How did you improve your rolling stock?

[Philphil]

7 hours ago, Kiha66 said:

More rooftop detailing, this time with my 10 series passenger cars.

Very, very nice! I love the contrasting greys of the roof and the vents on top! It's amazing how different a little paint can make them look!

[railsquid]

My newly acquired Tomix EF65-500 before:

 

Tomix EF65-500 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

and after a frenzied session involving the extra bits in the box, some tweezers, a pin vise, a scalpel and various other tools I'm glad I've picked up over the years.

 

Tomix EF65-500 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

This is the first time I've ever got round to adding all the bits, not too bad for a first attempt, though the numbers on the cab fronts were a pain to put on and the ones on the far end are less than satisfactory, but I'm down to my last spare number so will leave fixing that to another year.

[Kiha66]

More dcc installs again, this time on a kato western pacific mikado.  It's going to be a tight fit!

[gavino200]

12 minutes ago, Kiha66 said:

More dcc installs again, this time on a kato western pacific mikado.  It's going to be a tight fit!

 

 

Awesome. This deserves it's own thread!

[kvp]

Not much to say, but i did manage to get my old Tomix 165 series train back on its wheels with a new motor chassis. (it's the old power collection type with bulbs and the older type springless TN couplers)

Edited August 2, 2018 by kvp

[Welshbloke]

Is that a Tomytec KuMoNi coupled to it?

[kvp]

43 minutes ago, Welshbloke said:

Is that a Tomytec KuMoNi coupled to it?

Yes. It doesn't have a motor, just metal wheels, moving pantographs and a pair of new TN couplers. They run together really well now that the 165 series has two working powered bogies. I actually put the kumoni into the bookcase of the 165 series. These two are my only shonan colored trains.

[Welshbloke]

I have most of that batch of Tomytecs, added motors and use the parcels/luggage units to haul dummy EMUs. They don't like running slowly for long periods as the motor overheats (just like the real thing), but get up to line speed and the current draw drops to a manageable level. Three coaches and a dummy Greenmax KuMoYa 90-100 seems to be fine on the flat.

[Kiha66]

And some more roof painting!  I've discovered while tamiya xf83 is closer to kato's vent color, xf20 looks much better when it dries as the appearance is a warmer grey which stands out much better under poor lighting.  I painted 13 cars today to give my tsubame express a more detailed finish.

[JR 500系]

Not done by me but:

 

 

 

I have been following this youtuber for sometime now, and it seems they are a hobby shop... Really good skills at soldering and improving the trains! This video even shows us a cheaper and more effective (in terms of looks) way to change out those ugly Rapido couplers to really nice ones! 

[Khaul]

A few weeks ago I got a Tomix 115-300 in the elegant Yokosuka colour. It is my first train that has nothing to do with the Tsurumi line, but at least it is a 3 car set and can fit in my station. The sun is superb and the details nice as expected of the High Grade series. I am only a bit dissatisfied about the blue coming through the cream band paint. I had a great time adding the details. Let's see:

 

What a nice train coming. I really like this livery! I put two people in the cab this time. One is barely visible.

 

Same train now leaving. It looks like kvp's avatar 🙂

 

I tried to create a scene inside the carriage. The inspector is checking the tickets of the two seated women. Others admire the landscape. Being a mad weatherer I could not resist and applied a bit to the roof, the upper part of the doors to dissimulate the blue coming through the cream and a tiny little bit of oxide to the bogies and undercarriage.

 

Same scene, it's out of focus but I like the the way it's framed. I think I really need a macro lens.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Khaul

[railsquid]

1 hour ago, Khaul said:

A few week ago I got a Tomix 115-300 in the elegant Yokosuka colour.🙂

 

 

 

Excellent taste 😉

 

Quote

It is my first train that has nothing to do with the Tsurumi line, but at least it is a 3 car set and can fit in my station. The sun is superb and the details nice as expected of the High Grade series. I am only a bit dissatisfied about the blue coming through the cream band paint.

 

Interesting, I inspected the same (or very similar) Tomix model a while back with a view to purchase and found the livery application to be less than satisfactory, so demurred (I'm not a particularly rivet-countery person so can happily overlook what to some may be glaring prototype errors, but the paint job was kind of blurry).

[kvp]

2 hours ago, Khaul said:

It looks like kvp's avatar 🙂

Almost, but that's a 113 series...

[Khaul]

7 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

Excellent taste 😉

 

 

Interesting, I inspected the same (or very similar) Tomix model a while back with a view to purchase and found the livery application to be less than satisfactory, so demurred (I'm not a particularly rivet-countery person so can happily overlook what to some may be glaring prototype errors, but the paint job was kind of blurry).

 

Haha, I did mean I find the details to be prototypically correct but just that the model is very detailed. I cannot even tell a 115 from a 113! 

 

 

In any case my layout is built around a fictional Kojimacho station located on the freight line, not far from the Keikyu Komachishinden station. The area has a nice mixture of crappy houses and small factories. More to the point, one could easily imagine Tsurumi line and  Namba branch line trains stopping or terminating at Kojimacho plus some Yokosuka line trains passing through. The idea is the freight line is used by some passenger trains, and a lot of freight, of course so I get the right mixture and a good excuse to get more Yokosuka line sets.

