How did you improve your rolling stock?

[disturbman]

@cteno4It’s their only drawback, coupling is manual. You need to slightly lift the wagon to lock the couplers together. It’s intended for Japanese use, with no shunting. But I don’t mind, I’m not planning to do any shunting with these. I haven’t tested them intensively but they seem reliable. The short shanks on the TaKi work perfectly fine with R315.

 

Next up on my lists of tasks was fitting Recolor's TX091 Tomix to Kato coupler adapter on one of my EF81s. Here is Yokohama Model blog entry about the TX091 for Tomix electrics, https://www.orientalexpress.jp/tx091_socket/, and for TX092 for Tomix diesels, https://www.orientalexpress.jp/tx092_socket2/.

 

 

Installation was straightforward. Push the coupler inside the adapter and replace the original coupler with the adapter. No need to glue the coupler to the adapter, the fit is tight and the coupler shouldn’t free itself.

 

 

I first tested the smaller of both couplers, the EF66 coupler (Z01-0224). The head is quite small and the shank is short. Interestingly it fits the GM couplers.

 

The second pack of couplers was a bust as the head was too large for the GM couplers and sat too high for them. They might work better with Kato 11-702s.

 

I need to test how the connection holds live, but clearance seemed enough for my tracks even though the connection is very dense.

Edited February 17, 2022 by disturbman

[Englehart]

those GM couplers looks great i wonder would it fair to MTL tru-scale couplers...

[Yavianice]

On the Micro Ace 8672 KiHa261 Super Soya, there is an ugly Rapido coupler at the middle cabin car connecting it to the rest of the train.

 

It's really ugly and the distances between the cars is so huge you could park another one in there. So I replaced it with home-made magnetic couplers. I guess I could have used some ultra-short japanese couplers for it too to make it more realistic, but I intend to always run it as a 6 car consist anyway.

 

Before (with KATO pocket couplers, the original Rapido couplers had an even bigger gap)

 

After (with magnetic couplers)

 

Front view with the magnetic coupler

 

Not the prettiest solution, but definitely the easiest!

[disturbman]

8 hours ago, Englehart said:

those GM couplers looks great i wonder would it fair to MTL tru-scale couplers...

Judging from the available pictures, they seem relatively similar in size.

[chadbag]

Last year there were some questions on the older Greenmax motor chassis and whther they had two actual motor or not.  As I have a Hanwa Line JR 103 with the older chassis I took mine apart and took pictures for the thread.  However, in doing so, I broke the two motor wires off the decoder.  So it has been sitting here on my desk waiting to be fixed so tonight I did that. I just soldered the two wires back to the decoder and then test ran it on my (very dirty) tracks.  It was a success and though the track was dirty enough so it didn't run well, it was the track, not the train and it did run both directions according to the throttle...  

 

The first two pics show the broken wires.  The third with the wires soldered back and the 4th with the shell back on and tested.

 

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by chadbag

[Kamome]

Decided to follow Susukuma’s direction and mask up the Tomix shiny wheels and paint rather than replace. The results are a slight improvement than standard but I think the replacement blackened wheels still look better (0652) I’m not sure I like the silver rims and axles. This is for the military train that i’ve still not located loads for. It seems YSK models may start producing again although the chap seems to still be slowly recovering from the delta strain of Covid according to his twitter page. I wish him well and hope I can send some business his way soon.

 

Also finally located a motor unit for the Hankai tram and painted some of the details and lightly weathered. The front skirts are very low so had to adjust with a scalpel to stop them grounding and bringing the tram to an uncomfortable stop. 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Kamome

[disturbman]

Not my rolling-stock, but I added custom sleeves to (almost all) my Casco cases.

 

 

 

The sleeves were printed on 135g glossy paper.

Edited March 7, 2022 by disturbman

[cteno4]

Nicely done! I’ve been wanting to put little profile picts on the edges of all my caskets as My dyslexic brain registers that so much better than make/model number text does! Shinkansen models are about the only ones I can keep straight in my head, but still get confused with E5/E6.
 

jeff

[disturbman]

Even for non-dyslexics, it’s a lot easier to see pictures than read model names. That’s a big plus of MA sets, they (almost) always have a small train face.

Edited March 7, 2022 by disturbman

[cteno4]

It’s funny I have a couple of friends that can rattle off details and lists of names, numbers, etc, but whe they look at things I’m shocked how much they don’t notice visually. Definitely brain development towards a list and not visual.

