Another B Train Shorty layout

[tossedman]

Thanks again Mardon. It'd be great to take a look at those as well. I'd though of making the road straight but to tell the truth I just printed a section and trimmed it to (almost) fit the layout as Noah was excited to see how it all looked. Lots more work, and maybe even some planning is yet to be done.

[macdon]

Some free parking files for cars, trucks and buses could be found here:

 

http://paperstructure.web.fc2.com/Free/free.html

 

The parking garage building file I sent to your gmail account.

 

Mardon

[tossedman]

Got it, thanks again Mardon. This looks like fodder for the wife's little CNC cutter. Now I just need about a week of free time.

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

[tossedman]

I've been playing with the road plate file that Mardon was kind enough to share. I'm redrawing it in Adobe Illustrator to be able to resize it to fit our layout a bit better. I'm finding out how much I've forgotten in Illustrator but also remembering what great stuff you can do with it. I've narrowed the roads to 45 mm and am playing with the station area now. Figured out how to write bus stop and taxi in Katakana on my Mac as well. Yay! I'll post some pictures soon but progress is slow as I'm also finishing off my new RC crawler. I bounce from one project to the other. One day I'll finish one of them.

Edited January 16, 2015 by tossedman

[tossedman]

Well, I've been eying this shelf that has sat gathering dust for the last few years. Noah's moved on from trains for now. Mountain biking and computers have has attention now. Maybe it's time to get this going again.

[cteno4]

Uhoh next comes you know what! They ruin interest in model trains. 😜

 

jeff

[tossedman]

He's still kind of interested. He'll go down and putz around in the basement for an hour or two, but that's only once a month or so. Thus, this layout is now mine. Going to replan it. Got lots of ideas from TTrak modules as lots of this layout is only 12" deep. The ends are only 18" or so.

 

I also have a few Sankei kits that need to be built and then somewhere to put them.

 

[cteno4]

Todd is going to dissapear into the basement for a while there with that pile!

 

jeff

[tossedman]

Well Jeff, I have disappeared into the basement for a bit but haven't been working on that pile just yet. I got sidetracked again. Remember how I was going to get that Maruoka Castle model going again? Well, I started on it and then, SQUIRREL! I saw this laser cut Gantry crane and coal hoppers. Thought I'd give them a try on the end of the layout. They're not done yet but here we are, trying them out for size. I'm thinking they might be a bit big for this little layout though. Still need a coal pit as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by tossedman
Cannot spell four letter words...

[tossedman]

So, I'm thinking that this gantry crane is a bit big for this layout. I've built the Jib Crane as it's a lot smaller and won't dominate this tiny layout as much. Need to finish the coal hopper still.

 

 

After seeing Kanpai Keith's HON30 layout I'm thinking of changing it all up to a single line meandering across the length of this shelf layout, front to back and back to front. I have that stack of Sankei kits to build though, so this will take a while. The whole thing is 4529 mm long (14.8 feet) so there'd be lots of room, especially with a single line.

 

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

Edited February 28, 2021 by tossedman
Had a second thought.

[tossedman]

Got the coal supply tanks finished off. They go with the (still unfinished) gantry crane or the jib crane. Need to get some coal to fill it up and make a mess on the ground around it.

 

The only steam train in the roster is this White Pass and Yukon Route engine that we picked up in Skagway when we road the rails there. You get the idea though.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

 

 

 

 

[tossedman]

So, I was playing around with weathering my first train and this is what I came up with. Did I over do it? I'm liking the look. Going to have to try it on the green Meitetsu 3400 as well. And I'm going to have to learn to weather buildings too.

 

Now, to figure out how I'm going build this layout. Point to point is more and more appealing.

 

 

 

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

Edited April 29, 2021 by tossedman
Punctuation

[bill937ca]

Eh? I'd say way over done for passenger stock in regular service.  Kotoden washed its stock regularly.  Some photos look faded but never dirty.

 

http://www.lok.jp/prototyp/kotoden/thum_30_.htm

 

https://rail.hobidas.com/bogie/archives/1997/07/kotoden30_04.html

 

http://www.uraken.net/rail/chiho/kotoden/kotoden30.html

 

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by bill937ca

[tossedman]

Yup, I think you're right Bill. I'll tone it down a bit. Thanks for the links. Had fun playing with a 100mm macro lens though.

 

[cteno4]

Maybe give it a wash and see if it just leaves some age in the nooks and crannies. Problem modeling Japanese trains, even the freight can be clean!

 

jeff

[Kamome]

I actually don’t mind this depth of weathering. The details pop out without detracting too much from the colour of the model. The destination boards should go on to make it look a bit better imo. If it’s a sticker, i like to add mine to Tamiya plastic paper 0.2mm so that they look more like boards. Also the roof and panto need to be weathered as these don’t stay clean.

