Track plan inspiration

[Morcs]

Hi all, new member here.

Modelled British OO for quite a while, just seen the light and come over to N scale in the form of unitrack.

 

Done a few semi complex temporary layouts with plenty of operation but they just aren't hitting the spot for me.

 

I'm wanting to do a small urban setup in a space 4x3, 3x3, 4x2 sort of size that is basically a maze of trains whizzing around on at least 2 levels, if possible with crossings, crossovers, viaducts, basically cram complexity into a small space. A bunch of tall buildings in the centre should hide the round and round aspect quite well.

 

Rolling stock will depend on radius, probably will have to be 249 and not against going as low as 150 and going with b-trains instead.

 

Anyone done such a layout?

I've done one track plan in this vain but still not happy with its complexity.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RgMhNY8iSQgJLi7g8

[cteno4]

Welcome Morcs,

 

might take a look at this book, some fun plans with lots of interesting interactions

 

https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4774183032/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[miyakoji]

Hi Morcs, welcome to the forum!

[Cat]

Hiya,

 

The Tomix track works great for fitting stuff into tight spaces.  If you come to the Shorty side, we even have very short easements — a 70mm straight section is more than ample to fit in the middle of a reverse curve, you can even cut it down to 50mm in a pinch and all 8 wheels of one car will be on the straight at once (or all 8 from the coupled together trucks from two cars).

The header card in Tomix' Super Mini Oval set opens up and has several dozen track plans with lots of fun swooping and swirling options to ponder for inspiration.
https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10045805
 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Cat

[cteno4]

For btrains take a look at these threads

 

jeff

 

 

[Morcs]

Thanks guys, I'm going to stick with unitrack just because I have so much of it, turnout switches etc.

 

Problem I'm having is sourcing b-trains!

Everyone seems to be out of stock of power units! 

I'm looking at hobby search and rakuten.

 

[Cat]

There are Kato power units readily available.  The Bandai bogie chasses have power to all wheels and work a bit better than Kato, the new Kato 4-wheel have a better motor than Bandai.

Currently, the best steady source for Bandai motors is Yahoo Auction Japan.  There are several proxy services that work well for placing bids, collecting your purchases, and shipping them.  They all charge fees for different aspects of their services, so it's hard to actually compare.  

I used Buyee last month when they were doing a promo that waved their 300¥ auction fee; they just started that promo again and it runs til the end of March.  I'm currently trying Zenmarket.  Zenmarket's re-boxing policy seems like it ought to cut down on the final international shipping fee (which is the great levelling cost between all services).  But I won't really be able to tally up the actual costs and compare the two until I get my Zenmarket package. 

Tactical tip: if you are using Buyee, do not add any orders from Amazon Japan.  Amazon uses greatly oversized boxes and Buyee charges a lot to break those down, but the international shipping goes up if they don't.

With either service, it's best to search Yahoo Auction in Japanese.  I look up items on Hobby Search, flip the page from English to Japanese, cut and paste the useful part of the product name (double-checking with Google Translate to see that I got the right bit).

This is my bookmarked search for the B-Train Power Unit 3 for bogie passenger motors ( 動力ユニット3):
https://zenmarket.jp/en/yahoo.aspx?c=2084259620&q=%2b%e5%8b%95%e5%8a%9b%e3%83%a6%e3%83%8b%e3%83%83%e3%83%883&sort=price&order=asc
I won't be bidding on these, the hobby budget here is pretty tapped out for this fiscal month after a pile of small auction buys, including some motors!

Bogie freight motors are a slightly different size ( 動力ユニット5)

For recent auctions, 4,000¥ is a good price,  5,000¥ isn't bad, 6,000¥ if you really want them now, but really you can wait for others to come along.

[Morcs]

Thanks guys, I've finished my layout design and ordered track, interested to see how these small radius Kato turnouts are. 

Track plan here 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/uNvf44sXT3XLQcqR7

3d view

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TZxbCHhioDAwqnDBA

 

Ordered 2x e233s to make a 4 car unit, with Kato motor car and bogies (it's one of the only trains on hobby search that I can source all the parts in the same place.

Ordered a dd51 and ef65 also but no motor units yet.

[Cat]

Fun looking plan.  Although the tracks might be dangerously close to the edges all around.

Hobby Link Japan is another great site.  They tend to have all the Kato power units and trucks for 'Small Train' in stock, plus a goodly assortment of Shorties.  Their 'Private Warehouse' system works really nicely for holding goods while you're also waiting for re-stock and possible back-order items to come in.  We've been piling up assorted goodies in there since last month; sometime in the next few weeks we'll see what the shipping charge comes to (eek).

https://www.hlj.com/

We've got several Series E231 and E251 sets for the Joban Line, and a box each of DD51s and Takis waiting there amongst other stuff. 

They think they might be able to get some Bandai Power Unit 3 in on back-order; I really doubt it, but they haven't ruled it out since I tried ordering them on January 28.  In the meantime, some back-order items have come in, others have been reported as unavailable.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Cat

[cteno4]

Sadly the hay day of btrain shorties, like Tomytec vehicles, seems to be over. Bandai does not seem to be cranking them out like they were just a couple of years ago. 
 

the virtual warehouse at hlj is very nice to accumulate little stuff over time and then economically bundle it for shipping. You can go into the virtual warehouse and make a pile to ship to see what that combo of items to ship would cost under the different methods. Sadly with their last website upgrade they got rid of the checkbox method of choosing where you could just turn items to ship on off to see shipping cosot on a combo. Now once checked you have to start from scratch to remove an item, tedious. As with all shipping calculators you sometimes get odd combos that cost more to ship together than separately, but not by a huge amount usually, just a fun minimum packing diversion. Once you get up to the SAL/EMS breakpoint near 2kg or size it’s still usually cheaper or very close to ship Ems than multiple Sal.

 

jeff

[Morcs]

Thanks for the tips.

 

I've built my baseboard, 120x60 and piecing together a layout using 150 and 183 curves. Might ditch the 183s and go exclusively 150 radius as the overall geometry works better with 5-6 points in such a small space.

 

I am having difficulty fitting a station in here. Plan was to have a good portion of my DX one sided station with the Kato station entrance in the foreground, with some high-rise tomix buildings in the mid-rear masking the round and round nature of the overhead loop.

 

Couples with wanting an internal loop and a station/passing siding as well a standard dead end siding is proving challenging but I think it can be done.

 

My 4 car e233 with go go bits arrives this week, as well as a dd51 and ef65 which i yet have to source chassis for.

Also wondering how the tomix komu1 small container wagons look with b trains as these seem readily available?

Edited February 24, 2020 by Morcs