My Tokuyama station layout

[cteno4]

Euro,

 

Nice work on the walls! Nice transition. Love seeing this come together!

 

Yeah it's always tough to do the station base layer to make sure it's the righ thickness to allow clearance below w/ grade changes, which are jsut always problematic, and have it nice and flat and remain that way! Years ago I did a few quick test stations out of ply for the first jrm layout and luckily I did so as they were free standing for a set up on the fly layout and after a couple of weeks in the dc summer 2 of the 3 warped. Not horrible but enough that putting down tracks across the connecting areas made some issues. Since we had tracks running under the station at various places it was hard to brace it well enough to stop this, so I ended up making a more complicated layered, laminated station base of Formica, foamcore and Masonite. That made something the thickness of the kato plates but the laminate made it super flat and rigid. Has not warped in 10 years of abuse on two layouts, but it's a pain to build. You can get a material at plastic and sign making stuff called ultraboard which is basically foam core that has thin stryene on each side. This stuff is super rigid and flat and really great, only rub is you usually have to buy a 4x8 sheet and cut it on a table saw with a fine blade.

 

For the tinted windows you can just use tinted acetate sheets. You can get them at the office supply stores or print shop for report covers. You can get some pretty heavy stuff. Then you can draw window mullions with a black or silver marker. Or use the clear laser print sheets to print it out and just sandwich onto the tinted sheets. Also can do mullions with pin tape. Print out the pattern and lay the tinted acetate over it and lay down the tape to the pattern. Only rub is chopping out the crossover bits. You can get the .5mm pin tape on ebay cheap.

 

Check out your local commercial plastics shop or sign making shop, they usually will sell stryene sheet and various clear and tinted plastic sheets. Down side is you usually have to buy a 4'x8' sheet, up side is last time I bought a few different thicknesses it was the same price to get the 4x8 as it was the little pack at the hobby shop but over 10x the material! I just stare the extra with club members.

 

Also Many of the shops use to have the scrap bin they use to let you raid for free and some sold larger chunks cheap by the pound. Alas now days that much of it can get recycled many places don't do either of these practices anymore, but worth a shot!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Eurostar25]

Thanks for the words Jeff. Luckily I don't live in such a humid climate but I'll see how the MDF stands up over time.

I'll definites have a look around the local art supply stores to see what's out there. The main chain building suppliers didn't have anything thin enough to work into the thin angles of the front facade but like you say there probably are alternative materials out there to be found.

[Eurostar25]

Progress is slowly coming along. Need to find a matching paint for the kato viaducts to start given it some colour

 

Made a mock up of the initial frontage to see what the height was like if I was to still show a viaduct above but realized it looks too compressed so will make the station taller.

 

Reasonably happy with the layout, I have room in front to model the rental car carpark and also some room out front for some buses. In the right front corner is an apartment complex but I might go for something different on this one just to keep the overall height down.

[cteno4]

Nice work!

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

Need to find a matching paint for the kato viaducts to start given it some colour

 

Instead of trying to match, you might search for a matte "concrete" color and apply it to the Kato pieces as well, so they look less shiny and plasticky.

[Eurostar25]

Good idea thanks, I'll definitely be weathering it to give it more of an aged look in the future too so hopefully that'll hide any painting imperfections or discrepancies.

[katoftw]

I got my styrene a few days back.  Ready to start copying your efforts.

 

I went to a small local train shop today, and one of my regular catchups had a t-trak module that was Japanese themed.  I really need to put more effort into getting something onto baseboard.

[Eurostar25]

Good to hear, I'll take a close up photo of it later today.

The thing I've noticed is the more you start one module the more you want to build more and ones with different designs. (I'm thinking a viaduct bridge across the Fuji river with Fuji San in the background next)

Also the need to detail appears once you see it all laid out on a baseboard...

[Eurostar25]

Tried to take some close up shots with the ruler placed in front if that helps. The styrene has an undercoat on it hence the scratched surface. Lighting isn't flash at night so let me know if you want more closer shots/dimensions.

[katoftw]

Awesome. Thanks.  So 2 layers of 1mm styrene, with the front being small rectangles to create the panel look?

[Eurostar25]

Yup, the rear layer is 1mm styrene but the small rectangles are 0.5mm styrene. I'm sure 1mm would work just as well.

