Hello! My introduction and a question

[ao924]

Hello, my name is Mike from New York and I am just getting into this hobby. I have always had a passing interest in trains as well as all things Japanese. After spending a ton of time of the JR East Simulator I decided to dive in. I purchased some Tomix track (A, C and D) as well as some EF-65 and 103 trains. Still waiting for everything to come in the mail and trying to gather as many resources as I can. I have a decent amount of space (at least 12'x15' in my garage) but of course want to start small and work my way up.

 

I am still learning about Japanese trains and the rail system but as I have expierence from the JR East sims I feel like I want to go in that direction but as of now my knowledge is basic at best. I don't think railfanning would be enough and I like the idea of doing soe kind of operational play on the track and I have seen a few people post about the topic. I am wndering if anyone is currently running a timetable or has a system in place? 

 

I can get stuff from Japan cheaply thanks to my wife so I am open to any/ all suggestions you may have in terms or track/trains. I got the Tomix stuff for basically nothing but interested to know if there are any compatible track? I would also love to know your favorite resources for Japanese trains, JR East or not. I can read Japanese so the language isn't a barrier.

 

Anyway a bit of a mish mosh of a post, I was eager to reach out and am looking forward to speaking to all of you.

[RS18U]

First, I will say welcome.  I have found this to be a great site with lots of info.

 

Although I have been a model railroader since the late '70's the Japanese N gauge is new to me as well.  I have found a huge wealth of information in the pinned topics in each section so feel free to dig into those.

 

As for track, my understanding is there are two ready to run systems, the Tomix you got and Kato.  Lots of discussion about which is better but seems more like is Toyota or Honda better.  No easy or right answer.  I use Kato since I am doing the T-Track modules and have no experience with Tomix.

 

In HO scale that I generally model setting up realistic operations is common but I don't see much of that in Japanese N.  Could be that a lot are relatively small and often not permanent layouts.

 

Anyway this is a great hobby!

[cteno4]

Welcome AO, glad you found us. 
 

folks do the whole spectrum of temporary layouts to full blown layouts in Japanese n scale. As to operations it’s up to you how detailed you want to get. There are a lot of the usual exporters in the suppliers forum. If you have relations in Japan you may other options for ordering sending packages thru those relations.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[MeTheSwede]

Welcome to the forum and the hobby!

 

You've got started with a great track system in the form of Tomix Finetrack, so stick to that. Different track systems aren't compatible with eachother, although a handy person with suitable tools could of course modify stuff to connect anything to anything as long as it's the same gauge.

 

Time table running seems quite rare. A year and a half ago I explored running trains in accordance with a "randomised time table". I described the process in the thread linked below, a thread that also contains some other posts that are probably of interest to you.

 

My advice is to try out different aspects of the hobby and see what makes you tick. I thought I was very much an operational type of modeller, but turned out I was mostly a staring at scenery and taking pictures type of modeller. 😄

 

 

 

[miyakoji]

Hi @ao924 welcome to the forum!