Sorting "sick" tank cars

[Nick_Burman]

 

On the Kanagawa Rinkai Tetsudo, diesel DD602 goes about the chore of sorting tank cars. Judging by the contents of one track the crew is preparing a "hospital train" of bad-ordered cars which will be taken to a repair shop. Also interesting is the conspicuous absence of ground throws - are the switches thrown remotely and who controls them, the crew (via radio/ trackside push buttons) or a control tower? Also, what are the iluminated trackside indicators for?

 

Cheers NB

[Kamiyacho]

This is great.  I am already dreaming of expanding my layout - originally I thought an extension might be another city, but perhaps a large freight yard would be even better.

[David]

Forget the sorting, why can't we have a DD class centercab switcher like this? Or better yet, Microace give us some of the 'puppy' class industrial switchers.

[Nick_Burman]

Forget the sorting, why can't we have a DD class centercab switcher like this? Or better yet, Microace give us some of the 'puppy' class industrial switchers.

 

Kato did a special run of Keio Rinkai (? - not sure) diesels a while ago, one in solid blue, the other in red-blue-white. If you look hard enough it would be possible to find one or both.

 

Failing that, try Arumodel (available, I believe, through Imon), www.arumo.com, they have some very nice "bend n'glue" brass kits for locomotives to fit the Kato B Shorty frames, including industrial diesels.

 

Cheers NB

[David]

Found it buried in Kato's Roundhouse line, circa 2006

KD55

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10006600

 

N scale division (US) actually has both in stock, sold seperately for $50 each.

 

http://www.nscaledivision.com/kato_japanese.htm

[cteno4]

This is great.  I am already dreaming of expanding my layout - originally I thought an extension might be another city, but perhaps a large freight yard would be even better.

 

Curt you are sooo bitten by the freight bug! perhaps a yard with a bit of town on the edge or industry. repair yard would be cool and give you alot to detail!

 

cheers

jeff

[westfalen]

An interesting idea for showing off all your tank cars and doing a bit of shunting without having to model a complicated oil refinery or fuel terminal. Something else to add to my growing list of ideas for T-TRAK modules.

 

The trackside indicators, if I am looking at the same things you are, appear to be position light shunting signals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_railway_signals (about halfway down the page) We have similar, well identical actually, signals here on QR with almost the same rules, as Mark Newton says on another thread countries that adopted operating practices from Britain are often quite similar.

[Guest JRF-1935]

Nick

  Thanks.  The video was fabulous.  Obviously still "kicking' freight in Japan.  I also wonder how the switches are controlled.  Great operation going on at that facility

Rich C

[bikkuri bahn]

Also interesting is the conspicuous absence of ground throws - are the switches thrown remotely and who controls them, the crew (via radio/ trackside push buttons) or a control tower?

 

This is a good question.  Likely the switch crew is in radio contact with a tower/control center, which remotely controls the switches.  Before widespread use of handheld radios, a microphone/speaker (looks like a downward facing bullhorn) located on a post would be located near the switch, and the switch crew could communicate with control this way.  Of course, in the past, there were mechanical boxes with associated webs of mechanical levers.  Apparently the JRF yard in Shiohama, Yokkaichi, still uses this system.

[westfalen]

At one point one of the crew members seems to be standing next to post with a metal box, could be relaying instructions of their next few moves to a tower somewhere out of the picture. We have a system in use at some yards here in Queensland where crews on the ground operate the turnouts themselves using the keypads on their hand held radios. I'm also thinking the objects visible near some of the turnouts could be low level ground throws as are common in yards, the camera man stops filming between movements and then concentrates a lot on the loco so it could be just that we aren't seeing the turnouts being thrown.

 

Of course they could be using DCC and all the turnouts are fitted with stationary decoders.