The Introduction Thread...

[Bernard]

A big welcome from me too. You have a friend that is also a dealer in trains, not a bad combination. ;)

We all love to see photos of other members fleets, projects, or interesting sites that they have found. So feel welcome to share and participate.

[Low_Rider]

;D i could see having a friend who had a connection being a double edged sword. Its that age old "spend money to save money." At least to me that might be a vicious cycle, but definately one I would take the risk on LOL. Welcome Railmind from another newbie to the forum!

[SubwayHypes]

What do you mean you are starting to get into the graffitti sub-culture that follows them?

Do you graffitti trains?

hahah no i am not that crazy.  what i do is find graffiti that i like on flickr or from my own personal photo collection.  Then i free hand and copy the graffiti onto my own model trains.  since N scale is so small i dont do it too much, i stick to doing graffiti on cheap HO scale freight cars taht i buy for like 5 bucks a piece. 

^some from a friend

 

i love the way trains look like this, they are like moving canvases. 

[SubwayHypes]

there is a huge underground subculture of train modelers who do graffiti on their HO scale trains.  Most of these guys are in their teens and twenties, its a young generation of train modelers.

 

one last flick i dont want to hijack the thread, visit this link to see much more.

http://12ozprophet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79115&page=34

 

some of them take it very seriously as you can see from the "weathering" detail, looks extremely realistic in my opinion.

[stevenh]

That really does look awesome...and adds a touch of realism that although should go against the grain with most train enthusiasts... works really well!

[Martijn Meerts]

While I won't be adding graffiti on any of my trains (I'm not skilled enough for that, but luckily Japanese trains don't have much graffiti ;)), I will be weathering pretty much everything I intend to run for long periods of time and at possible exhibitions or something. Even just a very light coat of india ink and some rust around the bogies makes everything fit in much better already.

[Bernard]

This would be a good new thread to start "Weathering and/or Car graffiti".

[SubwayHypes]

yea like i said i dont do anything to my Japanese trains (mostly because they are so expensive).  i only start using paint on my freight cars or HO cars from cheap American brands.

[SubwayHypes]

 

Theres another pic of the subway tunnel in my profile.  Whenever a train goes by you just duck into the little cubbyholes on the side.  The train rushes past at around 50mph an arms length away, its intense!!  The tunnel is 1 mile long and the ENTIRE expanse, i mean every inch of it, is covered in urban art, even the ceilings.  I think the city recently repainted the whole tunnel though.  Its a jungle in there.

[CaptOblivious]

While I won't be adding graffiti on any of my trains (I'm not skilled enough for that, but luckily Japanese trains don't have much graffiti ;)), I will be weathering pretty much everything I intend to run for long periods of time and at possible exhibitions or something. Even just a very light coat of india ink and some rust around the bogies makes everything fit in much better already.

 

Could you say a little more about the india ink thing? I gave this a try to weather my tunnel portals, and while the results were good for a bit of scenery, had that been an expensive train I would have been rather disappointed. Granted, it turns out the ink I was using isn't really india ink, but a water-soluble substitute (which, despite this fact, does not really wash off plastic when you make a mistake, as it happens).

[SubwayHypes]

You can also use airbrush for weathering.

 

I take a napkin, dip it in water soluble Posca brown/ and LIGHTLY weather sometimes.  If i mess up i clean it off right away before it has time to set.

[Martijn Meerts]

While I won't be adding graffiti on any of my trains (I'm not skilled enough for that, but luckily Japanese trains don't have much graffiti ;)), I will be weathering pretty much everything I intend to run for long periods of time and at possible exhibitions or something. Even just a very light coat of india ink and some rust around the bogies makes everything fit in much better already.

 

Could you say a little more about the india ink thing? I gave this a try to weather my tunnel portals, and while the results were good for a bit of scenery, had that been an expensive train I would have been rather disappointed. Granted, it turns out the ink I was using isn't really india ink, but a water-soluble substitute (which, despite this fact, does not really wash off plastic when you make a mistake, as it happens).

 

India ink is one of the more old-fashioned things to use for it, but pretty much any water soluble paint should work. Personally, I use Tamiya flat black.

 

The trick is to make a good mix. Too much paint causes the wash to be too opaque and you get very little control. I tend to mix about 1 part paint with 10 parts water, and add 1 drop of dishwashing liquid. I cover the entire object I'm weathering once or twice, depending on how things look, and then add more washes to places I feel need more black.

 

This does 2 things. First of all, it adds some structure to the model. The black pigment will collect in crevices and corners, so you get some nice shading. The other thing that happens, is that because I use flat black, the model will loose some of its plastic shinyness.

