cteno4 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Stunning work as usual Joe. You know if you miss one rivet now we will be all over you! 😜 cheers, jeff 1 1 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 13, 2021 Author Share Posted March 13, 2021 Thank you Geff, You just know I am going to leave a rivet off one of the bridges now 😁 Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Oh groannnn! Ok 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, squirrel! Oh rats. 1, 2... jeff 2 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 13, 2021 Author Share Posted March 13, 2021 Don't worry I wouldn't just do it and not give clues 😏 I am working on a couple of little hidden items for people to find. Some little nods to things I have seen in Streetview images and while I was taking reference photos. Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 I use to put Easter eggs in all my software for the testers, they loved them. A couple were a little over the top oc (you have to be a bit on the oc side to do software testing for any length of time) and would literally stay up all night to find all the Easter eggs in a rev. jeff 1 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 14, 2021 Author Share Posted March 14, 2021 Love it! you definitely can't beat the odd Easter egg, they are always gratifying when you pick up on one. On the layout I want a few little details for people to find while waiting for a train, even if they won't ever be waiting long! I dug out the 1:4 scale model I made of Yurakucho yesterday. To make it I scaled down the drawing I was going to get cut in 2mm MDF and used the silhouette cutter to make it in 0.5mm card. It helped to practice construction and find any little errors in my design. This is the phase I am working on at the moment. The curved board at the end has some lovely little side streets that I cannot wait to work on. Sadly the best view will be from the operators side. I couldn't fit the whole model on the table, I will try and lay it out on the floor at some point. This picture of the station section taken from the Tokyo end looking south. The station from the viewers side. The view from the operators side. There are buildings under the Shinkansen tracks and in the space behind them. I didn't get around the building these as I had already decided this was the design I was going with. Maybe one day I will go back and finish them off. This is the reason I used two square 45cm boards on the second phase. If they had all been 90cm long a board join would fall in the middle of this bridge. Viewers side Operators side I made sure to include the option to switch the back scene and protective screen from one side of the board to the other (all the attachment points mirrored on both sides). It does allow the possibility make the operators side the viewers side. I am not sure that will ever happen because it would mean building additional boards for the fiddle yard. It would give the viewer a very different perspective so who knows. Joe 10 Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 Wow you even do your test models to a higher level! Really wonderful. I left a number of the testing Easter eggs in commercial projects. Never heard any were found. Fist big project was for Apple and they did their own testing and they never found any, so I know our testing was better than theirs... jeff 1 1 Link to comment
Martijn Meerts Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 On 3/12/2021 at 9:55 PM, Kamome442 said: The Finished Bridge The top view. (I know it needs a bit of a clean🤭) The underside Just 8 more bridges to go! You'll need to install a camera in the base of the layout pointing up at the underside of the bridge, so you can always have a look at it 😄 1 1 Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 Joe definitely needs a boroscope camera to show off the layout details! jeff 1 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 14, 2021 Author Share Posted March 14, 2021 2 hours ago, cteno4 said: Wow you even do your test models to a higher level! Really wonderful. You are too kind! How can I top that? For the next layout I may have to make the test models 1:3 scale and run T Gauge trains on them. 2 hours ago, cteno4 said: I left a number of the testing Easter eggs in commercial projects. Never heard any were found. Interesting, I wonder if any are still kicking around hidden in code. The closest I got to anything like that was when I worked in a office that had every room (including cupboards) labelled with a unique number. I used to like to pick a number and send random things through the internal mail. My favourite was sending a Slinky to the stairwell on the third floor. 40 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said: You'll need to install a camera in the base of the layout pointing up Oh boy! I am not sure about that? I am dreading wiring the tracks, I am not sure I want to add more electronics! I do have a Kato E233 with a built in camera, I will be able to give you all a first person ride over the bridge once the track is down!! 47 minutes ago, cteno4 said: Joe definitely needs a boroscope camera to show off the layout details! I just going to suggest a mirror. I can see I need to have higher aspirations 😂 1 Link to comment
