What did you order or the post deliver? (Japanese N Gauge)

[lighthouse]

Yesterday, I got my Kato soundbox and soundcard for DD51 and C62 loco´s. 🤪

[JR 500系]

I bent in... I really couldnt resist it further and got it.

 

 

 

 

 

Cannot miss one set of bus NO

 

 

What's better than individual bubble-wrap? How about shrink wrap beneath the bubble wrap? 

 

 

gonna stay this way!

 

 

 

It's no longer running yes, but it was a REALLY nice livery, plus i need an all orange train (yeah excuses) 

 

 

A special affinity to the E233 Chuo Line...  Tokyo - Kanda - Ochanomizu - Yotetsuya - Shinjuku, Nakano, Koenji - Asagaya - Ogikubo - Nishi Ogikubo - Kichijoji - Mitaka - Musashi Sakai - Higashi Koganei - Musashi Koganei - Kokubunji - Nishi Kokubunji - Kunitachi - Tachikawa - Hino - Toyoda - Hachioji - Nishi Hachioji - Takao 

 

 

130 years wrapping 

 

 

 

Special headmark that is SO easy to install ~

 

[Cat]

2 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

I bent in... I really couldnt resist it further and got it.

 

 

Cannot miss one set of bus NO

I think I'm marked safe from getting this JR Kanto Bus, it looks more recent than our layout's time period (2016, give or take; Shin Gojira and Girls Und Panzer Der Film are playing at the Combox in Mito). 

But seeing the Swallow triggers acquisition reflex.... which model bus is this?

[disturbman]

4 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

plus I need an all orange train

Don‘t you have a few others? Huis Ten Bosch, Kintetsus?

[cteno4]

6 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

plus i need an all orange train (yeah excuses)

Excellent logic Sammy!

 

jeff

[railsquid]

13 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

A special affinity to the E233 Chuo Line...  Tokyo - Kanda - Ochanomizu - Yotetsuya - Shinjuku, Nakano, Koenji - Asagaya - Ogikubo - Nishi Ogikubo - Kichijoji - Mitaka - Musashi Sakai - Higashi Koganei - Musashi Koganei - Kokubunji - Nishi Kokubunji - Kunitachi - Tachikawa - Hino - Toyoda - Hachioji - Nishi Hachioji - Takao 

 

23/24 😛

[JR 500系]

11 hours ago, Cat said:

I think I'm marked safe from getting this JR Kanto Bus, it looks more recent than our layout's time period (2016, give or take; Shin Gojira and Girls Und Panzer Der Film are playing at the Combox in Mito). 

But seeing the Swallow triggers acquisition reflex.... which model bus is this?

 

Yap it looks like the more recent releases, from wiki, it's the Hino Blue Ribbon City Hybrid, and good news, it looks like it has been placed in service since 2015, which best suits your layout's time line period ~  🙂

 

10 hours ago, disturbman said:

Don‘t you have a few others? Huis Ten Bosch, Kintetsus?

The shade of Orange is different. It's still not Chuo Orange  😛

 

8 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Excellent logic Sammy!

 

jeff

We all need excuses to feel better now, aint we?  😛

 

1 hour ago, railsquid said:

 

23/24 😛

Dang! Which one's missing? All through memory, so the mistake verifies the authenticity  😛

[railsquid]

1 minute ago, JR 500系 said:

 

Dang! Which one's missing?

 

Yotetsuya -> Yotsuya 🙂

 

2 minutes ago, JR 500系 said:

 

All through memory, so the mistake verifies the authenticity  😛

 

Here, have a cookie!

[JR 500系]

1 hour ago, railsquid said:

Yotetsuya -> Yotsuya 🙂

 

Haha yeah i always get the names spelled incorrectly, pronoucing them seems easier, thanks to Densha de go ~ 

 

1 hour ago, railsquid said:

Here, have a cookie!

 

CCCOOOLLLLL!  can we get an orange flavoured one?  😛

[Cat]

1 hour ago, JR 500系 said:

 

Yap it looks like the more recent releases, from wiki, it's the Hino Blue Ribbon City Hybrid, and good news, it looks like it has been placed in service since 2015, which best suits your layout's time line period ~  🙂

 

Hmm, squinting more closely at the image, it does have JR Tokai Bus labelled near the back (in a lovely orange too).  I haven't spotted that livery prowling near Mito or Katsuta stations, just the JR Bus Kanto ones.

