My Japanese N Scale Diorama - NEW Dinning Table Layout

[JR 500系]

Tomix seem to produce in batches so it's likely anything currently unavailable but not discontinued will reappear in the next few months.

 

Indeed... And sometimes with a new part number or a new packaging of the same item. This tends to confuse further...

 

 

A little more updates. The basic shape is out, just missing a lot of pieces here and there... And also the mountain on the top right corner that will cover part of both ground and overhead tracks, with a shrine on top ~ 

[JR 500系]

A little more updates on Takahashi....

 

 

Looking better now with the track plan more or less in place. So far so good...

 

 

We have R280s here with R317s... I hope the shinkansen can hopefully make it through barely...

 

 

Missing a bridge piece that is ordered and making its way soon (hopefully) here... The height will be tricky. It may barely make it through...

 

 

Below the viaduct looking at the ground level station

 

 

The curve turnout that helped reduced a lot of space and will be hidden in a hill that will cover the entire area with a shrine on its top

 

 

 

 

[JR 500系]

More updates from the recent influx of parts from Tomix:

 

 

The new over view of the tracks layout, almost complete

 

 

Some missing parts to the ground level station. The centre is the Kato island platform

 

 

At the side is the Kato end side platform, with the parking yard to its left...

 

 

The completed bridge over the city.

 

 

The end platform (not fixed up yet, and needs LED strip lighting), and the viaduct just above it...

 

 

The overhead station just out of the 'Hill' (not yet constructed)

 

 

It sort of got 'lengthen', and ended up I could actually fit in 5 platforms with 2 end bits, which could mean a 10-car shinkansen, like my E5 Hayabusa, can now sit beautifully in the station! I like how the curve turnouts (that will be hidden inside the hill) helped to shorten greatly the distance required for turnout space! Nice! 

 

 

 

A parting sort of my shrine set, that will sit perfectly on top of the hill over-looking the city and the overhead station...

 

 

Soon, I shall be able to finally run my trains again! My collection is itching for a little 'exercise'!  :)

 

[Densha]

20160105_205237.jpg

The curved track on the left of the ground level station looks like it has a very sharp radius. I assume that's just for testing and not definite? I don't think Shinkansen are gonna like it. ;)

[kvp]

Imho that should be 2x R280-30, the minimal radius for shinkansen.

[JR 500系]

The curved track on the left of the ground level station looks like it has a very sharp radius. I assume that's just for testing and not definite? I don't think Shinkansen are gonna like it. ;)

 

I assume you are referring to the one at the end of the turnout? Very sharp eye! Kudos! It is a R103-30 mini curve, very very sharp... But I have no choice as I needed the track to curve straight to meet up with the rest of the yard tracks... Hopefully most trains can pass through as it is just a minor curve. Probably have a no shinkansen into the outer track rule ~~  :) 

 

 

Imho that should be 2x R280-30, the minimal radius for shinkansen.

 

Yap. Taking that into consideration, the layout was intended with minimum curves of at least R280, and actually only one curve is R280 with R317. The majority of the curves are R354 with R391 ~  The curve with the R280 was due to the sharp turning required to go into the diagonal incline/ decline section in front of the overhead station... 

[serotta1972]

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/uploads/monthly_01_2016/post-819-0-33691100-1452077758.jpg

 

Cool stuff JR500 - all of the sudden I'm feeling inadequate!

[miyakoji]

JR 500, sorry if I've missed it, but how did you plan this?  I've tried using XTrackCAD a few times, my layouts never connect when I get back to where I started :(.  Do you have a track plan or parts list for this layout?

[JR 500系]

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/uploads/monthly_01_2016/post-819-0-33691100-1452077758.jpg

 

Cool stuff JR500 - all of the sudden I'm feeling inadequate!

[miyakoji]

Thanks JR500.  Maybe once I had a track plan that was very close to connecting, like yours.  But typically the difference is greater than that.  I realize that there's some wiggle room, but at this point I don't have a large variety of track pieces just to try different configurations.

 

In that diagram, do the two shades of green represent other brands of track?  Nevermind, they're just grades aren't they?

Edited January 9, 2016 by miyakoji

[JR 500系]

 

In that diagram, do the two shades of green represent other brands of track?  Nevermind, they're just grades aren't they?