cteno4 Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 2 hours ago, Kamome442 said: Interesting, I wonder if any are still kicking around hidden in code. The closest I got to anything like that was when I worked in a office that had every room (including cupboards) labelled with a unique number. I used to like to pick a number and send random things through the internal mail. My favourite was sending a Slinky to the stairwell on the third floor. Even though I usually used the simpsons and of course totally copyrighted I like to think gronig would call off the legal dogs if they found a Homer in one my education cdroms as an Easter egg. I would just choose a few of the testers’ favorites and leave them in. Figured some kid somewhere would get a giggle with Homer popping up drooling and saying doooonuuuutttts... Wouldn’t be as bad as the idiot at Apple that had a very scantly clad model in an OS Easter egg a few years back. He got it from all sides, how to end a career very fast. that’s quite fun playing with the system! Love the slinky to the stairwell. Sort of feels like a Gilliam in Brazil. 2 hours ago, Kamome442 said: I just going to suggest a mirror. I can see I need to have higher aspirations 😂 The boroscopes come with a couple of little mirrors you can put on them as well to see 45, 90, 135 off of straight! jeff Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 15, 2021 Author Share Posted March 15, 2021 I am sure gronig would see the funny side, there are so many memes and references in pop culture to his work. As for the The Apple employee, I guess they learnt a valuable lesson, have fun but above all keep it clean. Everyone has their own line as to what they find funny and you can always go too far! 21 hours ago, cteno4 said: The boroscopes come with a couple of little mirrors Ok maybe I wasn't too far off, just need to work on presentation 😉 Link to comment
ED75-775 Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 Looking good so far! Love the mock-up model, both it and the first photo on Page 1 of this thread have helped me to identify where I took one or two photos during my first full day in Tokyo in 2019. I didn't get very many passing through Yurakucho or any other stations for that matter, my focus was on whatever was coming down the track towards me (mostly E231/E233/E235 sets and one N700A shinkansen) and not so much on the stations around me! I'm looking forward to seeing this project completed and running. It will be a phenomenal layout once it's 'finished'! 3 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 18, 2021 Author Share Posted March 18, 2021 (edited) Hi ED75-775, good to hear from you. I am glad you are enjoying the layout coming together. That is a great shot, 3 trains in one photo (4 I guess, including the one you are on). Thank you for sharing it. I don't blame you for being focused on the trains they are the best bit. Even when I went to Yurakucho to photograph the station I did get quite distracted by passing trains. I am a little gutted I didn't stick around to see a 215 series before it was retired. I hope you had a great time in Japan, did you manage to travel around the country while you were there? As for the I am still aiming to get the first part running by the end of the year, timelines have slipped a little trying to get resources. I want to get track down on the second board by the end of Easter. Then the last two over the summer. That will give me the rest of the year to get a fiddle yard up and running. Edited March 18, 2021 by Kamome442 Deleted repeated word Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 21, 2021 Author Share Posted March 21, 2021 Designing a Bridge In order to speed up the bridge building I have decided to build 3 bridges at the same time. I know right, what could possibly go wrong?! These are all two track spans and with the bridge I have just built will complete one board and move me one step closer to track laying. Their design involved a somewhat liberal use of the rivet gun. To get all the detail into the model I had to make each part in two halves bonded back to back in order to get detail on both sides. Until I have bonded all the parts together I really don't have much to show. There is also a lot of time spent waiting for epoxy to dry so I figured I would spend some of that time sharing how I draw up a bridge. Below is the finished drawing for one of the bridges I am making. I always start with the elevation followed by plan view of the underside looking up (is it still a plan view if it is not top down?). Finally I use the measurements to make a section view. from there I can chop it all up into parts for etching. Working out the elevation The bridge I am going to start drawing is for Phase 2 so there is no rush to get it finished. This is a 4 track bridge that carries the Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines over Harumi Dori Avenue. It is one of the bigger bridges with a span of around 22cm. It is built in two sections, a larger section that crosses the road and a shorter section that was added when the street was widened. Source: Google Streetview All the drawing is done in Illustrator and I am only going to use Google Earth and Streetview to show how they can be used to pull measurements and details. The first thing I have learnt to look for is a label on the side of the bridge that give you the spans length. It is good to see that JR considers modellers by attaching such details to their infrastructure 😉 For this bridge there are two, once for each span. This tells me the larger span is: 26M 60CM and the shorter span is: 7M 04CM Source: Google Streetview I am not going tell how many bridges I drew before releasing they have their length writing on their side for fear of destroying any reputation I have of being observant. Prior to knowing about this I used the measure