Hello from the UK

[Devonbelle]

Hello - I discovered forum tonight - it's great. I'm just back from family holiday in Japan and in love with the railways - we travelled by train Tokyo to Kyoto, Kyoto Hiroshima and back to Tokyo. I also travelled the Kominato Railway from Goi when the family went shopping in Tokyo. I fell in love with the red and cream coloured diesel railcars and the lovely country stations.

 

I model o gauge and have a French o gauge exhibition layout. I'm now considering building a small Japanese o gauge model railway. On holiday I picked up some Japanese 1/43 scale road vehicles and some 1/64 scale buildings (a village general store and a riverside house - they were less than a 1000 yen and I can use them on my planned o gauge model railway). I also picked up some large HO scale cherry blossom trees, which will mask as small o gauge trees!

 

Best wishes, Paul

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Welcome. I would be very interested to see your developments; Japanese 0 gauge is seriously cool, not to mention very unusual - particularly in the UK... 

[railsquid]

Welcome, and yes O gauge is pretty rare in Japan (at least the only models I've seen have been eye-wateringly expensive). It'd be interesting to see a 16-car O-gauge Shinkansen ;)

Edited September 4, 2014 by railsquid

[Bernard]

Hi Paul - welcome to the forum....do you have any photos of your French O gauge layout that you might want to share?

[miyakoji]

hi Paul, welcome!

[Ken Ford]

Welcome, Paul! I do quite a bit of UK outline 7mm and 4mm, I'd love to see some Japanese outline O.

[Devonbelle]

Thanks for the friendly welcome.

 

French o gauge layout (Nouvion) in the link below. My next exhibition on Saturday 20th September - Culm Valley Railway show.

 

http://frenchrailwayheaven.webs.com/french0gauge.htm

 

For my Japanese o gauge plans I'm thinking I will use standard o gauge track (Peco flat bottom rail) - I'd like to scratch build a Kominato Railway single railcar. Then I have to say fell in love with DD51 diesels - so managed to get some plans and dimensions two weeks ago in various JR magazines - so pondered if I could scratch build in plastic - card, mounting on Lima o gauge bogies - 3 required of course. I'll post efforts. If my model plans become reality I'd like to exhibit, recognising the sheer rarity.

 

Regards Paul

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Allo Allo...that's a familar name!

 

I see from your website you exhibited at Winchester. Is that local to you?

[Richard W]

Welcome Paul!  Keep us updated especially with pics when you can of your ongoing effort.

[Devonbelle]

Just final tweaks to French o gauge layout ready for show this Saturday - then I embark on my o gauge Japanese layout - it's going to be mounted on a large ironing board! Ideal for displaying at model railway shows.

 

I'll paste some photos of progress and share with you. Baseboard built. So I'm starting with buildings, doing the kits I purchased in Kyoto - I can then position buildings around layout to get optimal look.

 

To answer Claudes question, Winchester about 80 miles away from me in Wiltshire.

 

Paul

[kvp]

Welcome! O is an interesting and rare scale, even for French modelling, but very rare for Japanese models. I would really like to know more about your french layout (like the way of operation, rolling stock) and your Japanese plans (trackplan, rolling stock, operation possibilities).

[Devonbelle]

Evening.

 

KVP asked about the French layout. I can have two trains operating at once - one running in/out of the station and one working in the tiny freight yard - two sidings. At the other end is two hidden sidings. So a very simple track layout.

 

Rolling stock is many Lima - all of which has been detailed, resprayed. Fortunately Lima did a French Bo-Bo diesel loco in the 1970s - so I have picked up 4 from Ebay. I also have a locotracteur - which runs on an Atlas chassis with a plastic card body - based on a typical French shunt loco. Plus I have a British class 20 loco (4 where shipped to France from the UK in 1992), finished in the colours of French rail operator CFD (that's Orange White and Blue). Plus I have some standard Lima European coaches finished in French green and grey - I also modified the roofs to better resemble French coaches as well as a respray.

 

I substantially completed my first Japanese o gauge building today - I will start a new thread on my planned Japanese o gauge layout; sometime this week. I'll address some of the questions on that layout in the new thread. Regards Paul

[kvp]

Thanks!

[cteno4]

Paul,

 

Sounds very cool! Would enjoy seeing some Picts from the construction od the o scale Japanese kits, very curious about them! Never seen any myself. Will also be great to see an O scale Japanese layout come together!

 

Cheers,

 

Jeff

Edited September 21, 2014 by cteno4