Hungarian Japanese Model Train Club

[IST]

Today I worked on the modul with fishing ponds. Put these ponds to their place, surround them with bushes, tried to make the grass field around them more colorful, added a bush with small flowers. Still a lot to do with this modul as I have to finish the building, put some fishing people around the ponds, paint the track, etc. But at least it starts to look good. :)

Aaaand pictures about the process and the result:

 

              

 

So currently I have 3 T-trak moduls under construction (and 4 corner moduls, but those are without any improvement):

 

[kvp]

I got the corners up and running, so they only need ballasting and scenery... (and all of my modules need lots of static grass)

[kvp]

A small club meeting with five people, running trains on the work in progress t-trak modules:

 

[cteno4]

Nice coming together! So have you and IST snagged other club members into doing ttrak now? Is anyone in the club doing Hungarian ttrak?

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Looks great.

[IST]

Nice coming together! So have you and IST snagged other club members into doing ttrak now? Is anyone in the club doing Hungarian ttrak?

 

Jeff

 

There is one other club member who is actively helping us, while the others show different techniques (for example how to make better looking grass or weather buildings). I hope we can make our cherry blossom modul soon, one member is currently twistin a rake of trees for us. I do not think that we will make Hungarian themed T-trak, we stick to FREMO standards, but I plan to improve my British T-trak modules in quality and quantity also.

 

At the end of March there will be a 2 day event in Budapest, called MondoCon, which is an anime convention with lots of programs. We will bring our T-trak modules and my tram layout there and present some Japanese trains running for the visitors. Until that time we have to do a lot of work (finish the corner modules, upgrading the grass, adding people, etc), but I think we can present a quite OK exhibition material. Visitors won't be train fans - I assume - so let's see if we can make an interesting add-on for this event or a totally uninterested one.

 

Here is the flyer of our presentation, not the best one, my picture editing abilities are below the acceptable level. Generally it is about if you seen the Rail Wars! or Tetsuko no tabi animes or interested in Japanese trains then visit us in pavilon "D" at MondoCon. I added the link of JNS Forum if you do not mind, as our knowledge / info about Japanese trains / models / layouts are mainly coming from you guys, we really appreciate your help and opinion.

[cteno4]

IST

 

I think you will get a lot of interest! If you have any trains that appear in any anime you will get a detailed description of what episode, characters, etc that train was in! Any anime wrapped train will be a big hit. Anime fans seem to enjoy most all aspects of Japanese culture and like the lapanese looking scenes. They have always been enthusiastic and encouraging even if some of us are total anime morons! Of course the Galaxy express 999 trains are a very big hit, but we have never been able to run the gun car on the steam train as its not exactly NMRA clearance on the sucker!

 

We get quite a few anime fans at our shows. One is an organizer for otakon and was always trying to get us to bring the layout to the convention! But they would only supply a couple of passes and wanted it manned like 12+ hrs per day for three days plus a day on either end to setup and tear down. For additional passes (each member showing up needed their own pass) it was like $80! When we said to do the event we would need more passes they were a bit shocked as they were sure we would want to do the convention ourselves! But few of us are anime fans and manning the layout would have taken all our time! But I'm sure we would have had a scad of 18 year old female cosplay groupie! That concept was frowned upon by one of the member wives and seemed to be the nail in the coffin...

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Interest will grow.  Will be slow at first.  But snowball in the end.

[cteno4]

I would add that we get the best response from the public with our club Japanese layout at NON train events. First year at the cherry blossom I thought we were going to get trampled by the crowds. The NYC Japan week at grand central was by far and a way the greatest, most heart felt response we have ever gotten from the public by far. There were a good many train folk and Japanese at the event and interested, but the general public were the ones who were the most curious, entertained, and thankful for having the layout there for them and showing them something really different! The stereotype is New Yorkers can gruff, but not so at all, they were the nicest public we ever had and folks were thanking us profusely at times

 

So I expect you will be a hit being different but on a parallel track so to speak.

 

Have fun and enjoy. We want to see photos of all the great cosplay at the layout! See if you can beat this one!

 

http://www.japanrailmodelers.org/photos/2012SakuraMatsuri/pages/page_64.html

 

Yes it is the crying game.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[IST]

Ah, come on, we can't beat that photo!

[cteno4]

Who knows give it a try! You may be surprised!

 

Jeff

[IST]

I am really-really curious about this convention, what will be the reactions, but let's see! I am not going to leave my photo machine at home, in the previous 2 years there were a lot of interesting cosplayer, but sadly not in railway costume.

[cteno4]

How about dressing up as a train mascot!

 

http://kotaku.com/when-cute-characters-are-too-damn-big-for-japan-1701460911

 

Or you and kvp could just go as rr daughters, that would definitely top our cheerleader!

