nfinecraft (Rentarureiautoshoppu)

[bill937ca]

Nfinecraft is a rental layout shop which seems to be relatively new.  They have a You Tube channel and the oldest video is 2 months old.  The layout itself is 5m x 2m.  There are 6 operating positions and a wide variety of Kato and Tomix trains with Tomix 5512 power controllers.

 

 

It seems this shop does not sell trains, but just operating time on the layout.  The layout is rented by the hour and the train is extra.  You can charter the whole layout with one week's notice.  Of course, all this is done in Japanese.

 

The layout was probably done by a professional layout builder like DDF  Nfinecraft's You Tube Channel includes videos of work building the layout.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately this layout is in a relatively isolated location, 20 minutes from the closest train station (which I can't clearly make out in the translation).  Still the videos and track plan are interesting to drool over.  

 

Kato E5

 

[Mudkip Orange]

Still the videos and track plan is interesting to drool over.  

 

I didn't see one. Is it on their website or something?

[bill937ca]

It didn't come up clearly in the link, so here is the trackplan.

 

[KenS]

Like other layouts of this sort, the spagetti-bowl look doesn't really appeal to me. It's just too busy, with no obvious reason for all the lines to exist (yes, I'm nit-picking).  That said, they've done a very good job via elevation and types of bridges and track of keeping it from looking all the same. And the quality of the scenery is quite high. I wouldn't mind renting time on that layout.

 

The s-curve out of the upper-front platform track (best seen on the E5 video) is pretty brutal. The E5 looks great despite that.

[bill937ca]

[Mudkip Orange]

So this is basically just qwertyaardvark and kevinrandell's layouts, but doubletrack and a LOT bigger.

[bill937ca]

And its as big a some Japanese guest house rooms or floors in Japanese houses.

 

Nfinecraft is 5m x 2m.

 

http://www.n-finecraft.com/course.html

 

Guest house Hanata typical room layout is 4.3m x 2.1m.

 

http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/i/hanata/rates.html

 

Small-house.jp each unit is 5m x 2.2m per floor.

 

http://www.small-house.jp/img/appearance/210120plan_3.gif

 

Is your layout as big as your house?

 

Also DDF is selling franchises for these layouts.

[Mudkip Orange]

The thing that's missing from all these gigantor layouts is big sweeping curves of several meters' radius. You could do that with a setup this size... but everyone restricts themselves to the Tomix or Kato sectional pieces.

[David]

The rental trains are a bit odd. If I read it right, apart from paying multiple rental fees to get a full N700 you get a pretty small train for your rental fee - everything seems to be just the basic set, so in cases likes the 800 Series you get all 6 cars, while the E231-500 only gets you a tiny 3-car train. I would think that they'd want to rent full size trains, that way even people who have trains at home would be tempted to rent instead of bringing their smaller sets.

[bill937ca]

David: I know the listings show short trains, but I see full size trains running in the recent videos he's posting including a long Twilight Express on the embankment. Many of the earlier videos were shot during set up and construction.

 

Mudkip Orange : There are layouts with very long sweeping curves.  White Heron on You Tube films trains on such a layout which I believe is Popondetta at Yokohama.  But a layout of that size is probably going to be on the upper floor of a multi-story building in Japan.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5-WVT3kyTE

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sE-ZxqROEE

 

There isn't a lot of extra space in that store where nfinecraft is located.