Street Plates by Kato

[Bernard]

What is your opinion of the Kato Street plates?

If need be, are they easy to cut if you want to put them in a particular section of a layout?  

[mbloes]

I use them.  Here's the link to another post I made on the same topic:

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,2623.msg26782.html#msg26782

[Guest ___]

I don't use them. I like KATO trains, but not their buildings, or plates. Not much of a fan either of the Unitram stuff either. 

[quinntopia]

I use them.  Here's the link to another post I made on the same topic:

 

Wow Mbloes! That looks really nice!  Do you have any more pictures to share?

[mbloes]

I use them.  Here's the link to another post I made on the same topic:

 

Wow Mbloes! That looks really nice!  Do you have any more pictures to share?

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbloes/collections/72157619744256387/

 

I am embarrassed to admit that I have literally not worked on my layout since January.  I only recently cleaned it and got it running again because my son has a friend who is totally fascinated by it.  My son, of course, is completely disinterested.

[bigford]

i just won the plates for in front of the viaduct station. i just

need to find a good price for the station here in the states

then i'll remove any japanese markings  and get it to look

closer to the hicksville,ny train station

[Bernard]

i just won the plates for in front of the viaduct station. i just

need to find a good price for the station here in the states

then i'll remove any japanese markings  and get it to look

closer to the hicksville,ny train station

 

Hold the phone! I take the LIRR every morning and pass the Hickville station on my way to Penn Station. (Bigford, except for you and me, most of the people at the forum and not going to believe a real town is named "Hicksville")

[bigford]

thats my old hometown station! now i'm in mastic beach

out on ground level track

[clem24]

(Bigford, except for you and me, most of the people at the forum and not going to believe a real town is named "Hicksville")

 

I was just about to say.. Almost thought this was some freelance or made up area for someone's model railroad.

[bigford]

Valentine Hicks, son-in-law of nationally famous abolitionist and Quaker preacher Elias Hicks, and eventual president of the Long Island Railroad bought land in the village in 1834 and turned it into a station stop on the LIRR in 1837. The station became a depot for produce, particularly cucumbers for a Heinz Company plant. After a blight destroyed the cucumber crops, the farmers grew potatoes. It turned into a bustling New York City suburb in the building boom following World War II.[1].[2]

[CaptOblivious]

Valentine Hicks, son-in-law of nationally famous abolitionist and Quaker preacher Elias Hicks, and eventual president of the Long Island Railroad bought land in the village in 1834 and turned it into a station stop on the LIRR in 1837. The station became a depot for produce, particularly cucumbers for a Heinz Company plant. After a blight destroyed the cucumber crops, the farmers grew potatoes. It turned into a bustling New York City suburb in the building boom following World War II.[1].[2]

 

So the title was, at least at one point, apt? (I say this having lived most of my life in the very aptly named Starkville, in Mississippi…)

[cteno4]

most of the scenes i have seen with them except for station fronts (like mikes below) or very large boulevard scenes just dont look very japanese to me. when used without high rise buildings or multiple lanes they give me more the main street usa feel for some reason. there is a prototype for everything in japan though, thats the wonder of modeling it!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Bernard]

most of the scenes i have seen with them except for station fronts (like mikes below) or very large boulevard scenes just dont look very japanese to me. when used without high rise buildings or multiple lanes they give me more the main street usa feel for some reason. there is a prototype for everything in japan though, thats the wonder of modeling it!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Jeff - the size of the streets is one of the aspects of road making that I find perplexing. When is it too narrow or too wide? WS has a chart that list the following dimensions for roads (USA)

1) City street: 5.27cm

2) Highway lanes: 2.22 to 3.49

3) Country roads: 3.49

 

One of the Kato road plates is listed as 24.8cm x 12.4cm... but that is the entire plate not just the road portion.

[KenS]

I did a bit of research on road sizes in Japan a while back, and turned up a few facts:

 

- Japanese highways have lane widths of 3.0 to 3.5m, in 1:150 that's 20mm to 23mm. Compare with U.S. standard lane width of 12' (3.66m) and European standard highway lane widths of 3.5m to 3.75m (all of those per various highway planning documents I found googling).

- The "typical" highway in Tokyo (not sure where I got that one from) has 3.25m lanes (22mm).

- Street parking is prohibited unless there is 3.5m clear to the right of the car (I'm guessing that one isn't well enforced, as I've certainly seen photographs that looked like less clearance).

 

Typical secondary roads are narrower than highways, and we've all seen photos of Japanese side streets that make alleys seem large.

 

The Kato Unitram plates are clearly intended to represent fairly major urban highways, but they have a lane width of 23.5mm, so they're clearly on the large size, even by highway standards. I don't have one of the non-Unitram plates, but I think they're similarly oversize.

[cteno4]

They always looked a bit fat to me, but i never measured them or have used them personally. I think its also a scale thing as when i did my first attempts at my printed roads for the ttrak, things felt a bit wide looking even when i was at prototypical japanese street widths. when i cheated and pulled them in about 10% the scene had that tight look that i picture as more japanese. i realize that in some of the burbs and smaller cities roadways are not as cramped, but again this is not the picture i have of what i want to represent japanese scenes. its a combination of personal taste and i think the sorts of forced perspectives you sometimes have to do with scale modeling to make the mind click on the scene. doing everything exactly to scale does not always mean it will make the perfect scene to the mind's eye.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Mudkip Orange]

I've spent quite a bit of time measuring roads (and rail ROW) on Google Earth. Ken's right on the dimensions - use 3.5m for a rural expressway or new construction, use 3.25m for the original 60's-era urban expressways (especially Tokyo).

 

Of course the big difference between Japan and the US, whereas in the US we build subdivision streets that are wider than the highways they connect to, in Japan almost everything that's not numbered will inevitably be "sub standard" and even brand-new tract housing developments have streets that are considerably less than 2 lanes curb-to-curb.

[Bernard]

Ken - Thanks for this info! The next chance I have to work on my layout, I'll be using your measurements for roads.

 

 

 

I did a bit of research on road sizes in Japan a while back, and turned up a few facts:

 

- Japanese highways have lane widths of 3.0 to 3.5m, in 1:150 that's 20mm to 23mm. Compare with U.S. standard lane width of 12' (3.66m) and European standard highway lane widths of 3.5m to 3.75m (all of those per various highway planning documents I found googling).

- The "typical" highway in Tokyo (not sure where I got that one from) has 3.25m lanes (22mm).

- Street parking is prohibited unless there is 3.5m clear to the right of the car (I'm guessing that one isn't well enforced, as I've certainly seen photographs that looked like less clearance).

 

Typical secondary roads are narrower than highways, and we've all seen photos of Japanese side streets that make alleys seem large.

 

The Kato Unitram plates are clearly intended to represent fairly major urban highways, but they have a lane width of 23.5mm, so they're clearly on the large size, even by highway standards. I don't have one of the non-Unitram plates, but I think they're similarly oversize.

[cteno4]

One of the jrm members lived in iwate for a couple of years and around there there are many areas with wider roads with more spread out buildings that could almost look like anywhere usa at times. so there is variety to choose from! thats again why i like modeling japan!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

I was just over at Curt's yesterday and looked that the Streets that CRM did on his layout and they also cheated with compressed lane widths, probably by 25%. the over all effect is great as it gives that very tight feeling when you look at Curt's big city scene. even on the expressway on his viaduct they did some compression and again it gives the right feel. so i really do think this is one of those things that at scale just needs some fiddling. yes i know the scale modelers will cry foul, but personally im not into having things so perfect as having a great over all impression of the scene you want to depict and that usually means cheating some like this.

 

cheers

 

jeff