On My Workbench

[marknewton]

Thanks! 👍 

 

Which destination signs are you asking about, the ones on the sides or those above the cab?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Kiha66]

I was wondering about the cab signs.  The HO kato Kiha 58s have stickers that you have to cut out for that display, which I'm not very fond of.

[Kamome]

Yeah the Kato ones have to be cut as close to the solid outline as possible to remove it. If you leave any of the outside edge they tend not to fit in the recesses. I’m slightly dreading the round ones that come with the 20 series.

[marknewton]

When I'm adding the cab destination signs to the KiHa58s I cut them oversize, stick them to the plastic block, then use that as a guide to trim them to the finished size. Probably easier to make a short video to show what I mean. I'll try that tomorrow.

 

Tonight I experimented with some "cheap and cheerful" weathering on my OneMile SeRa1 hopper wagons. I want them to look grubby and well used, but I don't want to devote hours of painstaking work to achieve that, as they'll only ever be seen in passing. So I used the Tamiya weathering powders on one wagon as a trial. I used the three colours roughly blended with the Tamiya applicator, then toned the powder down with a wash of neat isopropyl alcohol. I think it's an effective technique for a layout model that will only be seen from a few feet away.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

 

[ianlaw]

I'd be very happy with this result.

[marknewton]

Thanks Ian!  Encouraged by the result of the first experiment, I tried some more cheap and cheerful weathering, this time on a Tenshodo SeKi6000 hopper wagon. I'm happy to keep using this quick and simple method. Which is good, because there's another 35(!) wagons to do. 🙄

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Kamome]

I love those sera and seki, Mark. I really need to get me some.  Those  tones work very well on the black finish and i like the way you have streaked the weathering so it looks like the coal dust has been washed down the wagon. Very convincing.

 

Will you load them up and for coal or limestone?

 

I don’t know enough about JNR freight but i assume the 岡 mark is reference to where they were manufactured or refurbished from Seki 3000 rather than their allocated area. 

 

岡　Okayama 岡山

広　Hiroshima 広島

門　Moji 門司

 

I especially like the fact that Seki classification is 

セ　se- coal use (石炭)(sekitan)

キ　ki- 25 tons or over

 

but in Japanese “seki” also means “cough” as you would if you were mining coal. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Kamome

[Kiha66]

I believe the character on the side is the assigned area, but I could be wrong.  I know the yellow stripe means they are banned from ferry service, and possibly the Kanmon Railway Tunnel as well.

[Kamome]

Thanks Kiha.

 

I didn't know about the yellow band. I thought that it might be a speed limit indicator or something. I first thought that the kanji mark indicated where the wagons were based but as the coal mines were in Kyushu and Hokkaido, only the Moji allocation would make sense due to its relative close proximity to the mining operations in northern Kyushu.

[disturbman]

Japanese Wikipedia seems to agree that the yellow band was, as it's tradition, a speed limit indicator (my corrections): "The maximum speed when loaded was 65 km/h, but it was slower than other freight cars (most of them were 75 km / h or more). A special sign 'ロ' preceded the SeKi title to indicate this speed limitation, 'ロセキ'. In addition, a yellow band was also wrapped around the car body to indicate this limitation. On the vehicles operated in the Hokkaido area, the yellow band was accompanied by the words 'Prohibited outside the road'."

The article about Yellow n°1 also confirms this, freight cars with a maximum speed of 65km/h or less.

[marknewton]

I've been tidying and rearranging the cabinet where most of my Japanese models live. I've found a few freight cars that need to be finished, including these KTM HoKi2500 hopper cars. They're being detailed and lettered as HoKi9500s belonging to Yabashi Industries. Once the lettering is applied and the detail parts are attached, I think some weathering will be next.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.