JS model

[rogerg]

Greetings from Geelong in Australia.  I'm Roger Gillard who has been an N scale modeler for many years. I've also been to China many times to photograph steam.  The China period that I model is late 1990's or so.  So DF diesels not the modern Harmony locos.  Initially I scratch built C64,C61, P62, C50 wagons to make a decent train. I had books with plans of wagons that were bought in China. However these days these wagons are easily obtainable.  I usually buy from Tekkon in Japan and have had no problems. Since there are no ready to run N scale steam models it seemed that some scratch building was required. I used a  Kato D51 as the mech for a JS class model.   I photographed JS 8263 at Bei'an in 1998 so I chose to do this loco. It has come out very nicely although somehow (in my dotage) I got the number wrong. When I get new decals made I'll fix that.  It is great to see that QJ's will come next year and it will be interesting to see which steam loco Changming release.

[disturbman]

Hi, rogerg. Welcome aboard!

Nice and bold project. I would never dare to such modifications.

 

7 minutes ago, rogerg said:

Since there are no ready to run N scale steam models it seemed that some scratch building was required.

The operative word is yet. Changming is working on at least one steam engine, which should be released this year. And Bachmann China has shown us a prototype of its N scale QJ. Iirc, release date is slated for this summer for the DC version, and later this year for the DCC Sound version.

[SL-san]

17 hours ago, rogerg said:

Since there are no ready to run N scale steam models it seemed that some scratch building was required

 

17 hours ago, disturbman said:

Changming is working on at least one steam engine, which should be released this year

Hi Roger,

Told you you would find jnsforum full of helpful people😄

Graeme

[disturbman]

😁🙈 I try. I can see now that I skimmed too fast. Work has been rough, and I totally missed the final lines.

@rogerg do you have pictures of your other scratchbuild efforts?

[rogerg]

3 hours ago, disturbman said:

😁🙈 I try. I can see now that I skimmed too fast. Work has been rough, and I totally missed the final lines.

@rogerg do you have pictures of your other scratchbuild efforts?

Here is a box of four C64 gondolas that were castings from a polystyrene master that I made some years before it was possible to buy ready to run gondolas from China.  Also a polystyrene master for P62 box cars .

[Nozomi329]

On 1/20/2025 at 7:11 PM, rogerg said:

I got the number wrong

Well the Chinese character's also wrong. Hopefully you've caught it before printing the new decals🤣

Also if you have detail photos of the front plate & depot assignment on the tender, I could try to find a more matching font if you're interested

[rogerg]

8 hours ago, Nozomi329 said:

Well the Chinese character's also wrong. Hopefully you've caught it before printing the new decals🤣

Also if you have detail photos of the front plate & depot assignment on the tender, I could try to find a more matching font if you're interested

Thanks for noticing my error. It looks like I got the character for She wrong.  I think it should have been 设.  I think my jiang is correct.  Of course the characters on the loco sides are often rougher than the characters I get to use in word.  I don’t think I took a photo of the cab side or the allocation codes on the tender, but I did note what they were.  Harbin bureau and Bei’an depot. This is what I have on the tender sides.   蛤局   北段.  Let me know if these are correct. If you can help with better characters  I’d be most pleased.

[SwallowAngel]

I love the models! They look amazing! The bat eared locos are just quintessentially part of Chinese Steamers...

I'm also still eagerly waiting for the Changming steamers, though I doubt that we'll see any announcement before the Bachmann release.

I'm still a bit on the edge with the Bachmann QJ prototype though. It looks nice, but the chassis seems to have some flaws, both in terms of looks and performance. We'll see if it they improve it before the release though 🙂

 

[Nozomi329]

 

You've already figured out the problem with 建设. For this one:

On 1/25/2025 at 12:27 AM, rogerg said:

蛤局   北段

It should be 哈局 (Harbin, 哈尔滨). 蛤 is toad😄 (toad now has an interesting connection with a previous chairman, but I'm not going into the details here)

For the font, this is what I think that matches the best: https://www.fonts.net.cn/font-34963284634.html It's free for personal use, but could be a bit hassle to install (with a bunch of installing the official software of the font company, wechat login and stuff)

Here's another one for substitution https://www.fonts.net.cn/font-32331338415.html? this one is easier to obtain - just hit 本地下载 “Local download” on the website and install using the unzipped file.

I gave them a shot and this is what I have:

The numbers are Bahnschrift SemiBold Condensed

Edited February 10 by Nozomi329

[rogerg]

Thanks.  So I have the wrong character for Ha. Too late at the moment.  I'll look at the font info tomorrow.   Thanks again.   Here is a shot form the tender of one of the Bei an JS locos.

[Nozomi329]

11 hours ago, rogerg said:

shot form the tender

I think this same font (https://www.fonts.net.cn/font-32331338415.html?) would be a good enough representation for the ones on the tender. These real ones are likely made locally at each depot without a unified standard.

 

Cheers!

[rogerg]

Many thanks. This looks fine.  However I am having trouble getting these fonts into word and using   the pictures  you have sent me for the tender and the JS on the loco side. I create my decal sheets in Word. If wonder if you could send me a word document with those characters in it say 11 point size. I can work from there.

Cheers,   Roger