 

With the wrong mix of paint and water though, it might end up getting pretty bad, the main thing to remember is that it's easy to add more weathering, but difficult to remove it. While the paint is water soluble, the pigments in the paint will not dissolve once they've dried out.

 

Any sort of soft detailing I'm planning on doing with artists chalk. Using a very fine bit of sanding paper, you can grind the chalk into a nice powder. The powder you can just brush onto the model. If you don't like it, you can easily wash it off with a wet paper towel or toothbrush or something. If you're happy with the final result, you can seal the model with a flat clear coat. Just make sure not to touch the parts of the model you want to add chalk to with your fingers, since you'll get nasty fingerprints all over the place that way ;)

 

Obviously, airbrushing works as well, if you're good at airbrushing =)

[alpineaustralia]

railmind - why do you have cyrillic on your blogsite?

[Railmind]

alpineaustralia, thanks for the hint. The settings have been fixed.

[Hobby Dreamer]

Hello - this is a great forum!

 

My name is Rick and I live in Ottawa Canada. I’ve always thought of having a model RR layout to tinker with as I enjoy dioramas. I’m neither a Japan Rail Fan nor a Japanophile but there is an undeniable “cool” factor with Japanese model products as well as their high quality.

 

I have not really committed to the hobby, which is why I selected Hobby Dreamer as my moniker. I may wait until my economic certainty is better known; but I think I would enjoy a small layout to start.

 

I’ve pondered the direction to follow in this hobby for some time. If TT scale (1/120) were as popular as N that is what I would use but products in that scale are scarce! HO is just too large for me, so N is the obvious solution. I don’t enjoy American-type layouts with coal mines, non-descript factories, sparseness, and gravel roads. I will probably create an imaginary country and use products from Europe, America and Japan. I fantasize about a “busy” layout with numerous levels (subways; trams; viaducts etc) with perhaps a few main focuses. A rail station, rail yard, high speed train; urban/rural split etc. Not Tokyo busy but something not too linear. It might also be interesting to depict the 4 seasons.

 

Bill posted some pics on another forum that depicted a European town with trams and I quite enjoyed that layout. I have to admit that I am also a tram nut! Frankly, I cannot understand why tram layouts are not ubiquitous - they practically demand interesting intersections, multiple routes etc; require modest space and are a good focus on their own. 

 

I will probably go the Kato route for track but may explore Tomix Finetrack (?) for tram track. I am somewhat under enthused by the plastic coverings that transform the track to tram track. There seem to be pieces unavailable for certain configurations. And certain intersections cannot be modeled. What is unique are the tight radii and turnouts on curves etc. There is a site that discusses tram track where a lot of interesting variants are profiled. Yet despite some innovative ideas some track and covers have to be custom made! I think Noch (or one of the other companies) makes roadways in a rubberized strip that can be cut and curved to a certain degree. I might explore this. Card stock may also work.

 

As for structures, the Japanese companies have rail buildings and related well covered! I rather like some of the paper “card” structures available in Britain. They are relatively inexpensive but easy to construct. Moreover, they require little to no additional work such as weathering etc.

 

Most of your own photos as well as those of other layouts that you have posted are a real inspiration!

 

I am not sure how much I can contribute since I am new to the hobby. I do have a lot of questions, however. One strength of forums besides the camaraderie and sharing of ideas is that they become great deposits of useful information. I’ll certainly make an effort to share interesting sites.

 

Rick

[Guest ___]

I must've missed this post some how. Ok, I'll bite. My name is Aaron, and I'm an otaku no densha from Washington DC. I'm also a 34 year old freelance photojournalist, who covered 9/11 at the Pentagon, and am a former Coast Guard photographer.  I worked for the railroads in my younger days in both the railroad police and operations side of things.

 

I turned to modeling N-scale J-trains officially this year after looking to do so for three years ago. (I'm a recovering HO-scale modeler). I spend much of my free time teaching Japanese folks conversational and business English. I got in to the Japanese trains by accident while in Japan in 05 visiting a few Japanese I was teaching English to.

 

Currently, I'm a member of the Japan Rail Modelers of Washington DC.

[bill937ca]

Hello - this is a great forum!

 

My name is Rick and I live in Ottawa Canada. I’ve always thought of having a model RR layout to tinker with as I enjoy dioramas. I’m neither a Japan Rail Fan nor a Japanophile but there is an undeniable “cool” factor with Japanese model products as well as their high quality.

 

I

Rick

 

Welcome to the group, Rick.