[Cat]

As I've been weathering ours, I've hunted out you tube videos of the specific trains.  Yes, they are much cleaner than American ones, even the freight engines (searching for specific engine numbers, I could find vids of those particular DD51s!).  But they do indeed have some road dirt, the commuter trains on the Joban Line were a bit dustier than I would have guessed. 

It was most helpful finding videos shot from overpasses with a good look at the roofs, side scrubbers at the train wash don't clean the roof as much as they do the sides; and that's the part of the model you will see the most when it's running.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Cat

[tossedman]

On 4/29/2021 at 12:20 AM, cteno4 said:

Maybe give it a wash and see if it just leaves some age in the nooks and crannies. Problem modeling Japanese trains, even the freight can be clean!

 

jeff

Yup, that's basically what I've done. Just a but too thick of a wash in some places. I'm cleaning it up a bit as we speak.

 

Also, these pics were take close up with a macro lens. You'll see a lot more close up than you'd see looking at this from a metre away. I think the wash makes the details pop more like Kamome mentioned.

 

On 4/29/2021 at 1:07 AM, Kamome said:

I actually don’t mind this depth of weathering. The details pop out without detracting too much from the colour of the model. The destination boards should go on to make it look a bit better imo. If it’s a sticker, i like to add mine to Tamiya plastic paper 0.2mm so that they look more like boards. Also the roof and panto need to be weathered as these don’t stay clean. 

I'm leaning your way Kamome. I'm cleaning it up a bit so it doesn't look too dirty but I like how the details stand out more, especially the doors.  The roof and pantograph still need weathering. Just haven't got around to doing that yet. It's on the schedule. I like your idea about the destination boards. Now to find some 0.2 mm Tamiya Plastic Paper. I have yet to add any destination stickers. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

On 4/29/2021 at 10:29 AM, Cat said:

As I've been weathering ours, I've hunted out you tube videos of the specific trains.  Yes, they are much cleaner than American ones, even the freight engines (searching for specific engine numbers, I could find vids of those particular DD51s!).  But they do indeed have some road dirt, the commuter trains on the Joban Line were a bit dustier than I would have guessed. 

It was most helpful finding videos shot from overpasses with a good look at the roofs, side scrubbers at the train wash don't clean the roof as much as they do the sides; and that's the part of the model you will see the most when it's running.

Thanks Cat, I'll see if I can find some videos. Bill shared a bunch of really useful pictures that I can use.

 

Having fun doing this. Appreciate the feedback from everyone. Thanks.

Edited February 17, 2023 by tossedman
Can’t spell.

[bill937ca]

A few videos.

 

 

 

 

 

[tossedman]

Just now, bill937ca said:

A few videos.

 Who needs Google? Thanks Bill!

[bill937ca]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKubM_HWjr4&t=10s

[cteno4]

Yeah you kinda have to decide if you want it to look right with macro photo or from the eye at 2’ plus.

 

jeff

[Dinosbacsi]

It's true that it looked a bit too dirty for being realistic, but in an "artisty" way it looked great that way too, I think! Reminded me of those pictures I saw once, where someone made really dirty and weathered, small Plarail dioramas. It looked really cute.

 

On 4/29/2021 at 1:30 AM, tossedman said:

Now, to figure out how I'm going build this layout. Point to point is more and more appealing.

Point to point looks really nice, but the big problem is that you can't leave them just running endlessly, which is a bit of a shame. Any plans you have though?

[tossedman]

3 hours ago, Dinosbacsi said:

It's true that it looked a bit too dirty for being realistic, but in an "artisty" way it looked great that way too, I think! Reminded me of those pictures I saw once, where someone made really dirty and weathered, small Plarail dioramas. It looked really cute.

 

Point to point looks really nice, but the big problem is that you can't leave them just running endlessly, which is a bit of a shame. Any plans you have though?

Yeah, I kind of like the dirty look. I've toned it down a bit already but I agree, I like the "artisty" look. Nothing I do is prototypical so I guess it doesn't really matter. As to the point to point, I have an Arduino and am looking at automating things so it'll back and forth on its own rather than round and round. That's a whole new can of worms though.

[cteno4]

Really boils down to what you like todd! I do find it a bit jarring most Japanese trains look shiny “new” 25 years into service! But makes it easy to just use all the trains right out of the box! 
 

could always start with a simple timer reversing circuit and diode isolated platform tracks at each end. Very simple and cheap to set up and run until the arduino works are on the hooks.

 

ive been waiting for someone to build a small and inexpensive arduino sensor reversing system like the ru2-1. Most all the old reversing systems were custom pic circuits and programming that was ok (and pretty great in the ru2-1) but at times could be very cranky and/or fiddly and if anything went wrong it was pretty much just replace the whole thing.

 

jeff