function in Google Earth. This can be tricky as shadows and the angle the image was taken can distort the measurements. Source: Google Earth Pro It is not much at the moment but now that I have the length I can start to refine the design. I look at how many sections the bridge is made from and create that many squares (19 main segments for the larger span and 6 for the shorter). Grouping them together I can set their length to measurements I have. This will give me identical spacing for each segment. At this stage I am not concerned about the hight, I can work that out once I am happy with the spacing of each segment. As usual it is never that simple, I did say "main" segments for a reason. Not all the segments are equally spaced. There is a shorter segement at the join along with two short segments at the end of the large span and one on the short span. I assume this is because the bracing sits above the pad the bridge is sitting on and not a the end of the bridge to make my life easier. This is where some detective work comes in, it is also what forced me to become a rivet counter (look at me acting like I don't enjoy it!). To work out the two short sections on the large span I noticed that there are four gaps in the walkway fence on a normal span and five on the one that includes the short section. Source: Google Streetview Similar to before I made up a row of 4 squares and changed their length to match one segment. I ungrouped them deleted 3 and added the one left to the end of the bridge. I then adjusted the length back to the correct dimensions. To work out the other segments I had to rely counting rivets along the bottom of a large segment then the smaller segment. From that I can work out the difference the same way as above. Finally I have a spacing for the braces that I am happy with. The next step is to detail one segment. I space the rivets along the bottom and group them as a strip. Then I count how many there are vertically I can use this to work out the height by coping and pasting strips of rivets and rotating them 90 degrees. I stack the strips until I have the correct amount. This is not 100% as the spacing can vary. I sometimes adjust the spacing. Again this is just looking at pictures and comparing it with what I have drawn. Once I have added the strips of rivets to one segment, it just a case of copying and pasting. Some segments are mirrored usually at the middle and others may have extra reinforcement. Here you can see a reinforced section on the left and a standard section middle and right. Source: Google Streetview Some segments I made up showing variations on the basic design. This the current state of progress. Once I have finished the side view I will share the results and if this was helpful I will talk through how I draw up the plan view. Joe 5 Link to comment
gavino200 Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 1 minute ago, Kamome442 said: Working out the elevation The bridge I am going to start drawing is for Phase 2 so there is no rush to get it finished. This is a 4 track bridge that carries the Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku lines over Harumi Dori Avenue. It is one of the bigger bridges with a span of around 22cm. It is built in two sections, a larger section that crosses the road and a shorter section that was added when the street was widened. Source: Google Streetview All the drawing is done in Illustrator and I am only going to use Google Earth and Streetview to show how they can be used to pull measurements and details. The first thing I have learnt to look for is a label on the side of the bridge that give you the spans length. It is good to see that JR considers modellers by attaching such details to their infrastructure 😉 Looks amazing as usual. I hope you're going to fill the street with this level of traffic. It will look great!! 1 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 21, 2021 Author Share Posted March 21, 2021 6 minutes ago, gavino200 said: Looks amazing as usual. I hope you're going to fill the street with this level of traffic. It will look great!! Thank you gavino, you bet! I want to jam as many cars on that section as I can. I would love to have working indicators flashing and random brake lights coming on to represent drivers edging forward a little. That would however involve a ton of optics or wires and I really don't think I could face that. Hopefully just a mass of cars will look good. 1 Link to comment
ED75-775 Posted March 24, 2021 Share Posted March 24, 2021 Wow! The level of detail on your bridge drawings is incredible! On 3/19/2021 at 2:14 AM, Kamome442 said: I hope you had a great time in Japan, did you manage to travel around the country while you were there? I sure did! Started out in Tokyo, then stayed two nights in Nagoya (for the SCMaglev and Railway Park) before moving on to Kyoto. Even did a day trip down to Kyushu for the Railway Museum in Moji, then headed back to Shin-Yamaguchi for a sidetrip to Chomonkyo and pick up the SL Yamaguchi. I was surprised to see from Wikipedia that the 215 Series trains have now been withdrawn; I was actually pretty lucky and bagged one during rush hour at Shinjuku on my first full day in 2019! There was a great ramp behind the Takashimaya Times Square building where I spent some time with my iPod camera before wandering around Shinjuku (and discovering the Odakyu Railway and some of their Romancecars in the process...) For me personally I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get more chances to ride the Yamanote Line E231-500 sets while I was there since all have now migrated to the Sobu Line - the new E235 series sets just don't look as nice to me, in fact the frontal design reminds me of a (Seiko) wrist watch my father gave me as a replacement when I was in high school! 3 Link to comment
