct works quite well now. I use the "asymmetric" single-track supports where neccessary. And, of course, the modded catenary supports. So no longer irregular space between carenary poles. The photo of the electrical substation (lil' Shinkansen were hungry!) shows one of these just behind the substation itself. 

As for my new H5, it runs very well. Even if I was so short of track that I had a really messy patchwork of all the remains from my track box behind the background poster. Could use just the outer loop for driving.

As other people here in the forum, I noticed the E6 ran slower than the H5 in the beginning. However, after some time together they were nearly equal in speed. Coupling was easy and worked even in the beginning when the trains were of unequal individual speed. Tried both directions, no problems, no derailings.

An interesting detail was, it is possible to let the front couplers partially retracted. I don't like the look of the full-extended couplers like a beam between the trains. Not very prototypical. The coupled trains run very well on the R481 viaduct curve even if pressing both close together after coupling. With the unequal speed at the beginning, I expected some force on the coupler pulling it completely out in one direction or pushing it fully in in the other. This did not happen. So, tighter coupling for a better look clearly is possible.

 

 

The main actors of this afternoon. Both skinkansen are tight coupled (though I pushed it even tighter after taking the photo, still worked well). On the mainline, the KumaNeko cars checked the double loopback tunnel in the poster support, worked fine, too.

 

And, inevitably, the "view from a bridge"...

 

 

 

Edit: typos

Edited February 25, 2017 by medusa

[serotta1972]

I hope the track along the edge of Nekomori is perfect and no derailments occur as I fear for the n scale population as well as the trains.

[medusa]

I know what you mean... actuall the outer catenary poles hang above the abyss. I would not go so far to put switches at the front edge. Just to be sure. ;)

 

But never had any issues with derailing on Kato test loops. Since my bench is quite small the track usually is close to the edge or even hangs a bit over. I do tests or maintenance runs of the locos and powered cars frequently, no mishap so far.

[brill27mcb]

Looking quite good for a temporary layout!

 

Rich K.