Yamahama - A newbie constructs a somewhat ambitious n-scale layout

[JR 500系]

Neat! I'm quite concerned about the tracks directly beside the truck yard... Kikuchi-san might be high from his imaginery cigarette and walk straight into the train tracks during one of his endless smoke breaks... 

[MeTheSwede]

6 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

Neat! I'm quite concerned about the tracks directly beside the truck yard... Kikuchi-san might be high from his imaginery cigarette and walk straight into the train tracks during one of his endless smoke breaks... 

 

I think he has worked there long enough to be able to find the tracks even in his sleep. Trucks on the other hand, they have a tendency to move around. 😟

[MeTheSwede]

I've just finished a very small scratch build. You might think it looks like shit, but I'll show you anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

- HEY YOU! You can't let your dog shit in front of our gates!

- I'm sorry, it's not my dog, I just found him and he started following me...

- Yeah right, just pick it up!

 

 

 

 

 

Where will Mi-chan find a plastic bag to pick up the dog poop?

The konbini has plastic bags.

 

Taking pictures inside the konbini isn't allowed, so a photo of the outside will have to do.

 

 

 

 

 

- Excuse me, I would like to buy a plastic bag.

- Dogs aren't allowed in here.

- I'm sorry. You see the dog pooped and I need a plastic bag...

- He WHAT!? That's why dogs are NOT allowed in here!

 

 

Meanwhile just around the corner, a man is trying to remember where he parked his car.

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm... it look's like either one of the bicyclists is about to make a very sudden turn, or someone has applied to little blue tack to his tires.  🤔

 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by MeTheSwede

[MeTheSwede]

On 1/10/2023 at 10:11 AM, Martijn Meerts said:

Yeah, most layout building threads are really interesting, there's always something to learn regarding techniques or materials used.

 

I've been wanting to do small scenery sections as well for the new layout, but I often get annoyed when I can clearly see where the sections were inserted. Seeing how other people do small lift out sections definitely helps 🙂

 

 

High visibility cracks between different sections will break the immersion for me. In miniatures wargaming I often see people paint up the most beautiful armies, only to let them fight it out on what to me looks like a jigsaw puzzle of very badly fitted pieces.  🙄

 

Did you spot the border between sections in the doggy accident pictures?

 

 

Here the sections are pulled apart:

 

 

 

 

(Apparently all the photos in my last post disappeared into cyberspace for a while, but they should be back now.)

Edited January 13, 2023 by MeTheSwede

[Martijn Meerts]

I definitely didn’t notice the border on those 2 sections no, however, a sidewalk and road are naturally a border, so that’s a good one to make your lift out section border as well.

 

if you look at a mountain for example, and you want to be able to lift part of the top of the mountain to gain easy access, hiding that split in a natural way often seems challenging.

[railsquid]

2 hours ago, Martijn Meerts said:

if you look at a mountain for example, and you want to be able to lift part of the top of the mountain to gain easy access, hiding that split in a natural way often seems challenging.

 

Strategically-placed foliage works well for that kind of thing.

[MeTheSwede]

On 1/14/2023 at 12:30 AM, Martijn Meerts said:

I definitely didn’t notice the border on those 2 sections no, however, a sidewalk and road are naturally a border, so that’s a good one to make your lift out section border as well.

 

Yes! Following natural borders as much as possible, is definetly the way to do it.

 

 

On 1/14/2023 at 12:30 AM, Martijn Meerts said:

if you look at a mountain for example, and you want to be able to lift part of the top of the mountain to gain easy access, hiding that split in a natural way often seems challenging.

 

I can see this would be very challenging with a bare rock mountain or a grassy hill, but for a hill covered with bushes and trees, for those places were you can't see the ground for all the foliage, I'd say those should be among the best places to hide it.

[MeTheSwede]

Progress on the layout has been slowing down again, as holidays season was replaced by the normal working schedule. Yesterday I opened the Greenmax 2137 housing kit that has been lying untouched in a box for a long time and started on two houses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The box includes lots of pieces to build a total of six houses, or fewer but bigger ones. Assembly is easy. It's the painting part that has been worring me. Well, it should probably turn out good enough for something to put at the back of the layout.

 

 

 

 

 

With a spray can it doesn't take many seconds to give the walls a foundation paint. Roof pieces were given the same treatment, but with a grey paint. Now painting those window panes, that's the part I didn't know whether I'd manage. One of my smallest paintbrushes was employed.

 

 

 

 

I couldn't resist putting white window panes on this one, despite grey probably being more prototypical. The windows turned out better than I had thought they would. By the second house (pictured above) I had gotten the hang of it fairly well.

