Hungarian Japanese Model Train Club

[Suica]

Looks good, IST! And you even managed to attract the girls!

Looking forward to your report.

[cteno4]

Really great to hear it went well! The layouts looked great. Looks like you got a lot of groupies now!

 

Will be great to hear the full adventure!

 

Jeff

[TheNicofabi]

Really looking forward to the full report... but you just gave me a lifegoal with the fact you guys do that at a con lol...

[cteno4]

Nico,

 

Check with the cons in your area, I bet they would love for you to do this!

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Awesome little combined layout.  It will only grow from here on.  200mm deep modules?

[beakaboy]

that larger layout looks really nice. Well done!

[kvp]

A few more pictures of the layout:

and some more:

[Suica]

The two modules with Sakura trees are wonderful!

[IST]

Awesome little combined layout.  It will only grow from here on.  200mm deep modules?

 

Yes, I chosed this type years ago, I thought it would be easier to model in this size. Of course it is not, it is hard to put everything to such a small space. :)

[IST]

Report and pictures will arrive, until that please watch this video with our trains:

 

Edited March 28, 2016 by cteno4

[cteno4]

Very nice! Love the cherry blossoms! Did you hand do those by hand from armatures or were they commercial? Need some of the festival stalls in there and folks lounging under the trees!

 

Jeff

[kvp]

A fellow club member built them from untangled 230V power cord wire by twisting them (in 5 steps using sub assemblies for every larger branch), soldering the trunks, painting the trunks and the branches, then glueing on the blossoms. It takes a lot of time to make a single tree this way but they look beautiful.

[katoftw]

Yes, I chosed this type years ago, I thought it would be easier to model in this size. Of course it is not, it is hard to put everything to such a small space. :)

At least the scenery is 33% cheaper than if it was 300mm deep.  :)

[kvp]

It also allows the use of 150/183 mm mini curves for a smaller traction layout. (with ~4 cm remaining between the two sides)

[cteno4]

Another issue with really deep modules is as soon as you get near to the module on the other side the scene then wants to bleed all the way across, so making that mesh has to be taken into account or it can start to clash. Having the open area in the center helps keep the scenes on either side separated w.o doing the bloody backdrops that if not done well can destroy the look of a nicely done module and tend to clash violently at times with the backdrop of the next module.

 

Jeff

[serotta1972]

That is so cool, I too love the Cherry Blossom trees!  This could be something I can commit myself to doing, one little module at a time.  Thanks for sharing.  

[IST]

I really don't know where to start my report about MondoCon. If you check the posts in this topic 2 month ago you can see that we have just started at that time to build some T-trak modules and now we had a successfull event.

 

On Thursday last week we made a last test in the club just to see that after attaching the modules everything go well. Of course everything went wrong, trains did not run. The painting of the rails were the problem, it went under the joiners and blocked the flow of the power, so we had a busy 30 minutes to clean the joiners and the rail ends. It was my mistake, I thought it would work, but clearly not. At least we could manage this problem, so half of the modules were transported by my car to a close location to the event and the remaining stayed at the club until Friday. On Thursday I could continue the modules with cherry blossom trees that were handmade by another clubmember with the usage of Scenic Express's leaf petals.

 

 

On Friday we went to HungExpo where the event was held on Saturday and Sunday. We got 4 tables from the oragnizers, with the size of around 160*75 centimeters, so we could start to play with the order of the modules. The tables were fully walk around and we had to leave enough room for my small tram layout, so we decided to lay the modules not parallel with the edge of the tables. We fought a lot with the correct hights as the tables were different in this point of view but for the evening we could finish the building and made some test run.

 

     

 

On Saturday I grabbed all of my Japanese trains (sadly I do not have so much) and kvp also made a nice collection and brought it with himself to the event. We started to play at 9:30 am and finished around 7 pm, so it was a really long day. There was a huge crowd, I read somewhere that more than 12 thousand people attended on the event. It was not only an anime convention, but a gamer show also, so there were computers, console games as well. You could play Go, you could draw kanjis, there were sushi stands, tea house, competitions. I think the majority of the visitors had some kind of cosplay, in some cases I was wondering if they put more effort and time into their costumes or we into our modules...

