h0m H0m Europe

[Jaco3011]

Hi guys

Japanese H0m is a niche, so it's hard to find other people interested. Is there anyone else besides me?

[Martijn Meerts]

I do some H0j / H0m / H01067 / 1:87 12mm (whatever you want to call it), but it's a very long term project, so I don't have anything resembling a layout yet. Or any (finished) rolling stock for that matter. I'm combining it with an H0e forest / mining railway.

[katoftw]

As you say, it is niche.  But if willing to use the search bar, I have seen many references of the years.

[Jaco3011]

37 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said:

I do some H0j / H0m / H01067 / 1:87 12mm (whatever you want to call it), but it's a very long term project, so I don't have anything resembling a layout yet. Or any (finished) rolling stock for that matter. I'm combining it with an H0e forest / mining railway.

Well, there's two of us now. My modules are under construction, two of four are passable, none is finished.

[cteno4]

What is your module standard? Are you doing modular or sectional? Exact scale/gauge (it gets so confusing at times and some call it one thing and some another)? Period? Area? Scenes? Presenting some of this I’m a little depth will help gather attention better.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

15 hours ago, Jaco3011 said:

Well, there's two of us now. My modules are under construction, two of four are passable, none is finished.

 

I don't actually do modules for this project, since it's a very specific theme that might not align with much. For example, I only do steam locomotives for the moment, and if I do go with something else, it'd be old electrics like ED10, ED15, EF53, EF57 etc. I'm also hand laying all track, so if I did modules I'd also need to add some conversion modules probably.

 

I'd definitely be open to do some modules that link up to other modules and possibly eventually go to shows with them. But it's unlikely I'll have any modules done soon, I'm still building the rolling stock, and I also have my N-scale layout which I'm working on, or will be working on once some non-train stuff is taken care of 🙂

 

[Jaco3011]

15 hours ago, cteno4 said:

What is your module standard? Are you doing modular or sectional? Exact scale/gauge (it gets so confusing at times and some call it one thing and some another)? Period? Area? Scenes? Presenting some of this I’m a little depth will help gather attention better.

 

jeff

What's the difference between "modular" and "sectional"?

1/87 with 12mm gauge, but with enough clearance for 1/80 rolling stock to pass. Japanese loading gauge is 3m wide and 4,1m high, divided by 80 or 87 that's respectively 37,5mm / 34,48mm wide and 51,25mm / 47,13mm tall. H0m loading gauge defined in NEM 104 and used by FREMO H0m division is 38mm wide and 48mm tall, and that's the smaller one, not allowing using rollbocks/transporters. I'll say NEM 104 + additional height to allow for 1/80 rolling stock operation.

Transition profiles:

• One track: Fremo H0m. As for now, the flat (M97) and elevated (Y93) should do the job. I used flat with gutters.
• Two track: to be discussed, I suggest using Fremo standard gauge ones or something like N92.
• More (3,4,6,etc.): I wish we had this problem.

Overhead lines: yes, contrary to Fremo narrow gauge practice. NEM 201 and 202 are in use, except no line should be hung lower than circa 52mm, just to be sure.

Period, area and scenes: freestyle, but no snowy winter scenery, and it should end with regular-looking grass on the edge.

[cteno4]

Good information jaco. If you want to find others having good clear info really helps.
 

Since you are working in a real niche part of the hobby, if you want to find others you will probably need to be as flexible as possible in setting standards (if folks are entering a group thing they usually want to be apart of deciding what the group will be doing) unless you have a big set of modules in place for others to build off off and a standard set (but then you will only draw those willing to work with what you decided). It’s a bit of the chicken and the egg situation. It can be hard to round up a group and agree on standards and then get going but also hard for one person to get the critical mass started for others to build from and those coming later have to accept what’s already there.

 

We sort of cheated on this for the first 5 years of our club and did total set up on the fly layouts so there were no group modular standards and the layout was just what we built each time, if there were issues or needs we could just change the plan. it let us figure out what we wanted to do as a group and all the personal interests thrown in. Ttrak was just starting then and we looked heavily into it, but decided we would do some as a side thing for small events, but it was not what we wanted to focus on for our main club layout so we went sectional for the big layout instead of modular. We looked at doing a new modular system for shinkansen lines and how we could blend that with Ttrak or a modified Ttrak with a viaduct, but they all just got messy and needed quite a bit of space.
 

Might be a way for you to get going once shows start by doing some temp set up on the fly to show the scale/gauge off, buildings, and do some little scenery pieces to plop around. Demonstrate a module concept on one module that doesn’t have to be the final standard but can be used to get the idea across and discuss specific issues, Otherwise you will need a big enough module run to show off and try to draw folks in that way. Same goes with the internet, put up a blog on what you are doing and set it up to encourage discussion on developing a standard and finding folks. Use social media and forums (like JNS) and groups to point folks over to the blog, it will probably give you the best space to get into specifics and more one on one with interested folks than doing it all elsewhere where you can get swamped out. Keep adding updates to social media, forums and groups on progress and keep funneling it to your blog. Really to start something like this you have to be a real cheerleader and enthusiast to dig up folks interested and then evolve a group around what shows up unless you want to get a set of modules going yourself and rally folks around that.

