Question about Kato Dio-Town plates

[grumbeast]

Hi all,

 

the old railway is gone (in addition to the windows in the basement, I also had a flood :( :(  luckily I didn't lose any railway stuff just the wood I was going to use to build.  So anyhow that said I'm planning on building something 12x3 and was wondering if anyone had experience with the dio-town plates??  I know they're pricey but they seem to really make urban areas stand out

 

Graham

[mbloes]

Sorry, I saw your post before but didn't respond.  At any rate . . .

 

I've used them for (part of) my layout and I woud say my overall experience is positive, but still with reservations, in retrospect.

 

I have the whole station area plaza thing on my layout.  The good news is that it really "jumpstarted" my layout initially:

 

 

The negatives:

* The road width, while I'm sure is prototypical in many areas, is still too wide. Many roads would be only 1/4 -1/2 as wide as these.

* The road height (thickness) is probably 1/4" or so thick.  This makes it difficult to transition to something flatter - say, directly painted on the tabletop.

* Related to above, the building bases built into the road also make it difficult to transition to an area where you might not want to use the road anymore.

 

I did discover, however, that the little diorama pieces that come with the Bandai vehicle collections are compatible with the Kato roadway.  I just glued and finished them like so to get more length:

 

 

[Mudkip Orange]

Nice weathering job.

[Imbroglio]

When you guys search on hobby sites (Greenmax, Hobbysearch, plazaJapan etc.) for roads, pavement, etc. What are the search terms? Or if someone can tell me what category they're usually located in I would really appreciate it.

[KenS]

It's likely going to vary.  On Hobby Search, Kato's Diotown road plates and Unitram "Streetacape" expansion are filed under the "Other Kato Items/Structure" section. On HW Japan, a search on "Plate" will turn up the Diotown road plates (they don't appear to have the Unitram expansion). 

 

But many "road" materials are classified as "Scenery".

[bigford]

i like mine so far.. now i need the viaduct station

 

what goes where the red X's are?

[KenS]

I don't have the plates, but from the shape I'd say any of the smaller Kato office towers (81mm square) or similar buildings (the 23-433 or 23-434 types), but not the really small ones (23-432 and 23-435 as well as 23-431), which are 81x64mm.

[keitaro]

these do look good for urban areas and city... lucky i am doing a nice remote town look save my self alot of $$$ hah.

 

My next plan was going to have a big city area so looks like i'll be needing to start $aving

 

It's a shame the pieces do not snap together as it would help reduce the lines between pieces

[101 Local]

those areas should have sidewalks making up the forward borders and are indeed for placing buildings or other structures, parking lot, park, etc. 

[lordwinslow2]

I just picked up a set of plates from Hobby Search, looking to make a suburban/branch station, with a flyover station instead of a normal station or viaduct.  I will post some pics when I get it set up, if not I may go for a normal station and put the flyover on another part of the layout.

 

Winslow