The Introduction Thread...

[stickboy]

Greetings to all, here is my introduction!

 

My name is Phil, I'm 44, and I'm from Manchester, England.

 

I'm a motorcyclist (several large Suzukis), and my main hobby is airbrushing (which helps pay for my other hobbies!)

 

I made models of all kinds when I was at school, had a saturday job in a model shop, but stopped when I went to college.

 

Got back into modelling a couple of years ago when a friend asked me to repaint a model Ferrari 250GT Lusso to match the one owned by Steve McQueen, as a gift for the gentleman who now owns the original. I made a base for it, and got the modelling bug back!

 

I still had some bits of track and rolling stock in the back of a cupboard (for 25 years!), so I started a small OO9 Welsh-style layout, which I really enjoy working on.

 

I also (foolishly and expensively!!!) got into Z scale North American trains, and I am in the process of building a Z modular layout. I have always been fascinated by the tiny size of Z scale, and the current Z scene is getting bigger and better all the time.

 

My interest (heading towards obsession) with Japanese Railways is very recent, and began with the Youtube videos of the Kiso Forest narrow gauge models. I have an overwhelming urge to build a KMC standard module, and if I had found this place a month ago I would have been very tempted to jon in with the layout party!

 

However my partner and I are currently clearing out and remodelling my house prior to moving in the near future, and she would kill me if I started another project, when I am really supposed to be finishing off several others...

 

This seems to be a great website, and I am looking forward to seing everyones work. I don't seem to have a lot of time for modelling right now, but I will chip in with encouragement for others when I can!

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

[Bernard]

Phil - Again Welcome to the forum. I spent a year going to school at Manchester Univ. it was a great place.

Glad to hear that you're a professional airbrush artist because I have a lot of questions on that topic! Any helpful suggestions on airbrushing would be greatly appreciated.

[stickboy]

Ask away! Glad to help if I can.

 

I was airbrushing full time for ten years, doing retouch on large format prints. These days I'm sad old middle management, but I still do crash helmets for myself and others. Here's the last one I did for myself...

 

 

Cheers,

 

Phil

[Bernard]

Unbelievable! How do you even do something like that.

[cteno4]

Phil,

 

Awesome! great work! A friend out in CA is an artist and is also a ducati freak (he rebuilds them and makes them even more a piece of art) he did airbrush brain buckets for a while for some side money since all the other ducati freaks would go wild on some of the gas tank paint jobs he did. the best one i saw of his was a real brain bucket. he did this incredible 3D looking brain on a helmut that made it look like the brain was sitting inside about 3/4" of acrylic shell around it. it was just an optical illusion but the way he did it it really made you stare! also was not perfectly realistic, there was a tad of art in there (hes a full blown artist and teaches part time art institute, but of course cant make a living fully off art!) that really gave yet another dimension to look at it.

 

must be something about slick looking bikes and air brushes...

 

we will look forward to maybe poking you for some simple tricks on air brushing. i never have really gone at it a lot ever and keep meaning to sit down and get serious about it for the trains at some point!

 

again welcome and enjoy!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[harukablue]

Hi I am Lew from West Wales i model Japanes 16th 1/80 HO modern image (what a mouthfull lol) I have been interested in Japanese trains for several years anh hope to get my small exhibition depot layout on the circuit next year.

[Darren Jeffries]

Hi I am Lew from West Wales i model Japanes 16th 1/80 HO modern image (what a mouthfull lol) I have been interested in Japanese trains for several years anh hope to get my small exhibition depot layout on the circuit next year.

 

Welcome all new members, and a special UK member welcome to Lew and Phil....

 

Phil, awsome work on the  airbrushing, i only wish i could do it as well.

 

Lew, would like to see some pictures when you have time.

[harukablue]

Hi I am Lew from West Wales i model Japanese 16th 1/80 HO modern image (what a mouthfull lol) I have been interested in Japanese trains for several years anh hope to get my small exhibition depot layout on the circuit next year.

 

Well the depot layout is just framed baseboards at the moment,,but can post some of my loco photos.

[cteno4]

Welcome Lew, there are a few HOers here that will be happy to have another chum!