 

Jeff ;-p

[kvp]

I think we could be a really good Hirohiko Yokomi and Masahiko Ishikawa without really trying (actually no extra costumes are required either), but that's as far i would go. I think most conventions and exhibitions have a 'no traumatizing the kids' rule when it comes to cosplay. (although i'm still thinking about building an autonomus Bonta-kun unit for guarding the table...)

[cteno4]

I guess you two in railway daughter get ups may fall under traumatizing everyone!

 

Jeff

[kvp]

Worse... according to ancient lore, it happened in the past with a club, that noone speaks about since then... just as warning to avoid their fate.  :)

 

Also many many years ago when i turned up without any costume at a cosplay event to meet with a friend i tried Akira Shirase from BPS without any success, but not because i didn't accidentially looked the part back then (i was much thinner), just nobody has ever heard about it. That pretty much summed up my costume attempts for the forseeable future and i think everybody is grateful for it.

 

ps: Actually i really like the idea of getting a few pretty hostesses dressed up as railway daughters or pretty much any female railwars characters, but we really don't have the budget for it...

[cteno4]

I think you guys would be a hit! Put a few rr daughter dolls out and run one of the wrapped trains with them! I mean model train guys dressed up in costume, layout and running trains -- that's a hit!

 

Maybe a second hand shop? Skirt, white shirt, and a short, tight jacket. Hat would be the only crafting to do. Gotta go all in!

 

Of course you may need to shave your legs... ;-p

 

Jeff

[kvp]

hostESS=attractive female (preferably in the 18-21 years old range)

 

Also afaik we don't have any dolls or wrapped trains with girls on them. This is a serious club with serious trains. (like the Nankai 2270 series on the poster)

[IST]

Before adding some extra grass:

 

 

After it:

 

 

Although my farmer set has not arrived yet, I put a little life to my rice field modul (I really like this Tomytec set with the cycles):

 

 

What is she doing there?

 

 

Ahh, she is the ticketing administrator...

 

 

As you see above I glued down some fishermen. It was a little surprise for me that the Tomytec package contains fishing rods (I mean very thin black plastic rods), not only the figures. But this is a pozitive surprise, I did not have to think about how can I make such equipment. Due to the limited time frame until the Anime Con, I consider this modul as a finalized one. (The background is temporary for this photo only.)

 

[cteno4]

Looking good! I think you guys will be a hit! Going to hide a little anime character somewhere on the layout? Any of you have the MA galaxy express 999 set? Those character figures could be at the station!

 

If you want I'll lend you mine for the show.

 

Jeff

[IST]

Thanks Jeff!

I only have the Mangattan Liner II set, but I think kvp has more interesting train set than I (for sure he has a Tama train).

[Densha]

I really like how you did the overhead poles. That's exactly how I want to do them, to be able to easily pull them off for cleaning (and eventual temporary transformation into an unelectrified line).

[IST]

Thanks Densha!

We have to use this method as the poles are so thin that I am pretty sure we would brake some during the transportation of the moduls.

[IST]

A few pictures from the past few days. The 3rd modul is almost finished, now I have a little village with some houses and shops. At least I could use the different Tomytec figures sets that was bought in the last couple of years, so it worth to collect these sets. :) Let's see what happened in the clubhouse!

 

This is the basic status of the modul, I added styrene sheets next to the track and painted with Tamiya 87115 Pavement effect paint (I saw the usage of it in a Youtube video and wanted to try it).

 

 

As usual it got some leaf grist as the basis of the grassed area. The bases of the poles were not forgotten this time...

 

  

 

The original idea was a small village like this:

 

 

There were some remaining Noch fence after the construction of the Hungarian modul of "Nagyhát" (FREMO modul), and I thought this is the perfect moment to use it. Beside of that with the help of some masking tapes we started to paint the roadmarks (left). The other line on the road (right) was made from TGW material. I haven't use this type before, so it did not work well, you can see that one end of the lined rolled somewhat.

 

 

After a complete repainting with the above mentioned Tamiya pavement paint, we painted again the lines.

 

 

The Tsugawa set was not put away, I give another chance to it and the crossing became not so bad, so I used the sign of a bus stop also from this set.

 

 

The farm houses got their fences and I put down the shops also just to see how it will look like. The Kato bus was also for size comparison, at this moment I was thinking about to use it or not.

 

 

I also tried to make some weathering effect on the road:

 

 

aaaaand started to glue down figures and cycles and houses and shops and poles and signs and ...

 

        

 

[IST]

Just a short update: yesterday and today was the anime convention named MondoCon here in Budapest. We participated on it with kvp with our T-trak modules. I attached 3 pictures but sadly none of them is about kvp or me (I am pretty sure this is your luck :) ). We made a lot of pictures, we also experienced a lot, I promise we will come back with the full story what happened in these 2 days, but at this moment I am too tired to write more.