Kanjiyama - An N gauge Japanese Terminus Layout

[KenS]

I'll second that. It's starting to take on that "almost looks done" feel. Although I know that's deceptive and there's still a lot of work ahead; layouts seems to spend years in that phase, at least mine do.

[Densha]

What's that what I see in the back of your pictures standing against the wall? You're making me curious...

[keitaro]

What's that what I see in the back of your pictures standing against the wall? You're making me curious...

 

looks like an airport module

[Claude_Dreyfus]

It is a module, built for an N Gauge Society modular layout about 10 years ago. It is currently in storage, although could be resurrected sometime in the future. I have some pictures of it somewhere…I’ll try to dig them out.

 

It is a small terminus station with a freight terminal attached, set in 1980s UK. It would not take too much to convert it, but the wiring was a little suspect and the legs have gone – although they would be easy to replace…

[Claude_Dreyfus]

More progress, and this time progress is certainly tangible. The flock powders are starting to be added...

 

Work has been carried out in almost all parts of the layout over the lest two days, so to save jumping around, below is a little photographic tour of the layout from the station to the yard...

 

In the town the first of the buildings have been stuck down and bedded in. The car park has had a surface added, and the road has been painted with a textured paint. This did require some sanding as the texture is a little too course. I do quite like the colour of the road, the grey is fairly light...I do find a lot of N gauge road too dark.

 

Moving on, the area around the apartments has been covered, and the first layers of grass added. The base of the factory unit is also in place and painted. Most of the buildings here have now been fitted in place and bedding in also taking place.

 

Further up the layout, the farm and out building are in place; although the Tomytec farm needs a little more work. A small yard is now in place at the front of the layout, now home to a portacabin. The beginnings of the orchard are on the right at the front.

 

The road at the front leading away from the yard serves a small outbuilding in the orchard. The main road disappears into the backscene at this point, and you can see the junction for the stabling yard clearly.

 

Finally we have the yard. There is still some work to do here, as it still looks very bare.

 

This final picture shows the retaining wall beside the station, which has now been completed...

 

It still looks very bare at the moment...hopefully the addition of the tress will will change the appearance.

[Densha]

Wow! It's looking really great now, can't wait for the trees to be added.

[JR 500系]

It's nice to see a layout slowly taking shape from base scratch to the finished product! Appreciate Claude_Dreyfus in taking the time and effort to take pictures to share with us your work! And i must say, it really helped a newbie like me with more ideas! Thanks!

 

It's nice to see the mountains slowly taking shape, and no doubt form is a rather 'dangerous/ flammable' material, it is rather in-expensive and easy to work with, which is a great idea for landscapes and mountains!

 

Looking forward to the completed Kanjiyama! (I got 漢字の山 from google translator too, which i think should be rather correct since Kanji = 漢字)

[Densha]

Looking forward to the completed Kanjiyama! (I got 漢字の山 from google translator too, which i think should be rather correct since Kanji = 漢字)

漢字の山 should be pronounced as Kanji no yama instead of Kanjiyama. 漢字 is indeed the kanji for kanji, sounds so stupid since it's three times kanji in one sentence.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

A slight diversion here from Kanjiyama, and a return to the comments made earlier on this page about the board I have propped up against the wall. As I mentioned, it's refurbishment is a project for the future, but is more or less in working order.

 

It represented a small semi-urban junction terminus with basic freight facilities, based somewhere in 1980s UK.

 

Here are a few pictures from last year...

 

 

 

 

 

Being a layout module, the tracks in the foreground form part of a larger circuit.

[marknewton]

Kanjiyama is looking very impressive, Claude. I may have asked this before, but what glue/adhesive are using to build the Sankei kits?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

For the Sankei kits, I used two glues. The main body was put together with Copydex...the stuff from the tube, not the pot with the brush. Being a rubber-based glue, it is unlikely to have any effect on the card. For the smaller pieces, I used an adhesive, such as UHU.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Still plugging away here, with the emphasis very much on the scenic tweaks before I tackle the remaining big job...the backscene.

 

When we left Kanjiyama last, the town was progressing, but the yard has been left behind a little. Well, following the dismantling of the layout for a 'show and tell' session at the local club, some work was carried out in the shed, meaning that the layout was kept dismantled, and work progressed on the boards separately.

 

I decided to focus my attention on the yard to start off, with the first of the buildings being added. This view shows the still rather bare yard - note the rodent in the background enjoying some rare garden activity (as the weather has been so bad over the last few weeks).

 

 

Buoyed by this early success, work continued adding little details such as buffer stops and guard rails, as well as the usual detritus seen in yards of this nature - still more bits to add on this score. Finally one of the yard buildings was nicked off of Yamanouchi Oshika (replaced by a portacabin) and re-sited in the yard. This view shows a Micro Ace KiHa53 basking in the afternoon sunshine. In the distance can be seen the encroaching tree-line along the back of the layout, which will cover the top of the embankment.

 

 

Moving on from the yard, the basic orchard has been added, along with a tractor and trailer. This is a Tomix product, supplied with one of the agricultural buildings. It is quite nice, but a little basic, and had a slightly wonky axle. This, and its trailer, has been stuck down.

 

 

Pulling back, the trees can be seen clearly here. The ground around them may have some extra detailing, and something else needs to be in the yard...but I'm not sure what as yet.

 

 

Pulling back even further, the trees above the tunnel can now be clearly seen. There is still a way to go here; Yamanouchi Oshika was car-hungry (it takes well over 100 vehicles and still does not look too crowded), whereas Kanjiyama is tree-hungry. So far both boards have consumed 55 trees, with plenty more scope.