 

Haha ~ Somehow when I placed the picture of the layout into a jpeg the green got distorted ~  :P

 

They are actually the same Green, and using this legend:

 

Red - Overhead tracks

Green - Inclines/ declines tracks - typically they are the same as the overhead track pieces, just using different pier heights for the climb/ descend  

Yellow - Ground leve tracks

 

I had to push a little to join the tracks together, so I guess that's still not too bad... Only thing is there's always a tiny little gap somewhere between tracks that have been caused by this stretching... I hoped that doesn't cause too much problems with the running and lighting and stuff..

 

As for the track list, this was the difficult part. I had to physically go through one by one the track pieces on the layout as SCRAM does not seem to have a tabulation table for the track pieces used.... That was difficult, especially when I need to order tracks and they come in all different types of packages now... Also, being the older Tomix track systems the Canted tracks were not included, and that was tough trying to figure out about the curves which required curve approaches (22.5) to join in and out of the canted curve...

[JR 500系]

And here's a short video of the maiden run on the layout, by maintenance loco EF-66

 

 

There seems to be a problem at the turnouts and over the steel bridge. I attribute this to the dirt on those tracks, as they are the older tracks from the previous layout. We can see the loco slows to almost stopping when passing over the older turnout. I NEED to clean those... The steel bridge is WORSE, the loco couldn't even make it across...

 

For the steel bridges, it would be easier and much cleaner to actually open up the track and clean them, right? As the tracks are buried in the steel frame of the bridge, it would be very difficult and not so clean to clean them physically, so I was thinking of dismantling the tracks to clean them properly...

[cteno4]

Jr500,

 

Nice to see it coming together! How is the new case working out? Looks like total protection!

 

I've used a 1" wide stick with a bit of cotton rag fooled a few times over the end and rubber banded on with isopropanol to clean inside bridges like this. Woodland scenics now has a plastic version of this, but doesn't work better than a stick IMHO, and the stick is cheaper. Also their cleaning solution has soap in it and leaves a white residue on the tracks that makes things worse (took a member repeatedly cleaning a section of track and it getting worse for us to figure out what was going on, not fun to clean the tracks and have the train do worse, plus it got on the wheels as well!) ... Hard part will be access there though.

 

Do you have a Tomix rail cleaner car to try? The centerline car works very well. Takes a number of circuits and pad changes but it's cleaned the worst track I've ever seen on a friends large unitr layout in a dirty basement, really amazed me!

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

I have some 2.5yo track that hasn't been cleaned since new.  All trains lose 20% speed when going over these pieces compared to some of the younger pieces in my collection.  They all need a good clean like your rails too.

[cteno4]

Wonder if it's some corrosion. Nickel silver is not sposta corrode much at all, but the Ghan has a lot on some of his tracks, that was actually blue green and caused big voltage drops to the wheels. When he was mentioning it I did try a section of track in a Tupperware wrapped in a wet rag to give it 100% humidity for a month and I could not get any visible corrosion.

 

Jeff

[kvp]

It's usually not really corrosion but compacted dust, baked onto the rails by sparks and bits of rubber dust from the traction tires. Another thing that is bad for the tracks is acidic moisture and its residue that could come from things like air pollution, sweat and various foodstuffs. If the air is not clean in the room and there is some moisture, it could attack the rails. All of these can be wiped off the surface of the rails easily, but it's important to clean the inside vertical edge of the rails too as flanges also pick up current and can distribute any dirt onto the railheads.

[JR 500系]

Jr500,

 

Nice to see it coming together! How is the new case working out? Looks like total protection!

 

I've used a 1" wide stick with a bit of cotton rag fooled a few times over the end and rubber banded on with isopropanol to clean inside bridges like this. Woodland scenics now has a plastic version of this, but doesn't work better than a stick IMHO, and the stick is cheaper. Also their cleaning solution has soap in it and leaves a white residue on the tracks that makes things worse (took a member repeatedly cleaning a section of track and it getting worse for us to figure out what was going on, not fun to clean the tracks and have the train do worse, plus it got on the wheels as well!) ... Hard part will be access there though.

 

Do you have a Tomix rail cleaner car to try? The centerline car works very well. Takes a number of circuits and pad changes but it's cleaned the worst track I've ever seen on a friends large unitr layout in a dirty basement, really amazed me!

 

Jeff

 

Thanks Jeff!

 

The case is holding up nicely. It really helps to prevent ALOT of dust from going into the layout.... I had a track that was lying on the table outside the case and it was REALLY dirty, as compared to the same track that was placed inside the case! Seems like a good solution to the dust issue for long term, but not full proof solution. I guess maintenance running is still required to periodically clean the tracks...