[Cat]

I've been putting off orders from Japan until I have a carton full of goodies to help ease the shipping pain.  This just came from 1999.

 

The carton of 1/144 Dougram mecha helped a lot!  These will also be handy for playing games of big stompy robots on the layout.
: 3
 
Roxanne was very happy that a Google streetview drive along the Naka River Valley finally revealed an old timey farmhouse.  These 2 Tomytec kits will contribute various bits towards building that.  Otherwise, the overwhelming bulk of the farms in the valley are rather modern looking and nothing like any standard kit offering I've come across.

 

Query on the small ground level Sankei parking lot.  There are little green bits in the middle of each spot that look like they are retractable.  How do these function — retract when you pay for the spot so you can pull in?  Retract when you pay to leave so you can exit?  Curious modellers are curious.

[Dinosbacsi]

That parking lot is really cute! I'm thinking about getting something similar for my cars.

 

I also had a package arrive earlier this week - but couldn't post it because I recently re-installed Windows on my PC and forgot my password for this forum, lol. Anyway here it is, just a bunch of B Train Shorty stuff, as usual from me.

I got a 103-1200 series train as an addition to my Chuo-Sobu fleet and a few freight cars, so my EF64 has something to pull around. Also three pair of bogeys and knucke couplers for the said freight cars (the box cars already had Kato bogeys under them).

 

Another package should arrive soon from HobbySearch with a few scenery and detail stuff, but it's held up on customts for some reason. Hopefully I can resolve it soon and get the package this week.

[railsquid]

6 hours ago, Cat said:

Query on the small ground level Sankei parking lot.  There are little green bits in the middle of each spot that look like they are retractable.  How do these function — retract when you pay for the spot so you can pull in?  Retract when you pay to leave so you can exit?  Curious modellers are curious.

 

I don't drive so not 100% sure, but I suspect they are pushed down when parking, and retract after payment.

[Cat]

18 minutes ago, railsquid said:

I don't drive so not 100% sure, but I suspect they are pushed down when parking, and retract after payment.

Some more applied google-fu confirms this.  Useful to know for assembling the model — the bar is raised with or without a car parked in the spot.
https://japanesenostalgiccar.com/how-to-park-you-car-in-japan/
 
And apparently easy to pay for the wrong car when you want to leave:
https://no-self-enlightenment.hatenablog.com/entry/2016/07/06/170430

[railsquid]

Yup, see e.g.: https://goo.gl/maps/HEmqmfGWYKkGA1Nv7 . BTW reversing to park is the norm, and AFAIK is required for this kind of parking,

 

Also not 100% sure, but I think reversing out onto a public road is illegal, so in general the vast majority of cars will be parked facing the same direction.

[Cat]

I picked up the February 2022 issue of Hobby of Model Railroading for the reason I buy any Japanese model railroad magazine — the cover photo looked intriguing enough to be tempting!  This one has an industrial freight switching layout that caught my eye.  More photos and track plan inside deliver very nicely.  It's a good sized layout with a lot of fun looking switching operations and numerous cute little Switcher engines at work.
 
As long as we're paying such high shipping these days, it's nice not to have to worry about the weight of magazines and books going in the box.

[Englehart]

Got this on a thrift shop now my next problem is to find the other consists 😅

[Arctic]

I picked up a Microace Nara Line 205 series from Plaza Japan to go with my 103 series and 221 series:

 

 

[ED75-775]

Latest arrival from Zenmarket today - first time that DHL has delivered on the target date, normally they’re a little bit early!

 

 

What’s better than one catalog wrapped in plastic for safe transit? Why, eight catalogs wrapped in plastic, of course! Yep, there’s a 2012/13 Tomix being sneaky and hiding under the 2010/11 one, either the seller or the Zen team must have bundled them like that.

 

 

Squee! More postcard-y goodness from Hokutosei with some spare parts for my Kato Rhaetian models. They seem to like KiHa 100’s for some reason, maybe that’s a subliminal hint that I need to ride one (and buy the Tomix model afterwards...) 😄

 

And if I am lucky, a second parcel from Tokyo should deliver my eagerly-awaited 215 series! This is a good ‘not-quite-a-weekend-weekend’ indeed.