 

[railsquid]

Added some Tomix TN couplers to this rather aged MicroAce 155 series I picked up for next to nothing and am quite fond of, for some reason:

 

 

MicroAce 155 Series by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Above: motor unit, on the left bogie-mounted coupler; right: TN coupler.

 Below: normal car, TN couplers at both ends.

 

Looks like a perfectly reasonable rendering of a 155 series to my non-expert eyes, but suffered from massive gaps between cars, as clearly visible in this video from about 00:29

 

 

Catalogue dates the release to 2000, so one of the older "modern" MicroAce releases, many of which suffer from a different spacing on the motor car unit as well, which gives it a very unbalanced look (see third car from the front in the video). I tried replacing the Rapidos with Kato close couplers, which was a slight improvement but did nothing for the odd gaps around the motor car unit; the TN couplers work very well (though their value is probably not far off the amount I paid for the train itself 😉 ).

Edited August 13, 2018 by railsquid

[kvp]

A bit of a scrapheap build, with Fleischmann frame and a different (i think Minitrix) shell i rescued from getting thrown in the trash by a fellow clubmember (along with about half of the original shell). Metal wheels from a mixed bag i aquired in a similar manner a few years ago, couplers and weight from Tomytec. The couplers are glued onto two 1 mm styrene strips glued between the frame sides behind the buffers as the original holders were missing, then painted black. To my surprise it runs nicely and even got it's own padded paper box that had an Arnold turnout in it a few decades ago.

The car itself is a Deutche Bundesbahn (west german national railways) fish cooler car around epoch 4.

 

ps: The Tomix DE50 next to it is another repaired one that has bits and pieces from a red JNR, a JRFreight and probably a blue JNR loco.

 

[sandiway]

On 8/12/2018 at 5:53 AM, JR 500系 said:

Not done by me but:

 

 

 

I have been following this youtuber for sometime now, and it seems they are a hobby shop... Really good skills at soldering and improving the trains! This video even shows us a cheaper and more effective (in terms of looks) way to change out those ugly Rapido couplers to really nice ones! 

I agree about the crazy soldering skills. I have that Greenmax Keihan train. It's so dark because of the window tint. It needs lighting. I didn't know it was so easy to switch the couplers to those Kato ones. I need to read up on this topic.

Edited August 15, 2018 by sandiway

[railsquid]

Older-style Kato 115 series, with a gap between cars large enough to ride a motorbike through (I don't recommend trying it):

 

Kato 115 series (old-style) original by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Some close(r) couplers, a bit of work with scalpel, nippers and glue with the aim of preventing any motorcycle stunt riding antics:

 

Kato 115 series (old-style) modified by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Not perfect, for one thing the car on the right is the motor car and seems to ride 1mm or so lower, but looks OK from normal viewing distance.

[JR 500系]

Looks great, especially with the addition of the gangway pieces ~ I do wish we could get more gangway pieces easily... the Kato ones will sell out once it's open for reservation... 

 

[railsquid]

2 minutes ago, JR 500系 said:

Looks great, especially with the addition of the gangway pieces ~ I do wish we could get more gangway pieces easily... the Kato ones will sell out once it's open for reservation... 

 

 

These are (IIRC) ones designed for Kiha 40s, which seem widely enough available. Problem is with these older designs is there don't seem to be plug-in parts (apart from these for 103s and 205s), so some modifications required.

[JR 500系]

Gotta love the TN couplers:

 

 

BEFORE. yes a bicycle stunt can be done

 

 

Now that's much better!

 

 

Gotta love the TN couplers for connecting cabs done by Tomix! Well done! Would love it more if they had the fall protection thingy...

 

 

 

Guys a quick question, is it the normal for Tomix to apply greese to their motor now? 

 

 

This is from my new set of the Marine Liner, noticed some white greasy stuff which is what appears to be motor grease? 

[Gryphr]

5 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

Guys a quick question, is it the normal for Tomix to apply greese to their motor now?

This is from my new set of the Marine Liner, noticed some white greasy stuff which is what appears to be motor grease? 

 

It seems so, at least the Tomix models I have have the same white grease(?). All of them are fairly recent models though so I can't say how long it's been like that.

[kvp]

6 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

Guys a quick question, is it the normal for Tomix to apply greese to their motor now?

This is from my new set of the Marine Liner, noticed some white greasy stuff which is what appears to be motor grease? 

Very old spring screw drives had a clearish synthetic grease, newer ones a less opaque, more whitish variant. Not this white though and a bit more solid so it could stay in place more easily. But generally yes, Tomix does use grease instead of oil.

[JR 500系]

I see... Kato doesn't seem to do this for their motor units though... perhaps this is something interesting that I just found out, with Tomix spreading a little more lovely care for their motor units... 

[Welshbloke]

On 8/19/2018 at 10:18 AM, railsquid said:

 

 

Not perfect, for one thing the car on the right is the motor car and seems to ride 1mm or so lower, but looks OK from normal viewing distance.

Interesting, mine has the same ride height problem. Did wonder if something was worn or damaged but it sounds like a design flaw. It feels as if the body doesn't grip tightly enough to sit up on the chassis, but sags down slightly instead.