[Bernard]

Rick - Welcome to the forum. As you stated one of the great things about forums is that you can interact with members and ask questions. By asking questions that is the best way to learn and choose which direction you might want to go. So ask away. ;)

[TaeOH]

I am Tom.  I commented on Bernard's layout thread on trainboard.com and he pm'd me this site since I mentioned I have had a fascination with Amtrak in N scale and also Japanese Bullet trains.  I just got into model railroading in the last month.  I bought a Lionel Christmas train for my daughter and it brought back a passion for toy trains I had as a kid.  I am actually surprised it took this long for me to do a layout, I really loved the HO trains I had as a child and always look at the trains any time I go to a hobby shop.

 

I am in the planning stages of a layout for a room in my basement.  I lean toward N because I have always loved the scale and I could do more with my space in it.  But my eyesight has been changing for the worse in the last year, so it might be safe if I just went with HO.  Plus I think sound is likely better in HO because of speaker size, and I plan on doing DCC and Sound on all my trains.  I am still going back and forth between N and HO though, I will attend a club for a bit before I finally decide.

 

Here is a pic of the first train set I bought for myself after the Christmas train, it is in N and the engine turned out to be very good. Still likely won't add DCC to it though.

 

 

Oh.  My hobby for the last 20 or so years has been video games.  Lately I have not been playing as much anymore and have been spending more time with my media center. Now I just feel like I need to do something with my hands.  This hobby brings my childhood loves of plastic models and trains together, plus will teach me a little woodworking and scenery crafts.  I am hoping my daughter enjoys this for a while.  I hope you get your gallery fixed soon.  Would love to see everyone's pictures.

[bill937ca]

Tom, weclome to the group.  The Gallery works.  Click on Your Layout, Your Fleets or Prototype Shots

[TaeOH]

Tom, weclome to the group.  The Gallery works.  Click on Your Layout, Your Fleets or Prototype Shots

 

I get the same error that is posted at the end of the gallery thread in this very board section.  I assumed it was still a known error that has yet to be resolved.

[Martijn Meerts]

Tom, my father is turning 75 this year, and he still works with N-scale every day, so age and bad eye sight (mine is really bad actually, too many hours behind various consoles and computers ;)) shouldn't really be an issue unless you want them to be.

 

As for sound, there are MANY factors that decide whether sound is good or not. I have trains of 4 different scales myself, Z, N, H0 and 0.

 

Z for me is slightly too small to get the level of detail I want. For that N is great. I can run long trains and the detail on them is great. Decoder installs can be a problem at times, and there's no sound, but that's fine with me. H0 has more detail, but won't allow you to run long trains unless you have lots of space. Some H0 loco's are downright amazing, but in the end I feel H0 is a scale that's just in between the 2 things I'm looking for, which is long trains and superdetailing. Lastly, I have a 0 scale loco and a piece of hand laid track. This scale is too big for long trains or advanced layouts, but the detail on them is amazing and the running characteristics are incredible.

 

Sound wise, N is very limited. I've heard a few N-scale loco's and their sound, and it's not very impressive. However, I'm also not very impressed with most H0 sound I've heard, and in fact it started to annoy me after only about 10-15 minutes. It can be partially fixed by buying more expensive sound decoders that include sounds recorded from the actual prototype, or adding a bigger speaker. But the limitation you'll always have is the resonance of the loco body around the speaker as well. My 0-scale loco was designed from the ground up to be digital and have sound effects, so they took care of the problems in it, and that one sounds great.

 

In short, whenever I run an H0 loco that has sound, I turn it off. Whenever I run an N loco, I don't miss the sound at all. But I guess I'm just used to it, I've been doing N for well over 20 years ;)

[jarhead]

I am new to the group and I want to thank you for letting me participate. I was recommended by a friend, Jeffrey in DC to join this forum and to check it out. I've been a model railroader all my life, influence by my father. I have an N scale shelf layout  in my office at work and an HO layout at home. Always modeled US Prototype. Today I checked the website of Jeffrey's group and they run Japanese type trains and I was intrigue by it. I said to myself that I needed to check into this more deeply. So here I am.

 

I live in South Florida and besides modeling I like playing golf and cycling.

 

Nick

[Darren Jeffries]

Tom, weclome to the group.  The Gallery works.  Click on Your Layout, Your Fleets or Prototype Shots

 

I get the same error that is posted at the end of the gallery thread in this very board section.  I assumed it was still a known error that has yet to be resolved.

 

Tom,

 

Yes, for some reason, the gallery stopped functioning correctly one day a month or so ago. It is a coding issue, and I am plucking up the courage to delve into the coding of the site... its a bit risky if you are not good at coding.

 

Bear with us.

[Bernard]

Tom,

Welcome to the forum and it good to see another cat person. Another benefit of N over HO scale is that it's harder for kitty to catch N scale. ;D