 

jeff

[ChrisWV10]

Hi everyone. I'm Chris from Wolverhampton, UK. Only started model railways at the beginning of the year as something to keep me occupied. I find it quite relaxing and satisfying building a kit and gradually building up a landscape and it fills those cold, dark, wet Winter evenings we're plagued with.  :hmh:

 

I was drawn to Japanese initially by an interest in switching to Kato unitrack after struggling with Peco setrack, which is probably more to do with my track laying than any fault in Peco's product, but being an electrical numpty I liked the simplicity of unitrack and they way everything is designed to work together rather than cobbling solutions from different manufacturers and all the inherent compatibility issues that go with it. A trawl round t'interweb revealed lots of satisfied unitrackers and praise for kato in general so I decided to do something different and plumped for Japanese outline. I really like the sleek, modern design of the shinkansens and the variety of Japanese locos generally. Plus a busy, modern city scene is  miles away from the commonly modelled (in the UK) rural steam-based layouts. (And I have an OO layout to cater for those tastes, mostly Hornby & Bachmann BR steam, DCC powered with Bachmann Dynamis.)

 

I have a 10' by 3' space reserved but not much to fill it...yet! Work is in progress to resolve that however with one of these ....

 

 

Also have the V4 sidings pack to keep me occupied...for now. Fortunately Christmas is approaching and I've already drafted my letter to Santa 

 

DC for now but I may switch to DCC depending on trackplan/desires in the future.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[disturbman]

Welcome aboard Chris! Don't hesitate to show us photo of your on going project in the Personal project subforum (trying to beat Bernard here) and your overall crazyness about trains and japanese trains in the rest of the forum.

 

If you like you are also welcome to participate to the ongoing Project Party. We are jsut two weeks in and will welcome with pleasure any new participant (you can find the guidelines and overall description of this project party here).

 

By the way, I really like the box you showed us. I would e happy to receive it as well.

 

"Let's enjoy Layout" (sorry I found these so cheesy funny I couldn't resist the urge to write it) as they say.

[Bernard]

Chris Welcome to the forum. 10' x 3' space, you can do a lot with that! Winter is when most modeling gets done, it's too nice to stay indoors. (The summer is when most LHS really suffer.) If I'm reading your post right, you also have an 00 layout? If so I would love to see photos (I'm always requesting photos from members) I look forward to reading your posts in the future.

[ChrisWV10]

Thanks for the welcome guys  -

 

Yes I also have OO. I took over the spare room so I have a 10' x 4' down one side for OO and, after I ditched the guest bed,  :laughing7: a 10' x 3' space down the other for N with a 2' gap down the middle for me.  It's very much work in progress but I have a small album on photobucket

 

http://s1017.photobucket.com/albums/af296/ChrisWV10/

 

It needs updating with a few more pics. There's also a couple of my new defunct attempt in British N. I have a couple of vids on youtube of it (search for chriswv10)

 

I love looking at other folks pics both to admire their work and steal borrow their ideas! 

 

When I get started I'll start a thread for progress reports, comments, pics etc. For now I've just got a circuit and passing loop which isn't very interesting but I'm in love with unitrack already. Dead easy to assemble and wire it up. No trouble with point motors either. Just what I needed. Easy to set up and it works first time.  Not sure I've got the coaches the right way round on my E2 shinkansen but what a smooth runner! Tried a couple of my other Farish/Dapol locos and what a difference! I'll be sticking with Kato from now on. They'd clean up if they did any British stuff.

[Bernard]

Chris - Thanks for sharing your photos. The OO layout looks really good and your ballasting isn't poor at all.

[Martijn Meerts]

For now I've just got a circuit and passing loop which isn't very interesting

 

Actually, that means you already have more than me =)

[Krackel Hopper]

hey hey everyone,

 

My name is Jon and I currently reside in Topeka, KS. 

 

How I got into Japanese trains is an odd twist of events of timing being just right. 

 

My girlfriend is a fan of many things Japanese, and when I met her she started introducing me to the food, anime (the woman's anime collection is twice the size of my movie collection), the language (she can fluently speak and decently read), etc, etc, etc.

 

My dad used to model RR when he was younger, but never while I was growing up.  Recently, my nephew (who's 2) has the train bug.  All he wants to do is trains trains trains.  He watches train videos on his iphone (yes, my 2yr old nephew has an iphone) or is playing with his wooden train set.  His interest in trains re-sparked my dad's interest in trains.  Going to the hobby store with my dad and seeing the more "adult" sets, I thought it might be interesting.  Living in an apartment I was looking at N or Z scale.

 

To wrap up this long-winded story, I mention to the girlfriend that I was looking at model railroading.  She comments that Japan has some really awesome trains.  I jump online and start snooping around ebay..

 

the rest is history..

 

that was maybe 4 months ago..