 

clubs are a dance as it’s all in the group that ends up showing up and the club really needs to evolve around that as well as what the common interest is in the hobby. But like the fight club rules you have to be careful where you go like politics (it can usually be done) and such. But also find the other social bits you can find in common to help cement thing past the model trains. Our club does monthly Japanese lunches/dinners. We don’t do any bit club business but just socialize and do some show and tell. It’s been the thing that keeps ups together and friendships going when shows can be months apart and we don’t have a club house to meet in. We have 10-20 members usually so things are just big enough having the club over to your place is not simple for most folks to do all the time. Also folks interested into what parts of the club they are willing to participate in and put energy and time in changes and varies a lot as well as over time wirh life’s and such. Just have to roll with this and try to evolve the club to best fit the current pulse.

 

we have been all around these issues in the last 15+ years with our Japanese train club here in dc. It’s a big permutation/combination on interests, space, practicalities, etc. that like I said will change over time. We were doing sectional layouts of various sorts until we lost one of the two primary spaces to set up in to work on thing and less use of the remaining one. We had to pivot for now to Ttrak so that everyone could do their own stuff at home (and with covid that was a lucky pivot!). But modular has taken away what some of what we really enjoyed doing with the club show layout in doing a bigger scenes, big shinkansen lines, etc. it’s always tradeoffs, can’t have it all usually!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Jaco3011]

There's no need to reinvent the wheel, using Fremo standards ensures compatibility with existing narrow gauge modules. It wouldn't be realistic to connect japanese h0m with european h0m, but we will have more tracks to ride.

 

@cteno4this image comes from fremo homepage . It will take some time to get this size, but this isn't even big meeting layout.

https://www.fremo-net.eu/index.php?eID=tx_securedownloads&u=0&g=0&t=1615346539&hash=5b74df3c71ad49b5e4ceae4b0e47c8b105b67843&file=fileadmin/_processed_/b/6/csm_pano1024_09ea159ce4.jpg

Containers:

• UIC 20ft and 40ft - according to NEM
• Japanese domestic containers - to be discussed
• 1/80 containers do not ensure operability
• This KoKi 104 by Models Imon looks promising, but no idea how these containers are fixed

Couplers:

Incompatibility is fun, so we use Shibata and Janney couplers according to prototype. No idea how the couplers' compatibility between producers looks like.

Tramways, cars, Shinkansen, standard and 4'6"/1372mm gauge third sector railways:
No standards (yet), compatibility with existing standards not required.

End of trains signs:
No idea yet.

[cteno4]

Jaco,

 

I was just saying there are two approaches to trying to form a club, either you start something and others follow, or you get folks together and come up with what the group ends up liking. theres lots of ways to do layouts like this. also the more things you lock down at the beginning the fewler you may have wanting to participate.

 

jeff

[Tonytramman]

always like a bit of narrow gauge 

[disturbman]

@Jaco3011, seeing how you are interested in modeling a niche within a niche within a niche, did you try reaching out to your local FREMO group to see if they had people modeling HOm and if they would be interested in welcoming Japanese themed modules and rolling-stock? You might be more lucky.

 

They are very few people modeling anything other than N gauge on the forum, and even fewer interested in non-standard gauges.

[cteno4]

That’s the route I took here in dc 20 years ago. I was about to do a pair of Japanese ntrak modules with a larger local club that did mostly all US modeling. At the time there was an old guard on the review committee that was pushing back on any non US ideas, but the incoming president was dedicated to changing that (and he did and even did his own Japanese modules later after a visit to japan!). But luckily I bumped into a few other Japanese modelers around here and we slowly coagulated into a group and much later a real club (bylaws and all that mish-mash when we had gathered some property and money). If I hadn’t found folks to begin with I think running with the ntrak club would have probably done the trick finding the oddballs out there!

 

jeff

[Jaco3011]

Containers, going from easiest:

 

10ft UIC - afaik not in use on japanese railways.

20ft UIC and 40ft UIC - as specified in NEM

20ft domestic and 40ft domestic - fixed like UIC

15ft domestic - like UIC, but with unusual distance between fixing points - in H0 I guess it's 51,3mm, though I'd have to check the distance on the real thing. Actual container type 24A is 4650mm long (which is over 15'3"), which in 1/87 gives 53,45mm, which is longer than theoretical max length (52,95mm) of 15ft UIC container, if such existed.

Please mind that 15ft can be carried only on KoKi 110 or using type M12B adapter to 20ft fixing point. If anyone ever models a KoKi 110, stick to the prototype dimensions, it should work fine then.

30ft (31ft) domestic - mounted on 20ft fixing points, unused "legs" need to be retractable, spring-mounted sounds like the best option. 30ft UIC would be 105,9mm long

 

10ft domestic and 12ft domestic - TBD. Not sure whether their fixing system is cross-compatible.

 

 

Now, the height above the floor measured at rail head. I'd say we make adjusting legs and stay around 110-130cm.