 

 

More detailing has gone on with the town, with the final plastic buildings being fitted in place - the Sankei structures will remain loose. The last two were the shops. This was because their interiors were clearly visible, and were plain grey plastic. I had to add a little colour and lift to them, and this involved finding some suitable transfers and a couple of people. These additions can be seen in this rather indifferent picture.

 

 

More trees and green have been added to the town overall as well...

 

 

...and finally I have been able to more or less complete the farm. Still as few trees to go in here though.

 

[keitaro]

looking good.

 

[JR 500系]

Oooohhh... Kanjiyama is looking nicer now!

 

You need more cars and people in your town though... Nice layout!

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Thanks...

 

With a couple of exceptions the road vehicles will all be loose. That said, there will not be too many vehicles, or people for that matter, as the layout is set in the countryside.

 

Whilst unavoidable for a larger urban layout, I am trying to avoid emphasising too many static items against the movement of the trains.

[marknewton]

Sorry Claude, been a bit distracted, should have acknowledged your answer about adhesives sooner - thanks for that!

 

The layout is looking very good, I reckon. What are your plans for the backscene?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

I have a few thoughts on the backscene, as well as some hardboard that will need to be trimmed. I suspect it will be around 8 inches high from the baseboard, and having looked through hundreds of photos of Japanese landscape, may well need to be hand-painted. The tricky thing here is trying to match up the town with the backscene, as well as the farm.

 

That said, I have a few images that may form part of it, one of which was used on Yamanouchi Oshika (although that may well be a little short).

 

Although the area being depicted is mountainous, some of the commercial scenes available are either too German - and need a lot of trimming to disguise suspect buildings, or look ridiculous as they are two mirror images spliced together - a couple of the Alpine scenes I have seen (from reputable manufacturers - not naming because I cannot remember which of them it was!) have been produced using this trick, and it has not worked; particularly around the join.

 

I seem to like making life difficult for myself! 

[scott]

Nice work--this is looking really good!

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Thanks...

 

Progress has more or less come to a halt over the last few weeks. Basically this is because I have been rushed off my feet doing other things, the weather has been a little 'indifferent' and I am prevaricating over the backscene. Essentially the basic layout is complete; yet despite this, I still have a list of stuff to do:

 

• The backscene
  
• Lighting and pelmet...if I decide that a pelmet is the way to go
  
• Perspex along the front; likewise with the pelmet...I may decide not to do this
  
• More trees. I am currently at the point where I need to fit the backscene before any more trees go on
  
• Redo the grass on the hillside at the front of the layout
  
• Telegraph poles and other posts, signs and lights etc.
  
• Little detailing bits, such as sheds, bikes, people
  
• Road markings
  
• Additional small bushes and clumps of grass - it will also get a cover of static grass in some areas
  
• Anything else that crops up
  

 

The layout is planned to make its debut at our club's open day at the end of October...so I still have a couple of months to go!

[Bernard]

Claude - Nice work on the planning out of the structures and the street....you've set up 2 nice scenes and can have some interesting events happening with people in that area. Also nice work on the retaining wall!

[Spaceman Spiff]

Very nice work Claude.  Congratulations on a job well done.

 

 

Spiff

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Very nice work Claude.  Congratulations on a job well done.

 

Thanks... :icon_thumright:

 

Since my last update, quite a bit has changed. Trees have been sprouting up, especially on the sidings board. The last time we saw this section it was getting there...now we have a few more bits of detailing added, along with some more trees.

 

A JRF DE10 rests between duties in the loco siding. The road tanker in the foreground is for refuelling the Kanjiyama line units that stable here.

 

 

 

Speaking of which, one of the units, a KiHa58 set rests in the yard in the outer siding.

 

 

A single car KiHa53 sits in the middle sidings.

 

 

The Kanjiyama line has a number of small locos of its own...this is their DD16 shunter.

 

 

Finally, some overall pictures of the yard board.

 

 

 

 

We have a club 'work day' at the end of the month, which should hopefully see more progress on the station board, and then the club open day at the end of October...the layout's debut showing...

[Mr Frosty]

That is looking superb now.

[Dani]

Hello,

 

Very nice layout, congratulations!!! Can you explain how did you pave roads and concrete floor areas? They look very realistic.

Seems you used a thin plaster layer, right? How did you paint it to get the right color?

 

Thanks!

Dani.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Thanks chaps...

 

The roads are a combination of a fine plaster, that I obtained from a local model in London (just a 15 minute walk from my office), and a textured road-coloured paint. The road surface is prepared, and then given a couple of fine skims with the plaster. Plenty of sanding is requied here to smooth the surface down. Once smoothed, there are two layers of paint applied. The texture is quite coarse for N gauge, so once painted, more sending is required to remove the bobbles.

 

The yard has a mountboard base, which brings the ground up to track level. Exactly the same technique is used for this as the roads.

 

Not readily apparent in all the pictures, but obvious in the overall view showing the tunnel mouths, is the farm track to the small barn. This is created by painting the base a shade of browny ochre, and covering with a combination of brown flock powder and a sand mixture, again obtained from the model shop down the road...details here:

 

http://www.modelshop.co.uk/category/Landscaping,l.html?sortBy=FeaturedDesc

 

They also provide many of the trees on the layout, although the bulk of the trees on the sidings board are from Woodland Scenics - the tree kits, without using the main trunk framework.