 

My current Japanese collection consists of:

Dr. Yellow 923 ~ 7 car set ~ Tomix

KIHA 40-700 Fox/Crab/Squid ~ 3 powered cars ~ MicroAce

EF-64 Euroliner livery ~ engine ~ Tomix

and a few Kawai tank cars

 

The girlfriend really likes the unique painted up cars.. currently I'm looking to track down the KATO (Roundhouse) Shikisai (4 seasons) Joyful Train - Both the old(10-912) and new (10-919) designs.. also the Tomix 92931 - KIHA 130 "Hidaka Pony Train"

 

I'll save the user name story for another post.

 

Jon

[disturbman]

Welcome Jon, if your Girlfriend is really into anime you might want to add the model version of the Galaxy Express to your expanding fleet. 

[Krackel Hopper]

Welcome Jon, if your Girlfriend is really into anime you might want to add the model version of the Galaxy Express to your expanding fleet. 

 

One step ahead of ya.. except she said she didn't care for that show.  Which is too bad.  While I have never seen the show, I can safely say an outerspace steam train with battleship guns sounds pretty sweet to me.. haha!  Could make for an interesting diorama anyway.. *rusty gears turning* 

[Martijn Meerts]

You'll want to hang on to that girlfriend.. A girl with an interest in Japanese things and who doesn't mind (possibly even likes) trains... Almost too good to be true ;)

[Bernard]

Jon - It was your girlfriend that got you hooked on Japanese trains!? That's a first. And on top of that she speaks Japanese. (Must come in handy in Topeka. ) There is maybe,.... just maybe....a small part of the forum that might be a little jealous of you.

 

With all this knowledge do the 2 of you ever plan to visit Japan in the near future?

As for your nephew, wooden trains at that age are a great idea. They have fun building all different types of configurations and gets their imagination going. My nephew Keiren, got the bug when he was 2 but as he got older video games took it's place. :hiding:

 

But most important of all, welcome to the forum.

[CaptOblivious]

Jon, welcome to another midwesterner! (I'm in the STL)

[disturbman]

Welcome Jon, if your Girlfriend is really into anime you might want to add the model version of the Galaxy Express to your expanding fleet. 

 

One step ahead of ya.. except she said she didn't care for that show.  Which is too bad.  While I have never seen the show, I can safely say an outerspace steam train with battleship guns sounds pretty sweet to me.. haha!  Could make for an interesting diorama anyway.. *rusty gears turning* 

 

They were also other trains in that show. If I remember correctly the first version, the 999 version, was quite good and strange. Whether the lastest versions were really crap (for me). But yeah, a outerspace steam train with or without battleship guns is pretty sweet.

 

Another train set exist related to the serie, it's a normal train with a special anime livery. But this one will be so hard to locate... http://www.tomytec.co.jp/tomix/products/n/92938.htm

 

We also had a conversation about painted trains here.

[cteno4]

Welcome Jon!

 

as they say she sounds like a keeper! usually the sig others just roll their eyes and try to be patient with us!

 

i think you can keep her satisfied with anime trains, there are a number of them and they come out a few a year. Im not a big anime fan, but got hooked in collecting the anime and other painted trains out there. they are quite fun. keep lurking ebay as interesting things like this pop up now and then, just have to be patient and vigilant...

 

The trains are even more fun as you get into the food, culture, etc!

 

soon you nephew can get into the tomica trains. they are great battery powered ho sized shortie trains and there are loads of japanese trains to be had for this set up pretty cheap! start em young!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Triplex]

Hello, everyone (how do I say that in Japanese?)

 

Tristan, 23, from Calgary, Alberta. I'm studying astrophysics. Screen name comes from the Erie steamer, not that that railroad's one of my main interests. (Those are in my signature.)

 

My interest in Japanese railways is rather limited, but since I'm already on German, British and Australian forums, I thought I should be here, too. As you might expect from a North American, my interests lie in locomotive-hauled, particularly freight trains. As such, the Japan of today doesn't do much for me. It's the steam age that made me interested in Japan's railways, a long time ago. Only recently have I got around to even learning about that much. And preservation does nothing for me, in Japan or anywhere else. It's hard not to see a preserved train as resembling a polar bear pacing in a zoo.

 

Eventually, I may get onto Japanese-language forums, once I get around to learning the language (mostly so I can read manga and watch anime in the original language - what did you expect?)

[westfalen]

Hi, the names Alvin, from Ipswich, just west of Brisbane in Australia. I'm N scale layout coordinator at the Ipswich Heritage Model Railway Club. The Santa Fe in the 50's and 60's is my main interest but Japanese railways are a close second. I started out with a second hand Kato '0' series Shinkansen I won at an N scale convention in 1989, a year later I visited Japan for the first time, and then, well you know what happens once your hooked. Been talking Japanese at Trainboard for while and finally decided I might as well join up here.