[cteno4]

Preorder from early last year. Tomytec green mover max. Got one of the power supplies and put it in the sanfrecce unit, quick shell pop off/on and addition of two little weights under the end cabs roofs. Need to dig out my torture test track to see how well it does on tight radiuses. If it runs well I’ll get a second mechanism for the other shell.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

On 2/28/2022 at 2:26 AM, Cat said:

Query on the small ground level Sankei parking lot.  There are little green bits in the middle of each spot that look like they are retractable.  How do these function — retract when you pay for the spot so you can pull in?  Retract when you pay to leave so you can exit?  Curious modellers are curious.

Yeah the ramps move up after about 10 mins of having a car over the sensor. They are obviously down on any vacant spaces. Not included on the model but there is always an LCD display that shows green for spaces or and red for full in Kanji. Other than that is quite an accurate kit. There are some larger scale companies like Times who have parking close to city centres and stations. There are also plenty of private companies too. You could find their yellow logo on a web search. 

 

https://times-info.net/info/utilization_en.html

 

In real life practise, they are not difficult to use, most in the Fukuoka area have Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean language options. As long as you can identify which car is yours in which number space, there’s not really an issue. 

[Cat]

3 hours ago, Kamome said:

Yeah the ramps move up after about 10 mins of having a car over the sensor. They are obviously down on any vacant spaces. Not included on the model but there is always an LCD display that shows green for spaces or and red for full in Kanji. Other than that is quite an accurate kit. There are some larger scale companies like Times who have parking close to city centres and stations. There are also plenty of private companies too. You could find their yellow logo on a web search. 

 

https://times-info.net/info/utilization_en.html

 

In real life practise, they are not difficult to use, most in the Fukuoka area have Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean language options. As long as you can identify which car is yours in which number space, there’s not really an issue. 

 

Ah, so the flappy bit rises up extra high, but the speed-bumpy bar bit is always sitting there.

[ED75-775]

The good ‘not-quite-a-weekend-weekend’ continues, after DHL delivered yet another box to my doorstep! Yes, it’s the Tomix 215 series EMU I’ve been eagerly waiting for! Well then, time for some pretty pictures...

 

 

Freshly unboxed, nothing seriously exciting to see (yet - well, OK, it is kinda exciting unboxing a new train...)

 

 

And here is what you get: four cars of double-decker deliciousness! Oh, and space for the intermediate six cars if that’s your thing.

 

 

And for good measure, here’s the leading car, which also happens to be the motor car as well! I guess this makes more sense than your usual underfloor location mid-train, but the trade-off is that the KuMoHa driving car has its interior modelled in relief. As does the unpowered KuMoHa too. I suspect that’s been done that way out of parts commonality, rather than being a way of allowing clever cookie modellers to add a second motor unit. And yes, just as Squid fears - and a few others, I imagine - we have bogie-mounted coupler pockets all round. Not that I’m fussed, mind.

 

So, you ask, has it actually been run yet? Well, errr.... no, it hasn’t. I hung around waiting for this to arrive, then buzzed off to the city to buy a few more volumes of My Hero Academia which I am really into right now. So testing this will have to wait a week until I have my next ‘not-quite-a-weekend-weekend’.

 

Damn, that’s turning into my catchphrase now, isn’t it?

 

Alastair

[Martijn Meerts]

3 minutes ago, ED75-775 said:

So, you ask, has it actually been run yet? Well, errr.... no, it hasn’t. I hung around waiting for this to arrive, then buzzed off to the city to buy a few more volumes of My Hero Academia which I am really into right now. So testing this will have to wait a week until I have my next ‘not-quite-a-weekend-weekend’.

 

Hey, I've had my MicroAce version of it for many years, and I've still yet to run it 😄

 

[disturbman]

11 minutes ago, ED75-775 said:

I guess this makes more sense than your usual underfloor location mid-train

 
Why, it's a MU? I always find the location mid-consist more logical. It allows you to drive your train without too much thinking where the "front" is.
 

9 minutes ago, Martijn Meerts said:

Hey, I've had my MicroAce version of it for many years, and I've still yet to run it 😄

🙈

Edited March 3, 2022 by disturbman