Takahachikawa

[cteno4]

Glue another one across these and make some toriis!

 

jeff

[nah00]

On 1/24/2021 at 10:56 AM, railsquid said:

And a bit more progress:

 

left-side-hairpin-bends-2021-01-24_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Need a RX-7 and an AE-86 on that bend...

[katoftw]

2 hours ago, nah00 said:

 

Need a RX-7 and an AE-86 on that bend...

Eurobeat intensifying!

[railsquid]

2 hours ago, nah00 said:

 

Need a RX-7 and an AE-86 on that bend...

 

Presumably those refer to some kind of automobile?

[katoftw]

27 minutes ago, railsquid said:

 

Presumably those refer to some kind of automobile?

https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/art-corner-japanese-artist-recreates-initial-d-with-model-cars/

 

Initial D manga/anime reference.  Touge etc

[railsquid]

Living in Japan, you'd think I'd know all about that kind of stuff... Mind you I can spot a Garapiko at a hundred paces.

 

Back down at the loco depot:

 

depot-area-2021-02-27_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Please excuse the battered old clunker, it lives on the layout for hauling the cleaner car and generally standing in as a placeholder for ad-hoc shots.

[Kamome]

On 2/26/2021 at 8:41 AM, katoftw said:

https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/art-corner-japanese-artist-recreates-initial-d-with-model-cars/

 

Initial D manga/anime reference.  Touge etc

I used to live in Gunma prefecture many moons ago where Initial D is set. There’s actually a pretty good classic Japanese car museum near Haruna Lake. You’d actually see groups of guys with cars painted the same colour to create their own Touge team. A lot of the mountain roads had yellow painted speed bumps before every turn. Not the usual ones, but smooth up and down bumps as you approach the bend. These really unsettle the car, even at slow speed, to try and combat illegal hill racing. 

 

R32 Skylines and 200SX were very common. You’d occasionally see an AE-86 but the area south in a place called Ota is actually home to Fuji Heavy Industries who make Subaru. Previously was Nakajima aircraft factory and also made Kiha 58s.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Kamome

[railsquid]

Apropos of nothing, there was a Nakajima aircraft engine factory not far from Chez Railsquid, I used to follow the path of the former Chuo Line branch which served it when taking the Squidlet to see the trains at Mitaka.

 

Meanwhile I like to ensure that my mountainous roads remain an idylic escape from reality, and that any hoodlums with souped-up motor cars have been given a stern talking to by the local gendarmerie and have promised to mend their ways.

 

onsen-area-right_2021-02-27_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[Cat]

Ah, but you never know when hoodlums might erupt from a passing van and created a new addition to the scene:

 

[railsquid]

Ah yes, the rollerskating ninja menace. A small bag of ball bearings which can be cast into their path usually sees them off.

[cteno4]

Just the hill will deter them, up or down!

 

ninja roller derby! Now there’s a new late night show.

 

jeff

[Cat]

1 hour ago, cteno4 said:

Just the hill will deter them, up or down!

 

ninja roller derby! Now there’s a new late night show.

Yeah, that squad has some skills skating down that hill!

I would definitely sign up for ninja roller derby.  I played competitive derby for 3 seasons, it was a blast.  My friend Chuck Skull played long ago for Roller Games, the sports entertainment version on cable TV with the Alligator Pit along the figure-8 track.
: 3

[cteno4]

Wow, not messing with you cat! I can see it, right over the railing I go! 
 

ninja roller derby would make rollerball look tame!
 

I did a lot of roller skating when I was a kid, but no roller derby, just slaloms and jumps mainly. A few friends were really out there and started doing uphill car tows at like 35mph and seeing how fast they could get on downhill straightaways. very insane! One finally convinced the downhill skateboard group to let him join them on their runs they had secured at the back curves at lacuna seca. he had on wide skateboard trucks and wheels and had to keep his legs spread so they wouldn’t clash and he had to stagger his legs as with the wide wheelbase they would start to oscillate if directly side by side at a bit of speed for some odd reason! Pretty wild to watch him fly down, one small rock and he would have been a 45mph faceplant! Skateboard guys thought he was nutz as his wheel base was like 10” long! 
 

jeff

[railsquid]

Meanwhile back in the more prosaic world of freight yard building, the small container yard has remained stubbornly unfinished for a long time, pending some thinking about how best to do it (you don't think I plan this stuff do you?), particularly how to manage the height transition between the access road under the viaduct and yard ground level:

 

container-yard-left_2021-03-01_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

A small ramp will do the trick, hopefully:

 

container-yard-left_2021-03-01_02 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

Now to cover up that horrible pink cheap styrene sheet...