 

                                

 

We had a lot of visitiors and a lot of different visitors:

- Just looking at the modules for 3-4 seconds and go away

- Watching the trains running for 1 minutes and go away

- "Oh look, what a beautiful cherry blossom tree!" and stay a few minutes

- Photographers and video makers

- "I / My family member had model trains years ago but in TT / H0 gauge" and stay a few minutes with a few words

- and some very rare and unique visitors: one guy who is reading this forum from Budapest, build a layout, but does not comment, but at least we could talk on the event. There were some people who would like to try to drive a train and due to the totally separated outer circle, sometime we let it. And 2 Japanese guys who are running a bistro in Budapest since years and they were shocked to see trains from "home" and immediately wanted to play, to have a lot of photos and come back a few times during the day.

 

 

After the first day I was really tired. There were a lot of people, we talked a lot with them and with each other, there were a stage next to us with different topics / films so was a little bit loudy. But all of our trains run well, there was no technical error. We changed the models in every hour so we could show shinkansens, suburban trains, Tama train, and other stuffs.

 

              

 

Sunday was quiet compared to Saturday due to the Eastern Holiday, so I think there were only 3-4 thousand people on that day (tickets were valid for both days if I remember well). We made this day also without any error. We only had 1 broken catenary poles, I almost lost 2 figures from my modules and we had to glue one pole, but these are nothing. We had screwdrivers, glues, track cleaners, additional joiners to have everything in good shape but we did not have to use them too many times.

 

I have to tell I learned a lot from this event, if you are still reading I share some thoughts:

- Planning is important, we have to know the order of the modules and ask enough place based on that, not thinking about it in the very last second

- We need frames in which we can transport the modules easily. Just grabbing the modules and put it into the cars trunk not a great idea, I was worried continuously during the trip from Buda to Pest although it was only around 10 kilometres (but the quality of the roads...).

- Testing, testing, testing before the event is critical, including everything, not just the train running.

- We have a very different style in modelling with kvp that caused some misunderstanding (is a modul ready for the event or not).

- Talking with people is fun but very tiring especially if you have to talk loud.

- Size does not matter, but if we would like to run full size trains we have to build some additional moduls.

- We have to get some sheets to cover the tables.

- We have to make a T-shirt with trains on it. Maybe there shall be a JNS Forum T-shirt, what is your opinion about it?

- We put the boxes of the trains simply on inside the moduls, while next time maybe we shall not, it doesn't look good.

- Visitors love fast trains. Really. And in this type of event they know nothing about trains, just watch them if they are running, so always has to run at least one train.

- Magazines were also interesting for the visitors (I brought some Railfan and RM Models with me and put them on the corner of the tables). Lots of them grabbed one and watched some pictures in it.

- Girls were so open minded, if we asked them to sit behind a controller just to have some photo, they did it.

- Summer event of MondoCon is a better choice than at spring, it was cold in the pavilon so there were much more clothes on ladies than it should have been.

- Cleaning is important, there were a lot of dust and dirt on the rails after the first day (although we used a very light cover for the night).

 

 

I think kvp will also add some comment about the event, but if you have any question based on my report, let us know!

 

                                

Edited March 29, 2016 by IST

[cteno4]

IST and KVP

 

Congratulations! That was an excellent job of doing a show! They are exhausting and all of them have their unique quirks and frustrations, bit are always fun and wonderful thing to being Japanese trains to the public eye!

 

Every even seems to have a different spectrum of visitor responses. Yes gender bias with model trains I think is in our heads, kids of both love them and the adults do as well when they drop their defenses and societal norms! Japanese expats love to see them! Surprising bit of home in a foreign land. We have had some go to tears as it brought back old memories of home in a great way. One little of lady kept thanking us over and over at one show about this, was very heart warming,

 

Tee shirts help the public a lot to let them know you are the train guys! Folks also just like the uniform thing, makes it feel more real to them for some odd reason even if it's only a bloody tee shirt!

