Modelrailroad Club in Tokyo ???

[domino]

Hey all

 

I was wondering if any one have contact with a Modelrailroad club in Tokyo or know of any clubs in Tokyo, i was thinking that next time im planing to visit Japan it would be nice to visit a club in Tokyo ??

 

Brian

[Mudkip Orange]

Do the Japanese even do "clubs"? I thought rental layouts were the norm there.

[nartak]

There are bunch of clubs for model railroaders in Japan as well.  Not much difference from other country I assume.

Chartering rental layout by the club is a option to host those club event but if the club has own layout, they just rent a space at community hall or something and host an event normally called "Unten-kai（運転会）".  I am not a member of any of the club but some of their event is open to public so anyone can visit and see.

[ToniBabelony]

There are no clubs I know of that have a space where they have their club layout readily set up and open to visitors.

 

The usual clubs with layouts go to the big events and build their layout up there, or -as nartak explained- rent a space for temporary running. The usual 'club' is a just a bunch of guys that occupy an entire rental layout for a couple of hours and run there. A friend of mine does it like that with a group occasionally, but I haven't had the chance to come along yet.

 

The biggest model train club is of course the T-Trak Network bunch, as it's open to any participant.

[linkey]

The Australian Japanese Model Railway Group were thinking about seeing if we want to become a sister-city group to another Train Club/Group in Japan but it was still in the thinking stages but hasn't gone anywhere cause we are also looking other things as well, such as clubroom, storage facilities, increasing numbers of membership. as Member VJM is one of the latest members of the AJMRG team.

Plus if we do go ahead where do we go in starting such ideas of becoming a sister-city group?

[cteno4]

Linkey,

 

I could check with our sister club in iwate and see if they have contacts with any other clubs in japan that maybe interested.

 

We got ours by one of our members moving to japan for 3 year and he was a member of that club while there and got the sister club relationship going. 

 

Do any of your members have friends in japan who know anyone in a train club?

 

might also see if your city has a sister city in japan as that might be an inroad to any club in the sister city and maybe a little infrastructure already there.

 

wow you guys are growing! trailer, now clubroom, etc! thats so wonderful to have so much interest there. Here in DC we have just always hovered at about a dozen at any one time. but we are in very strong american train modeling country so understandable less interest in japanese rail. culture here also kind of gets in the way of hobbies, folks too focused on work and hobbies are a bit of an oddity. I keep thinking it would be great if we got big but then again things change with growth. been fun the last 10 years (yes coming up on that anniversary very fast here, next may) and hopefully jrm will be around for another decade.

 

cheers

 

jeff