Das Steinkopf Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 I don't why people get all gooey over the 215 Series as they aren't the most esthetically pleasing double deck passenger trains, I live in the city that was the birthplace of double decker passenger stock and think the multitude of local designs we have had are far better looking including the very bland Tangara units, the only ones I was never a fan of was the original Tulloch units, the golden era was the Comeng built stainless steel cars. Link to comment
railsquid Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 4 minutes ago, Das Steinkopf said: I don't why people get all gooey over the 215 Series as they aren't the most esthetically pleasing double deck passenger trains, I live in the city that was the birthplace of double decker passenger stock Paris? 1 Link to comment
disturbman Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 (edited) I think @Das Steinkopfmeant the first fully double-deck EMU. Otherwise, double-deck carriages go further back than the Voiture à étage État, I think the first ones were introduced around 1860s in France. An example from the 1880s: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiture_Bidel Edited March 25, 2021 by disturbman Link to comment
Das Steinkopf Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 2 hours ago, railsquid said: Paris? I should have elaborated the first double deck EMU's. 1 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 25, 2021 Author Share Posted March 25, 2021 On 3/24/2021 at 11:37 AM, ED75-775 said: Wow! The level of detail on your bridge drawings is incredible! Thank you, I like trying to pack as much detail in as I can. After this is drawn up I will be turning my attention to catenary and the tangle of spaghetti that will live above the tracks. On 3/24/2021 at 11:37 AM, ED75-775 said: I sure did! Started out in Tokyo, then stayed two nights in Nagoya (for the SCMaglev and Railway Park) before moving on to Kyoto. Even did a day trip down to Kyushu for the Railway Museum in Moji, then headed back to Shin-Yamaguchi for a sidetrip to Chomonkyo and pick up the SL Yamaguchi. Ah amazing! I also spent a couple of nights in Kyoto on my last trip, a lovely city. I got there by going over the top via Nagano and Kagoshima. You certainly packed in a lot of action while you were there, I managed a day trip to Nara but wasn't adventurous enough to head down to Kyushu this time around. That is an awesome spot for snapping pictures around Shinjuku, I will have to check out next time! On 3/24/2021 at 11:37 AM, ED75-775 said: the new E235 series sets just don't look as nice to me, in fact the frontal design reminds me of a (Seiko) wrist watch my father gave me as a replacement when I was in high school! Ah I know what you mean, I was still planning to model Harajuku when the E231 replacement was announced. I got quite excited that there would be another E233 to match the one I had just brought for the Saiko line, then I saw the render!!!! I have to say I have almost made my peace with the E235 and quite like it now, seeing it in model form helped with that. The vertical stripes instead of horizontal still messes with my OCD however I accept the reasoning. 1 Link to comment
Kamome442 Posted March 25, 2021 Author Share Posted March 25, 2021 (edited) 6 hours ago, Das Steinkopf said: I don't why people get all gooey over the 215 Series as they aren't the most esthetically pleasing double deck passenger trains Oh no! What's not to Love 😂 Ok I almost kept a straight face! Das, your so right I have no idea what is likeable about the 215 Series but I have to confess it has always made me smile! It was such a strange machine and always felt to me like an experimental unit accidentally got put into service. I guess it was doing something right as it was kicking around for a while. Like I said I didn't bother hunt it out while I was there and it will be the only train I am running that I haven't seen in the metal. It didn't help that at the time I was there it was only running through Yurakucho in the evenings, sort of like when the all the odd bug-eyed, barbed ugly fish come out to play on coral reefs the moment the sun goes down! I liked the fact it was a little odd looking and I think its a shame it was so quietly withdrawn. Especially when the 185 Series got so much attention, granted the 185 holds a heck of a lot more historical significance. That said I will still miss seeing it photo bomb rail enthusiasts pictures of prettier trains! I think the small number of units along with the unusual looks helped with its mystique, either way it is one weird fish that will always have a home on Yurakucho but maybe only after it gets dark🤔 Edited March 25, 2021 by Kamome442 7 Link to comment
railsquid Posted March 26, 2021 Share Posted March 26, 2021 Strange, insectile-looking machine. I really need to acquire one as they ran on the Chuo Line sometimes, but they tend to go for mildly eye-watering prices and IIRC MicroAce won't put out a new release because the molds are damaged or something. Keep up the good work with Yurakucho, sadly my routine no longer involves weekly passes through the station so won't be able to help with the precise location of rivets etc. 😉 2 1 Link to comment
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