 

Track seems to get dirtier faster at show for some Reason!

 

Leveling bolts are a pain in the arse! I've been using the girders with my thin ttrak modules and only a handful to adjust then and allows for really nasty leveling when we are on grass where there is a slope! For regular ttrak modules you can also get away with just the front two bolts and put one in the center rear. Supports fine on the tripod with the track connections and you are not whaling on them at all. This way the front two bolts get the track leveled up easily then just adjust the rear bolt to get the front to back leveled. Much easier than 4 corners!

 

Table cloths really help. You can cover up cords as well. Also store stuff under the table and it's hidden by the table cloths. Stuff in the center of the layout distracts. If you have wires in there just buy a hunk of cheap black cloth and you can just tuck it in the center and it really makes the modules pop nicely and separates the two sides nicely visually.

 

Feet do get tired! If it's a concrete floor it's a killer. I use to bring foam rubber pads that we could stand on (at one time we put them down all around the layout, but it's too much a pain to transport them all the time).

 

Hope you get to do more of These! Great you did it! Good on ya guys.

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

Forgot to mention, talking with people is really important. Some folks require you to reach out to them, but it's really worth it. Your enthusiasm will rub off on them and they warm quickly to you and it can be super encouraging when you see someone walking off with the bug planted in their hear and gears turning about model trains!

 

It's most rewarding when you talk to parents and can give them the myriad of reasons model trains are great for kids (and them as well and to do something creative and fun with the kids) and to get the kid to drop the game controller/smart phone for a while. Again you start to see the gears turn in their heads and that is a really good thing to do with your time and effort.

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

The blossoms trees look great.  Glad I got some of that scenic express stuff now also.

[Coromant]

Hi All!

I am the guy whom IST written. 

I am building a little module station for practice.

The first reason what i made it, because i want to try the building and scenery technics before i start a bigger Hungarian project. The second cause i want to a little japan. Firts time i thought i build one diorama to practice the building technics, but during this project i saw a lot of japan rail cab and station videos on youtube and one of these videos i saw my wish list trains together at one station. This station was Shin-Kawasaki on Yokosuka line. I decided i have to build this station and i made a few new module. I did a lot of begginers mistakes during the process, so this station will just a little and from afar looks like then Shin-Kawasaki :) but i’ll trying to. 

Initially i thought i use my kato single catenaries, but this station doesn’t use this type and i want to try closer the real as far as i can, so i bought the Tomytec 3070 multi-lenght catenary set and replace the poles.

On station I’m using Peco streamline code 55. My standard modules at 45*20cm and 46mm height, I choose this dimension because two modules almost one yard and i have a less waste of Peco track. The next mistake is the station section isn't enough space then the station needs, so i had to extend two modules later. 

Some pictures from the first diorama module:

The Kawasaki station first look with the replaced single catenaries:

and the updated catenaries and widened module:

I have to rebuild the station building, because it isn't fit the station area.

Now almost complete the station building area basic place with overpass, but i haven't got photos yet.

 

So that's it my station for now

[cteno4]

Coromant,

 

Nice work! Looks like a great start. Keep on doing updates, it's really fun to watch the projects develop.

 

Jeff

[Coromant]

Thanks cteno4!

 

This is the station building area and I start the building rebuild. It will be a long process :)  This weekend If the weather won't be windy i want to spray the catenaries and repair the old catenaries extra holes.

 

Edited April 20, 2016 by Coromant

[kvp]

I think this station will be great! The prototype is a unique one and since it's modular, there is no need for compromises.

[Coromant]

Hi All!

 

I built a little on the station last week, but ufortunatelly my compressor broken, it doesn't want to operate, so i didn't spray the things what i wanted :(

Overview the project: