Another take on Suburban Station And Train Depot on a hollow core door 27" x 78".

[cteno4]

@Junech @Rez yep, same basic track plan and that one junction where both power packs could be crossed if points set in certain combo, and hence insulated rail joiners needed there. Main power feeds same place. 4 power feeds is a bit of overkill. With 4 there will be no problems ever on a layout this size. Voltage drops are a bit random coming from issues with rail joiners, dirty track and alignment. Best to over do it when nailing track down.

 

but you could got to three and eliminate the ones in the bottom right. Or even 2 and just use the top left and bottom right ones. The critical feeds are the ones in the top left as they feed the whole yard.

 

For power connections you use a s62 power feeder usually. You can substitute it in for any piece of straight track along with a corresponding short bit of the track being replaced (ie replacing a S248 with a s62 feeder and a s186). But in the case of the top right power feeds you have curves right next to the point so can’t use the s62 feeder. There are a few options:

 

A. Use Kato Unitrak joiner feeders between the curve and point. These work pretty well but are very small gauge wire and a bit fragile. They work fine if installed and not pulled on bit can easily break if yanked or track pulled apart much with power feeds attached. You need to drill your holes for the wire feed right under the track joint so you need to drill a slightly bigger hole for it all to align up well

 

B. Make your own Unitrak joiner feeder. You can make your own Unitrak joiner feeder by pulling the metal track joiner out of the plastic housing then slipping the stripped end of a piece of stranded up to 20g wire between the underside of the metal unijoiner and the plastic housing as you slide the unijoiner back in. This results in the wire end squished up hard under the unijoiner for good contact. Bonus is you can use heftier wire than the Kato unijoiner feeds and they are pretty robust. You need to drill your holes for the wire feed right under the track joint so you need to drill a slightly bigger hole for it all to align up well. Also these can be susceptible ballasting if you flood the area with dilute glue as it can get into the wire/unijoiner connection and lower its contact. Same thing can happen in the unijoiner/track connection as well so why you need to be careful around track joints with glue flooding with ballasting and scenery.

 

C. Make your own feeder track out of any piece of track. I find this to be the best all around solution and it’s pretty easy to do. You just take a rotary tool and cut a slot on the underside of the track thru the plastic ballast directly under the rails. About a cm or so is fine. You can use a circular blade in the rotary tool or a small router bit to cut the slot about 3mm wide. The  you just solder some 20g wire directly to the bottom of the tracks. You first put a bit of solder on the bottom of the track (also good to use a bit of flux on the bottom of the track even if you are using rosin core flux to help the solder fuse as fast as possible. Then apply some solder to the stripped wire end (this is called tinning it). Then just put the wire end in along the bottom of the track and put the solder tip next to the junction of the two and the solder on each should very quickly melt and fuse. Make take a few practice tired to get the hang of cutting slots and soldering but just waste a piece of track and 30 minutes and you will be doing it fine! After solder drop a glob of epoxy glue over the whole slot/joint/wire end. You will then have a track connection that is the most robust you can get and won’t break and glue cant effect. Similar issue of slightly larger hole needed to drop wires in the right place to give wiggle room to get right track alignment.

 

Cheers

 

jeff

[Rez]

@cteno4

 

Thanks for all the amazing tips. I'm learning something new every and I can't wat my shopping spree. 

 

I think I will go with powered joiners. What's the suggested method of connecting multiple powered joiners into a single power pack? What if i wanted to use say 4 out of each just to be extra safe?

 

This is probably the most helpful forum I have ever visited!!!

[cteno4]

You can use the 3-way power cable to join 3 of the unijoiner or feeder track power cables into one to go into a Kato throttle. Other manufacturer throttles you will need to clip this off and screw onto terminals or just splice on to a power cable for that manufacture’s throttle (ie for a Tomix throttle) as they use different plug systems.

 

btw for where the power feeds go here is the logic when just using the point power routing to control which tracks are live:

 

A. You don’t want them on a siding, passing track, or yard tracks 

B. Try to place a power feed just before a point off the mainline leading to a yard and on either side on the mainline outside the points to a passing siding

C. Try to do a drop every 6-6 feet of track and 4 feet if you want to be safe if nailing things down. Voltage drops for folks is very variable and can change some with time.

 

One thing is if you do want to do dcc eventually it might be better to solder larger gauge wire to the bottom of the track. Folks usually want 18g or min 20g short feeders off of the rail leading to a larger gauge bus line to keep amperage up and clear control signaling. Also you would want drops on all the sidings and yard tracks then so you have power everywhere all the time to fully use the dcc control all the time everywhere. You could just pull up the end tracks to yards and sidings and put connections on those end tracks. Passing tracks is a bit harder to take up.

thanks, we try to be helpful and inclusive, @Junech went way above and beyond the call of duty in planning that all plan together! Thanks Junech!

 

cheers,

 

Jeff

[Junech]

17 hours ago, Rez said:

@Junech If you are ever in Bristol or London let me know!

I was hoping to visit a convention in London next year and will contact you when it is all set.

 

13 hours ago, cteno4 said:

thanks, we try to be helpful and inclusive, @Junech went way above and beyond the call of duty in planning that all plan together! Thanks Junech!

Since I like planning layouts I have no problem with it and it is a nice thing to spend some time with during breaks.

[ehtcom]

Hi Rez.

Similar to yourself I recently discovered model trains again. In particular, Japanese N-gauge also a month or two before visiting Japan.

In a mad rush I was downloading and trying to figure out planning software so I could make a shopping list.  (I ended up settling on Scarm after returning from Japan). Anyway I had initially decided on Kato and drawn up a couple of basic plans. I searched the internet to try find out the packaging sizes for their starter sets and track variation sets. All to no avail.

At some point I was toying with the idea of going with Tomix as they had a bigger range of track selection and their packaging seemed to be quite compact. I actually didn't commit until I visited Yodobashi and could see the set sizes for myself. So I ended up going with Tomix to squeeze as much as I could in my suitcase (I fit a lot) 
As for a layout, what I had originally planned to build is nothing like what I'll hopefully end up building over the next five or more years. So don't be too stressed with particular track sections. I mainly focused on turnouts as they too are pretty expensive here (Australia). I purchased quite a few starter sets as it works out a cheap way to get a controller, cabling, and a train.

I have a few youtube videos up and one on a Yodobashi walkthrough of the train section, also some unboxing videos and one showing weights and measurements of the track sets I purchased. 

Here's a link to the Yodobashi walkthrough to give you an idea of what's available off the shelf. I tried to go slow so the prices can be read. 

 

Cheers, Earle.

 

 

Edited August 14 by ehtcom

[Rez]

@ehtcom Thank you so much for your input. I had a look at the video and at your YouTube channel and I have to say the haul packing video was amazing. My plan is similar to yours but I plan to order everything online and collect at Yodobashi. I think this way it might be possible to get both 10% off tax and 10% back on points to buy even more at Yodobashi. I will be travelling with both my wife and daughter and as you can imagine they won't be able to cope with my staring at all the goodies that Yodobashi has to offer! I haven't decided on which rolling stock to get yet but I definitely want some vintage looking diesel commuter trains, Super Kuroshio, DD51 and some Shinkansen. Savings be damned!

 

Any other extra tips on packing and getting the best prices? I'm tempted to try hobby off as they may have some cheap second hand trains. When I looked at pricing of used goods at Popondetta they worked out the same as new goods at Yodobashi minus tax so I don't see why anyone would buy still in print sets there?

[ehtcom]

@Rez No probs.
You probably already know most of the below.

Something to be aware of with purchasing tax free. You are expected to keep your purchases un-opened and in original packaging. you are also expected to have it in your carry on luggage. If you do have any goods in your stowed luggage, when you check your bags, ask the attendant to call a customs officer to inspect your gear. 

Now I didn't do any of the above. Opened everything, disposed of a lot of packaging, and packed extra bits inside the boxes I did keep. I was a bit stressed when checking my bags but had resigned myself to the fact I'll be paying the tax portion on departure. I mentioned it to the check in attendant, he looked at me and said, "don't worry, all good" then weighed my bags and off I went. Having spoke to several people about this and it's pretty rare that they actually inspect departing tourists. But good to keep it in mind just in case.

Be sure to go to the "Visit Japan Web" and pre fill out all your details. It will make the move through customs a lot quicker. Also pre fill what you can for tax free shopping. Be sure to carry your passports at all times. You'll need it when shopping tax free, and it for some reason the police wish to talk, they'll ask to see your passports.

Keep cash with you as not everywhere accepts cards. I found withdrawing cash from 7-11 convenience stores gave the best exchange rates. Them, FamilyMart, and Lawson are on nearly every corner.

 

As for train stuff. A big one for me was to purchase a multi outlet powerboard over there so I only needed the one adaptor for mains power. The Tomix plug packs are multi-voltage. I'd assume the Kato ones are as well.

I'd highly recomment purchasing at least two starter sets. It works out a lot cheaper than buying seperately. Also the same for the variation track sets. V3 is good value. 

A couple of youtube videos below showing the contents.