[railsquid]

Now, this is where things get tricky, as due to some strangeness in the local space-time continuum, beyond the container yard we suddenly find ourselves in a different country alltogether, and the ground level is somewhat higher (in order to be able to use the Faller arches, which are a little shorted than the structure the station sits on, namely cheap wooden boxes from the 100 yen shop):

 

engelscher-markt-2021-03-05_02 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

so this evening's main task was to finally build up the ground there (which represents a tram stop in front of the station, along the lines of the prototype I'm vaguely basing this on [*]) using my standard method of 2 sheets of 3mm Tamiya foamboard, which neatly matches the Tomix tram track section height:

 

engelscher-markt-2021-03-05_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

[*] Hackescher Markt (ex Marx-Engels-Platz, ex-Börse) in Berlin, though here I will be calling it "Engelscher Markt" which kind of combines both the names I have known it as).

Edited March 5, 2021 by railsquid

[marknewton]

On 2/28/2021 at 2:46 AM, Cat said:

Ah, but you never know when hoodlums might erupt from a passing van and created a new addition to the scene:

I'm not going to ask about the movie or TV program this clip is from - I'd rather remain ignorant 🤔 ...

But what's the story with the car? Is it real?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[marknewton]

10 hours ago, railsquid said:

...due to some strangeness in the local space-time continuum, beyond the container yard we suddenly find ourselves in a different country alltogether...

The Nippon division of the BVG? 😂

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Cat]

2 hours ago, marknewton said:

I'm not going to ask about the movie or TV program this clip is from - I'd rather remain ignorant 🤔 ...

But what's the story with the car? Is it real?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

It is real, and knowing the [any of the many] names of the movie allows one to search IMCDb to discover that it is a:
1982 Mitsuoka BUBU 501

Now, let's get Tomytec on the line!

Edited March 6, 2021 by Cat

[railsquid]

Meanwhile back in the more prosaic world of freight yard building, we now have a ramp out of the yard and across the border:

 

container-yard-left_2021-03-07_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

A small customs post is probably necessary (at least until Japan becomes part of the Schengen area):

 

container-yard-overview_2021-03-07_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[gavino200]

That pink/orange foam, is it spongy and soft? What you you spread over it to make a hard surface. I love the Japan/Germany border!

[railsquid]

It's a bit on the spongy/soft side, on the other hand it's dirt cheap (available from Daiso), and is an excellent "filler" for various purposes. In contrast to the Tamiya foamboard the surface is too coarse to paint to make a plausible road surface; for the yard area here I'm experimenting with covering it with a very fine abrasive paper sheet which happens to look quite road-surface-like.

[cteno4]

400 sandpaper is great for pavement and airbrushes well.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

FWIW the number on the front of the packaging this came in is #2000.

[cteno4]

yes thats very fine. past 400 they look pretty much the same visually. 400 is usually the cut off to find easily at many usual sources, finer stuff usually not around as much.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

It was an early purchase, I was poking around Tokyu Hands and they had a wide selection, so I selected the stuff which looked most like a tarmac surface, then never had a chance to use it until now.

 

It does seem quite resilient and not prone to tearing; it does "scuff" easily but that improves the look. Main downside is the joins between sheets.

 

Foreground is the sandpaper, background (where the truck is standing) is the 100 yen shop foamboard with a provisional coat of grey paint, will cover later.

 

container-yard-overview_2021-03-09_01 by Rail Squid, on Flickr

 

(The eyes floating above the containers belong to the cow train box).