How did you improve your rolling stock?

[Kiha66]

5 hours ago, disturbman said:

[here: a picture of 14 KiHa 40, 3 KiHa 47, and 3 115 all neatly lined up next to one another]

 

Sounds like a nice way to spend some time destressing!  I think the image sadly isn't showing up for me though.

[disturbman]

@Kiha66 It will once I take it. The Sun went missing today.

[disturbman]

On 11/22/2020 at 4:10 PM, disturbman said:

[here: a picture of 14 KiHa 40, 3 KiHa 47, and 3 115 all neatly lined up next to one another]

Niigata area: 115-1000 Series, KiHa 40 & 47

JR West: KiHa 40 & 47

 

Still no pictures of the JR Hokkaido and JR East Oga line fleets. The annoying part with adding these detailing parts, is that some parts require a small touch of glue and others don’t. It’s impossible to know which one will or won’t. It can only be discovered after one of them comes out after mounting.

Edited November 24, 2020 by disturbman

[MeTheSwede]

Nothing special for most of you guys, but today I did my first attempt at train surgery. My 313 series from the Tomix starter set 90173 had its Rapido couplers cut away and replaced with Tomix 0337 TN couplers. I'm very pleased with the results. 

 

I wouldn't have dared it without this video showing how it's done: https://youtu.be/9Df32EsUZlk

 

[disturbman]

There is nothing to fear. The Force is strong with these couplers.

(Only swapping Greenmax couplers to TNs can lead to broken parts)

[disturbman]

I guess this could be considered as "improving"...

I had to reglue the two windshields of my JR East 'Kagone' as they had become loose. Took less than five minutes. Setting up and cleaning up the work space probably took longer than applying the glue. Used some simple white glue. I'll check tomorrow if it holds or if I need to apply more glue.

[JR 500系]

I love the TN couplers! Thhey just make the entire train looks so much... neater.... One thing though, it kinda make my trains derail on some occasions when the turns become too sharp for TN coupler's liking and the body shells hit each other causing the train to derail....

[Yavianice]

Popondetta/HKTILC sells these KATO lights that are rainbow colored. I always wondered what would be a suitable application for them. 
 

Here is one, the 52 seats of happiness train that has a multi purpose car (car 1) that is otherwise empty. The train can also be rented for wedding venues or private parties, which makes it a suitable application. Here is a short vid.

 

The model has 2 small holes that allow for pickups (the train usually can only be equipped with Tomix “narrow” lights). I soldered 2 small pickups to the light and poked it through the small holes. So I did not do any permanent damage modification to the train and the lights are easily removable.

 

 

[katoftw]

34 minutes ago, Yavianice said:

Popondetta/HKTILC sells these KATO lights that are rainbow colored. I always wondered what would be a suitable application for them. 
 

Here is one, the 52 seats of happiness train that has a multi purpose car (car 1) that is otherwise empty. The train can also be rented for wedding venues or private parties, which makes it a suitable application. Here is a short vid.

 

The model has 2 small holes that allow for pickups (the train usually can only be equipped with Tomix “narrow” lights). I soldered 2 small pickups to the light and poked it through the small holes. So I did not do any permanent damage modification to the train and the lights are easily removable.

 

 

Any reason for not using the tomix version of the disco lights? Or you just had a kato one to play with spare?

[Yavianice]

2 minutes ago, katoftw said:

Any reason for not using the tomix version of the disco lights? Or you just had a kato one to play with spare?

I never intended to get one but then HKTILC gave me one for free to try. But they only gave the KATO version

[JR 500系]

Hey that's actually quite a nice idea, Disco train! Didnt know the 3rd car had windows blocking off 75% of the carriage....  

 

Kinda regret not getting this one but oh well... it's a Seibu.... 

 

[JR 500系]

This is pretty interesting, if you wanna re-create coupling and uncoupling scenes:

 

 

[gavino200]

What exactly is happening there? Are those magnets? Or sticky paper. I winced a bit watching the guy take a nippers to the coupler. 

[roadstar_na6]

3 hours ago, gavino200 said:

Are those magnets?

Yes.

What confuses me is how he shuts off the second train without insulated rail joiners or anything. On the setup he has you can see the station is way too short for a full layout but it also has only one power feed.

I can see this method work for DCC operation, but not so much for DC.

[Yavaris Forge]

Need a project to kill some time when you're on a budget? I had the idea today (though someone else may have had it before me) to use leftover runners from catenary masts to make pipe-cargo for my Toki15000s.

I just cut them into the same length and glued them onto bits of some matches. They still look rather plastic-y so I'll probably weather them as well. I think this would be a fun thing for beginners as well if you don't want to drive empty wagons around.

[Kamome]

This upgrade may seem unnecessary for some and there will always be different aspects of railway modelling that frustrate people. For me it’s the Tomix obsession with putting “bling” wheels on their rolling stock. Anything with blackened wheels seems to dictate its “High Grade” whereas Kato tend to do this as standard with all of their models over the past 10 years. Even as a factory fresh piece of rolling stock, i’m sure the wheels were never this shiny.

 

Anyway, the pictures say it all, in my view. 

[Kiha66]

Looks great!  Does tomix sell the blackened wheels as a separate part?

[katoftw]

5 minutes ago, Kiha66 said:

Looks great!  Does tomix sell the blackened wheels as a separate part?

TOMIX 0652

[Kamome]

Yes indeed as @katoftw mentioned. I was actually just expecting to get some Kato ones but at least i know these fit exactly. The Tomix ones are marginally more expensive. ¥360 for 4 for Tomix as opposed to ¥500 for 8 for Kato. I’m now considering other Tomix offerings that i had often overlooked now i know the wheels can be changed easily. Let’s hope Tomix take heed and change their wheelie ways.

[JR 500系]

Not by me, but this is absolutely amazing!!!

 

 

[Kamome]

Painted the generic looking substation transformer loads that came with the Tomix shiki 1000. 

They certainly look better but undecided whether to keep them or change out for a larger single load. I have some EZ line to make some tie-downs for the whichever load eventually goes on. Thoughts please.

[cteno4]

Looks nice with the two reasonable sized loads compared to the shiki 600/800/810 monsters.

 

jeff

[Peter Osborne]

Had an attempt this morning at converting my MicroAce HoKi 10000 from the Arnold rapido couplers to some green max knuckle couplers, firstly I found I definitely need glasses so booked a test secondly a bit of a fiddly job, the one truck lost its spring (anyone know if any other springs fit?) the second fitted ok but a little tight with no play left or right I don’t know if this might hamper when negotiating junctions or curves will have to try on a small section of track, the main thing is they look better and couple up to my Kato EF510 that I will use with these cars 

Edited February 25, 2021 by disturbman
typo

[roadstar_na6]

30 minutes ago, Peter Osborne said:

anyone know if any other springs fit?

Kato, Tomix, GM or xyz springs will also fit just fine, they're all the same basically.

[disturbman]

The locomotive knuckle coupler is the original Kato?