 

Take as big a suitcase as you can. My biggest regret is not getting more stations, platforms, and buildings, but I was space poor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Junech]

8 hours ago, ehtcom said:

I'd highly recomment purchasing at least two starter sets. It works out a lot cheaper than buying seperately. Also the same for the variation track sets. V3 is good value.

Yes, starter and variation track sets are good options to save some money. I didn't include them cause I didn't want to dig into them and compare all the prices for the part list (and buying second-hand track could be an option too). Because you would need to compare the contents to the part list and see if excluding the spare track you would still save money. It is like V3 has the R781 switches which aren't used on the layout at all and 2 starter sets would come with 8 unneeded R315 curves and so on. You would really need to go through the part list and see how many and which sets to buy to still save money.

 

 

[ehtcom]

1 hour ago, Junech said:

Yes, starter and variation track sets are good options to save some money. I didn't include them cause I didn't want to dig into them and compare all the prices for the part list (and buying second-hand track could be an option too). Because you would need to compare the contents to the part list and see if excluding the spare track you would still save money. It is like V3 has the R781 switches which aren't used on the layout at all and 2 starter sets would come with 8 unneeded R315 curves and so on. You would really need to go through the part list and see how many and which sets to buy to still save money.

 

 

Just filled the shopping cart at Yodobashi and there is only a 200yen saving when purchasing the N700S set (that excludes the 8 corners). I didn't realise how high the starter set prices are for Kato. 

[Rez]

@ehtcom Do you remember if Yodobashi offered a 5% discount when paying with a Visa card? Last time I was in Japan they had an extra 5% off when using a Visa to pay for your shopping.

[ehtcom]

@Rez I don't think so. Pretty sure it was just the 10% tax free. 

[Kamome]

@Rez I would suggest looking at rolling stock you’re interested in while you’re in Japan as that is what tends to have the greatest mark up. Track is more expensive but take a look at websites like Train Trax as they tend to be more reasonable than others and it’s more readily available anyway. Trains, not so much availability across the UK other than new releases or shinkansen. Scenery items from Tomytec, Greenmax etc are another area where you won’t find anything other than Kato buildings in the UK. These are nice but I find there’s a lot of identikit layouts, a bit like plonking Hornby stuff on a baseboard. 

 

Starter and track sets are bulky items so plan luggage space if you go down that route and want to keep the boxes. 

Edited August 16 by Kamome

[Rez]

All great tips. Please keep them coming.

[Rez]

Lovely people of JNS just to let you know I'm currently mid-air flying to Japan and have about 100 different items waiting my collection from Yodobashi camera. But as bad luck has it all the 20-220 and 20-221 points are sold out nation wide in Japan! I will keep you posted. Thanks for all your help so far. My savings account is going to feel it hard!!

[Rez]

My savings account is obliterated. But let me tell you it was worth it. I went for the Golden points option as it works out exactly the same as tax free. You can't do both unfortunately. Since I've done my shopping with my family I have ordered everything online. Well all except turnouts!! Turnouts are sold out nation wide in Japan and Kato is now expecting them late November. I've managed to buy just 1 out of about 15 needed.

 

The 3 bags were so heavy that they ended up rubbing off the outer skin layer on my hands in some places :D!!

 

I will write a detailed guide how to accomplish the Yodobashi camera lazy online shopping route if you are traveling to Japan. 

Edited October 24 by Rez

[Rez]

My return flight home got cancelled so things got a bit crazy the last 2 extra days of my trip but the haul has arrived mostly undamaged. The picture below only shows the structures and trains part of the haul. 2 or 3 hard plastic Tomix boxes got cracked in transit go as either the Chinese or British luggage handlers played football with my travel bags but the trains and the cargo look undamaged.

 

Before you ask why I haven't packed them into the carry-on luggage 🧳 please be informed that I'd rather live with 2 or 3 damaged boxes than have my 3 full frame lenses and a camera destroyed in hold. 

 

@cteno4 where do you want me to post a detailed shopping guide and the best packaging practice? I have learned a lot about train shopping in Japan and I'm keen to share once the jetlag lets me go.

 

Also if someone is eager to listen about my flight cancellation trauma and Beijing industrial zone hotel experience I'm keen to share too.

 

Thanks to all the people reading and commenting in this thread.

 

PS. Yes I'm a weeb and I got the overpriced NERV cargo containers. I regret nothing.

 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

@Rez, great, we have a whole forum on that! 

 

https://jnsforum.com/community/forum/43-hobby-shops-where-are-they/

 

Might make the packing its own separate topic! You can post separate topics on the different stores you visited, add to topics already there, or do a whole combined one on this trip’s shopping, it’s up to you.

 

jeff