 

After this I weathered the walls with a wash with a bit of "dirth colour". The wall pieces where cut out with a craft knife, "window glass" was fitted and then painting of detaling bits and assembly followed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final results. I have some ideas for where on the layout they will pop up, but we'll see.

Now I know I don't want to hide them at the back. 😀

 

 

 

 

 

And here together with a prepainted Greenmax house assembly.

 

I think this set is great for getting some experience with building and painting kits. At just 1500 yen and with 6 houses in the box, you get a lot of attempts to get it right and the cost of failing is low. And I really like these cute little houses.

 

 

 

 

 

[Cat]

Lovely models, off to a great start in the wonderful world of painting!

[MeTheSwede]

Today I did something I've been putting off because it's pretty boring. I isolated the track at the branchline to Yamahama Minami. As it's connected to the rest of the layout via a double slip where the other 3 tracks are connected to power sources, the normal power routing functions of points weren't enough. More specifically, I couldn't have a train parked at Yamahama Minami at the same time as I did switching at the freight yard, which was annoying.

 

 

 

 

 

For this I'm using the Tomix Selector Switchbox 5536 and I thought I should briefly present how it works as that might be helpfull to others. As can be seen from this photo, a cable from the switchbox gets connected to the power unit instead of the power unit getting connected to a feeder. The switchbox has three outputs. The two lower ones are either on or off, depending on the position of the lever. The upper one is always on.

 

The two track pieces which the feeders are connected to are electrically isolated from eachother by having their mutal rail connecters replaced by plastic ones.  Thus in this set up, the left part of the track functions normally, whereas for the right part of the track the current can be turned either on or off depending on the position of the lever on the switchbox.

 

The switchbox's two outputs opens up the possibility to have it controlling two separate isolated track sections, or more interesting, to put two or more selector boxes in a series by having them send current to eachother. This way it's possible to make multiple isolated sections on a siding, allowing for the parking of multiple locomotives on the same siding that may enter or exit one at a time through the contol of multiple switchboxes.

 

 

 

 

 

Thus it was time to dig up the cables again and add another one. Hopefully for the last time.

 

 

 

 

 

The first train to arrive after the reopening of the branch line is a 313-2300 series. It's a bit hard to see though, with various things blocking the view.

 

 

 

 

 

Viewed from a higher angle.

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhh, that's better!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 21, 2023 by MeTheSwede

[MeTheSwede]

Time for a minor update.

 

When paving the ground at Sugii Industries, I left a tiny bit where a crossing, a train signal and a point complicated the space. I though maybe some grass could grow there, but then as so often is the case in Japan, some plants just kept growing and growing...

 

Someone better do some trimming before that signal gets completely overgrown.

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Those bits totally make a scene.

 

jeff

[Madsing]

That’s a really nice scene. I love it!

Your trees and the vegetation look fantastic. I spotted Noch boxes on a previous photo, are they from Noch?

[Sean]

I do like that, it looks exactly like the crossing in my neighborhood that gets overgrown like that in the summer!

[MeTheSwede]

16 hours ago, Madsing said:

That’s a really nice scene. I love it!

Your trees and the vegetation look fantastic. I spotted Noch boxes on a previous photo, are they from Noch?

 

 

Thank you!

 

The leaves on the tree in my last photo is from Noch, Item 07144 medium green leaves. The trunk is plant material I found outside. The plants that cover most of the ground are made with Heki 15151 leaves.

 

Two years ago I wrote a little tutorial about how I make trees. I've since added a couple of more types of foilage material and techniqes to my repertoire, but the basics is mostly the same. Maybe I'll write an updated version at some point.

 

[MeTheSwede]

The silos of the Walthers kit "Medusa Cement Company" has been standing as an unfinished mock up on the layout since pretty much the start. Last week I got around to finishing it.

 

 

 

 

There are lots of pieces to be put up on the roof.

 

 

 

 

 

I think this instruction is pretty awful and in some places it isn't even correctly drawn. Further, there isn't any photo on the box that shows what the roof top should look like.

 

However a couple of photos from the net of a finished structure came to the rescue, and after some test fittings it could all be glued together.

 

 

 

 

 

The finished result.

 

 

 

 

 

A view from the other side.

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of workers are up doing routine inspections and maintainance today. They are pretty high up here. The Americans at Walthers wanted that laddar at the right to be even closer to the edge of the roof, but Japanese health and safety inspectors vetoed that and it ended up like this instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The view is quite impressive and it's understandable that workers at lunch time during days with pleasant weather sometimes sneak up on the roof to eat their bentos up here.