 

Thanks for the suggestion on the cleaning of the bridge! But the bridge is so dirty I had to bring it apart to thoroughly clean it...

 

It's actually quite easy to take it apart, just screws and remove the track from the 2 sides.

 

 

Removed track from the bridge

 

 

The side tab to attach the rail in place

 

 

The holding screw at the middle to hold the track in place with the bridge.

 

Please see the below video of the track BEFORE cleaning:

 

 

The loco stopped short immediately on the track due to dirt....

 

Now we see the same track after like 1 hour of cleaning continuously with cotton pad with isopropyl alcohol:

 

 

We can see the difference! Look at how smooth the train is now over the track. The amount of dirt, including rust (red in colour) removed from the track is amazing... I forgot to take a photo of the cotton pad as it is too disgustingly dirty!  :P

 

And here we affix back the track to the bridge:

 

 

We are now ready to move all over the layout!  :)

[JR 500系]

The engineers are now all agreeable, under the Mayor's approval, to officially run a full size non-service train on the new layout of Takahashi!

 

 

What the....  

There seems to be some problems with curve turnouts...Let's revisit it..

 

 

Much better ~ Though there still seems to slow down near the station. I think it's the dirty tracks again... Still missing some curves hence we cannot make a full lap around the layout...

 

And finally, here we have a night time run:

 

 

Nice! Almost flicker-free except at some areas which the engineers will revisit again.

[cteno4]

Great it got clean, sounds like it was pretty dirty.

 

For heavily mucked track you can also use orange oil. It's sold as a non toxic cleaner. It does not attack the plastic and seems not to leave a residue, but you can also wipe with isopropanol afterwards as well.

 

Yeah I'm not sure what was attacking the Ghans track, especially leaving the blue green corrosion.

 

Jeff

[JR 500系]

Slightly more updates:

 

Now with the permission of the engineers and the approval of the mayor again, we decided to go for a full length shinkansen to negotiate those bends to see if it really gets through...

 

 

 

It gets through beautifully! So I guess we are all set to go now!  :)

 

At the meantime, we are in the midst of some alterations works to the new overhead station stores:

 

 

I think we have WAY too many restaurants.... so converting this to:

 

 

Having fun with some decals!

 

 

The converted Family Mart store!

 

 

Looks pretty ok ~ Now we need to install lights and also hope to get some shelving in onto the bare floor...

 

More fun with decals!

 

 

 

Now I think I like the look of those billboards more! Now to convert more of them into those beautiful interesting advertisements rather than the generic Tomix ones!  :)

[cteno4]

You are having too much fun Jr, watch out of the fun police will show up!

 

Nice work on the family mart. Restaurants go out of business like that all the time, so Perfect!

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Where did you get the decals from?  I always wanted to put a Family Mart/7-11 in a multi level building compared to the normal corner shop.

[JR 500系]

You are having too much fun Jr, watch out of the fun police will show up!

 

Nice work on the family mart. Restaurants go out of business like that all the time, so Perfect!

 

Jeff

 

Thanks Jeff! I think the fun police would be happier with us building instead of us buying trains ~~  :P

 

 

Where did you get the decals from?  I always wanted to put a Family Mart/7-11 in a multi level building compared to the normal corner shop.

 

I downloaded the pictures from the internet, and placed them into a Words file. I then measured the exact dimensions that I require and edit the picture size into absolute size height and length that I need to apply on and then print them out on decal paper, cut and paste them on and viola!  

 

Let me know if you need the file, but I don't know about the copyrights of these things so I better not post them here....

 

Really like making these decals now... Add that touch of realistic to the town scene ~~  :)

[Eurostar25]

Looking really good JR500, good to see the layout coming back together. 

Are you going to be covering the polystyrene base with scenic material or are the tracks being placed directly on it? Good idea though as I imagine its easy to cut into to hide wires etc.

[JR 500系]

Looking really good JR500, good to see the layout coming back together. 

Are you going to be covering the polystyrene base with scenic material or are the tracks being placed directly on it? Good idea though as I imagine its easy to cut into to hide wires etc.

 

Thanks!

 

The idea of using polystyrene base is precisely that: easy to dig holes on them and bury wires and then cover them up easy. They are also light, cheap and act great as a filler! My tables are not level with each other and the polystyrene board acts as a great filler to bridge the gaps.

 

The tracks are placed directly on them, with the wires for control and lighting then buried into the polystyrene base board. The rest are then build up from there, like roads, buildings etc by placing them directly onto the polystyrene base.