 

while the end is nice, I usually don’t recognize the end shots well as I don’t tend to see them much head on running trains and usually gravitate visually to the sides and the details there. But you are right on many caskets there is little room left for a big side shot.

 

which site(s) did you pull your head shots from?

 

jeff

[Kamome]

trainfrontview.net most likely. This chap's work has even been used by railway companies in Japan.

 

The company logos are a nice touch. I was considering getting a colour label printer to do something on the spines of all my cases. Certainly easier to find stuff rather than a see of green and white.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Kamome

[disturbman]

Yes, I used the "big" icons from trainfrontview.net. The smaller ones don't scale to size, not enough details.

The logos are from wiki, they were all vectors files.

[JR East]

Really nicely done, very good idea, esp. the big icons for train ... noticed a Tobu 500. 

[JR East]

Looks like https://trainfrontview.net/ is down 

 

 

[cteno4]

An alternate to color label maker is to use a clear label holder. I got some 1”x3” adhesive backed label holders to add some train profiles onto the spine of caskets. Also just printing on high quality heavy printer paper and using some transfer adhesive to apply hem to the spine.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

@JR Eaststill up for me, http://www.trainfrontview.net/index.htm

[JR 500系]

@disturbman That is REALLY nice! I see you even have the railway company logo stuck at the top of the sleeve cover sheet!  

 

The idea of having a train head logo instead of words only occured to me after i realise how nicer and easier it is to read....   X_x 

 

[disturbman]

Yes, I did some tryouts with more text, but I was not happy with the result. I group my rolling-stock logically (by railways company, geographical area, line) and only needed a visual aid to help me pick the correct box. Less is always more. No need to Mitooka everything 🙊

You can always re-do them, at least the Casco ones.

[JR 500系]

Here, no prizes to guess what i did to improve the 215 series ~

 

 

 

There's a hint in the picture, although we really cant see the difference in the before and after .... X_x  Not a really good upgrade for the amount of work that goes in i must say... 

[disturbman]

@KamomeIf you are looking for blackened wheelsets for your Tomix freight wagons, you might be able to use Kato’s instead. I had a bag lying around and they fit in the trucks of my Tomix Kokis.

 

edit: They also fit on Tomytec’s Railway Collection.

Edited March 18, 2022 by disturbman

[gavino200]

On 3/15/2022 at 9:36 PM, JR 500系 said:

Here, no prizes to guess what i did to improve the 215 series ~

 

 

 

 

There's a hint in the picture, although we really cant see the difference in the before and after .... X_x  Not a really good upgrade for the amount of work that goes in i must say... 

 

Did you hack off one of the couplers?

[disturbman]

He did some accents, around trap doors and vents, and installed the car numbers. The accents are a bit hard to pick.

[JR East]

Starting to work on my JR 103, I tried to mimic the details 

 

The original one, shot at Kyoto station in 2010.

 

 

My Work in Progress

 

 

 

Wire is painted black, and valve are painted rsp. yellow, orange & white. 

 

Now I'll need help of the JR Forum community. 

 

looking to the different options (I got 98422 + 98423) for a train to Nara 

 

 

and the labels I got, 

 

 

NS413 seems to be the right configuration for the 4-cars set to Nara. For the 6-cars set, for sure 47A doesn't fit, but looking to the diagram, there seems to be a config to Nara. Going to https://www.photolibrary.jp/ I was not able to find the right picture despite all services (NS xxx) are shot. 

 

I didn't already stuck pthe PS labels as well as the N°3. 

 

Thanks, 

 

JM .

 

 

[disturbman]

1 hour ago, JR East said:

I was not able to find the right picture despite all services (NS xxx) are shot. 

NS XXX is the formation number, NS6XX are for six-car formations and NS4XX are for four-car formations. 47A is the service number.

All Nara 103s: http://www.railway-enjoy.net/pictures/jr/103/yamatoji/index.html I believe the six-car formations were active on the Yamatoji line.

 

Edit: The instruction sheet will tell you which service number correspond to which destination. You should have sprues with different service numbers and destination signs. Visible here: https://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/m1006426798/

Edited March 27, 2022 by disturbman

[katoftw]

Kyoto to Nara is only 4 car. Don't need tge 2 car add on set.