 

A package arrived today from Nariichi San, - albeit at 6:30am again and of course when I'm away so I receive the usual "there's another package here from Japan, which woke me up from the mailman knocking on the door..." text from the other half..

 

Included are some catenary stands, a Tomix substation to go in the vacant space under the viaduct, some tomytec buses for out the front (not correct locally but I liked the colour variation), and some extension track to join the modules together.

 

Looks like tomorrow will be spent assembling and painting the tomix kit.

[velotrain]

^{Here's a couple of images that you may find useful.}

 

^{One is of a proto structure that might be the inspiration for the kit.}

 

 

 

 

^{Also a completed model that I found last summer.  I think the paint treatment does a great job of playing down the fact that the support structure is actually solid, vs. the lattice truss used on the proto.  I will likely reduce the number of roof vents on mine, as I think it looks a bit silly with all six.  I might also consider replacing that fencing mesh, as it looks way out of scale.  You might do a kanji search to look at images of actual Japanese installations.  YMMV}

 

 

 

 

^{I can understand your wanting to use "vacant space under the viaduct", but you also might consider a space where heavy lifting apparatus has access to move transformers in and out.}

 

^{I'm planning to run a siding adjacent to mine, and will spot a Tomix #2773 on it.}

 

 

 

 

[Eurostar25]

Hi Charles

 

Great images there thanks, the prototype image looks remarkably similar to the Tomix model!

The second picture of the painted model is along the lines of what I had in mind, a reprint and attach with pastels.

Will post pics once I'm done!

[Eurostar25]

Progress feels like it's at snails pace. Scenery takes a while... Even with two or three separate areas in progress it seems like there's never enough time in the day.

I didanage to get a coat of paint and some weathering on the tomix substation. I have removed the oversized etched fence and plan to use it else where on the module.

[Eurostar25]

Slowly coming along. Station frontage is being painted so will add that over the coming days.

But otherwise a couple of general pics attached

There's so much detailing to be done, figures to be added, pylons, vehicles.

[cteno4]

Looking good!

 

Jeff

[Eurostar25]

Almost there now, still have a few cars to add, and a station name sign to print off but otherwise I pretty happy with the result.

The E7 is just posing - having never been through Tokuyama station, it just provides a bit of colour.

Now to start on the other half of the station or to try somewhere else...

[HantuBlauLOL]

looks great!

[JR 500系]

Looks nice! I like the neatness of things! Perhaps you cam say the E7 made a trial run to Tokuyama station to test gradient ability at top speed?  :)

 

That chair with that large back rest looks mighty comfortable for the driver to sit on and operate the trains!  :)

[katoftw]

Amazing!

[Eurostar25]

Thanks for the comments.

 

Some more appropriate trains this time.

The family mart and substation aren't there in real life but overall I'm happy with the layout. Part two of the module will allow for an 8 car shinkansen to be parked at the station, so I figured Dr yellow, the 500 series or the Tomix 8 car Hikari railstar (whenever that finally gets produced)

 

A bit of dull weathering to be done to the tracks and it's all done.

 

[katoftw]

Wow.  I love the weathering on the tracks.  It really hides the concrete/wooden ties.  Another thing I need to learn.

[Eurostar25]

Hi katoftw, I tried to copy this screenshot off YouTube as I liked the effect they had done, unfortunately the paint I bought has too much shine to it so I'll go over it with pastels.

Username "kato online", not sure if they're associated or not but they show plenty of kato products in their videos

 

[cteno4]

Eurostar,

 

Excellent work! Kudos to you!

 

Jeff

[Eurostar25]

Instead of making a new thread I'll just roll it in with my current one.

I began my next module today, although this one will take a while to do given I'm moving town next week but nevertheless I'm going to try and make the Shinkansen rail bridge over the Fuji river, as seen in many photos online.

Plan on having a detachable background shot of Fuji to prop up against the back of the module. As always, it'll be compressed into my 1m module and will have the Shinkansen lines at the rear as they need to be at the back due to the larger radius tracks and the corner modules this one will connect to. The 2 main lines will be at the front of the module. Its the opposite in real life with the mainline at the rear and the Shinkansen tracks in the foreground. But its modelers license right?

The photo below is the sort of photo I'd like to attempt.
Will add photos of progress in due course

Edited October 6, 2015 by Eurostar25