 

 

 

 

 

A look at the backside, were a cement car can be seen peeking out of the shed. Yamamura Cement recieves cement by rail from the factories and then distributes it by trucks to construction sites.

 

 

 

 

 

An aerial view.

 

 

 

 

 

Actually there's still one thing missing. There isn't any signage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2023 by MeTheSwede

[MeTheSwede]

This week I recieved a new Outland building with the mail.

 

 

 

It comes as 15 pieces in a ziplock bag. Unlike my earlier Outland acquisitions, this one wouldn't stay together without glue. The little holes were a tiny bit too large for the building to snap together as intended.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This ones joins my other Outland buildings that are standing in the back providing a skyline.

 

[MeTheSwede]

In Yamahama there are a lot of concrete cable channels around the station for all the cables connecting points and parts of the signaling system.

 

 

 

 

 

When something new is being installed or during maintainance they need to be opened up. When that happens, hopefully well installed cables marked in accordance with the documentations are found. Let's see it in practice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

- I'd like to have a talk with the guy who installed these cables!

- Then you should have a good talk to yourself. Could you plese try to not hurry so much this time?

 

 

 

[MeTheSwede]

I'm continuing to fill up the narrow space between the residential area and the industrial spur heading for the Cement dealer.

 

 

 

 

Today I helped Mrs Akizuki with some planting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She seemed quite happy with the results.

 

 

 

 

 

The fences were supposedly once put there to keep people away from the station area, but these days maybe it looks more like their mission is to keep plants from flooding into the residential area?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making potted plants turned out to be less fidely than I had expected. The larger ones are made of styrene plastic rod pipe where the holes fit perfectly on the end of this pair of tweezers. The smaller ones are from 0.88mm radius rods, and I glued them to the larger pots for easier handling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cat]

Yes, better living with styrene!  Nice pots, and there's so much quick easy stuff that strip/rod/tube styrene is great for.

[Tom C]

@MeTheSwede

 

Green fingers. Great job 🙂

[MeTheSwede]

Remember the Greenmax house kits I assembled a few weeks ago?

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out we know someone who lives in one of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Hi mum! 🎵

- Mi-chan, you're late! And what is that?

- That's Doggie. I found him in the street. May I keep him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately a passing cement train made it impossible for me to catch what Mi-chan's mum replied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another angle.

I think that pink car might be Mi-chan's mum's car, thus matching Mi-chan's bicycle well.
 

 

 

 

 

Before construction started: using paper to measue the size of the styrofoam piece needed to fill the area next to the spur going to the cement dealer.

 

 

Next up is the area below the spur which so far has only had some temporarilly placed ground pieces and trees (one of which seems to have dropped most it's leaves during the winter). This area will include a couple of little styrene builds and I already got green fingers from painting a base cover on the styrofoam. 😆

 

 

 

[MeTheSwede]

My next project is a park area. A lot of time has been spent planning and there's still lots and lots to do. Some water has been poured and a bridge out of styrene has been completed. Since I'm not likely to finish anything anytime soon, I thought I'd share a work in progress photo:

 

 

 

 

 

Can you spot the koi fish in the pond?

 

 

[cteno4]

Perfect! Those bonds are usually so dark brown black like that and the koi just fuzzy color blobs that can be hard to see (except at feeding times!).

 

nice work! Love how the schoolgirl seem to have spotted the koi.

 

plantings are superb as well. And what did you use for the stone walkway?! Bridge looks scratch built?

 

does this drop in/lift out as a scenery module?

 

these are the kinds of scenes I want to do with the mini onetrak.

 

jeff

[MeTheSwede]

There is actually quite a lot of koi in this pond, but they were apparently busy elsewhere when I took this particular picture. 😆

 

I'm sticking with lift out sections. This is made from a 3mm styrofoam sheet. I cut out the pond in the sheet and then used the hole as a template to cut out a pond bottom from 1mm styrofoam. This was carefully fitted with white wood glue and painted over with a couple of layers of brown paint, onto which tiny koi fish were painted. I first made a test pond which leaked, so were more carefull this time.

 

The water is from Woodland Scenics and I was first a bit disappointed that I felt I had added a bit too much brown and black to the water mix, but then I added a few more koi on top of the water and added another thin layer of water. Having fish swimming at different depts turned out great.

 

The stone walkway is cut out from a cardboard sheet from Noch.

 

The bridge is scratch built out of styrene. It's just planks cut out of a sheet and railings made from a 0.88mm rod. I was surprised how fast and easily it came together.