Hello From Tel-Aviv

[Oren]

Greetings, 

 

My name is Oren from Tel-Aviv, Israel, and I am happy I found this forum.

 

I have been into trains in the last 2 years with focus on N scale and Japan. 

 

Unfortunately, there is only very small club in Israel as far as I know, and it is focused on German and American trains. I will be happy to try and make a local club with focus on Japanese/N scale.  

 

If there are any local train fans from Israel please ping me. 

 

Happy to join. 

 

Oren 

Edited March 9 by Oren

[cteno4]

@Oren,

 

Welcome, glad you found us! Not sure if we have had anyone pop up from Israel before but hopefully there are some lurkers that may popup!

 

Have you interacted with the club much at all and asked them if they would be open to some japanese trains? German and American are pretty different already so they may be fine with some differences. Small clubs especially have to be a bit more flexible as if too niche they will end up with one or two members! They also may not have had a lot of exposure to japanese trains as well and you may surprise them! Ive see this happen at larger clubs here in the us that are all us and someone brings in a shinkansen or other cool japanese trains and there are snorts of derision as it being just strange, but then others end up getting a japanese trains or two! Japanese train modeling is sort of an infection with no cure and many have no natural defenses to it!

 

also think about just getting some track and some cool trains out and running at any little local event that my have interested type folks there, any japanese cultural events there? Long shot i know. We get great reception at anime cons as well and events with kids at them. The nice thing with japanese sectional track and the value of japanese trains you find folks saying hmmm i could do that!

 

Hope you find others to play with, always fun! Keep us posted on it and what you are doing!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[miyakoji]

Hi @Oren welcome to the forum!

[JR East]

Hi 

 

Welcome on JNS Forum. I've been to Israel once, long time ago, at the time Alstom was implementing the first Citadis rolling stock IT support unit. I've handed over to another project manager who has family in Israel to allow him to be closer to them the time of the project. Great souvenirs of Jerusalem ... under the snow !

 

 

[chadbag]

Welcome! Oren!   Hide your wallet, as I'm sure you've found out.

 

[Oren]

@JR East, while traveling in Japan one can enjoy so many trains form factors and type. In Israel, Alstom locomotives, and mainly those red double decker have been the definition of what a "train" is here for many years now. Ask a 5 year old Israeli child to draw you a train, and he will draw a red Alstom double decker. 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 09:01 AM by Oren

[lighthouse]

Welcome to the forum 😃

 

I also saw the double-decker cars in Germany a few years ago, before they were shipped to Israel. At first glance, I was a little confused as to why Deutsche Bahn AG was now adding such a bold white line to the car walls, until I later found out who the cars were intended for... I didn't see the generator car or control car.

 

Regards,

 

Ulli

[Oren]

@chadbag - nice collection of trains on your instagram page. Some are on my wish list as well ... 

 

I find looking at peopl's collection very inspiring, as it is a great way to make discoveries of stuff you want. I wish there was something like this here as they have in photogrpahy forums where one can share his gear not for the sake of showing off but rather good optical combination. I do ask myself why people buy the specific trains they buy and not others. 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 08:59 AM by Oren

[chadbag]

There are a lot of reasons for the ones I have.  
 

My wife is from the Osaka area so we have been there a lot and ridden all sorts of trains there. Locals, express, JR, Hankyu, Nankai, etc.  so I tend to have a lot of Kansai based trains.  
 

we’ve been in Tokyo a ton and have ridden many different trains there so I have a few from that area. 
 

if I’ve ridden a specific train I often will buy that one.  Like the Norokko DE15 and the special tourist cars on Hokkaido. New ride that and I sought that model out.  
 

Shinkansens. Because.  (though to be honest I have more Shinkansen from JR Central and JR West than I do JR East)

 

special livery trains.  Special livery trains I buy when they’re cool looking. Doesn’t matter where they are from.  
 

Because.  Some trains I just like the looks of or they’re from a place I’d like to visit.   So they get added.  
 

JR103.  Even though I don’t remember ever actually riding one (though I may have when we first started going to Japan) I really like the looks of them.  So I have a bunch, no matter where they’re from. 
 

And again, because.  I have the seaside liner from Shikoku even though I’ve never ridden on it and only been to Shikoku on a train once.  
 

when it comes to European trains it’s mostly German and Austria men and Swiss with a few Dutch thrown in.  I’d have some Scandinavian as well but they’re harder to find.  I lived in Germany in the 80s for two years and ride trains regularly.  I also lived in Germany for 18 months 91-93 but had a car so didn’t ride.  So I like trains from that era and have a much.  But I never lived in Austria and have only spent a few days there.  Same with Switzerland.  But I have a bunch of trains from each place.  More the modern ones.  And I also have a ton of modern German stuff.  Stuff I’ve never ridden on.  Mainly because I’d like to ride them.  They represent my aspirations for traveling back to Europe.  Kind of various living.   And because a lot of them are just cool.  
 

with US trains I have almost nothing.  I have 4 Union Pacific modern locomotives because that is what we see here locally.   And I only have intermodal cars or flat cars.  I would 

like to get the KATO MP36H in UTA Frontrunner colors but it was a KATO KOBO custom done in limited release like 10 years ago.  And Athearn did the UTA double decker wagons.  I’ve never ridden it but it’s the heavy rail commuter train we have here that runs from Ogden to Provo or further south.  So we see it when in the part of the valley the tracks run in.    In general, like most Americans, I have no real personal connection to trains in the U.S. so have very little interest in them.  My interest is all in places I’ve ridden a lot of trains in and that also represent an emotional attachment or an aspiration for vacation travel.