Some time ago I bought some Rokuhan stuff (starter set REVATY) . I wanted to use it for one of my rebuilding projects but finally it was a good idea just to play the train. I was really positively surprised with the performance of this model. This inspired my to a new idea of having portable layout just to run the trains... After some search and work with SCARM I have developed such plan: My general ideas are: - start with analog but to be able to turn into DCC - 5 separate electrical parts - different colours on the drawing -2 levels: lower level green, yellow and red part, upper level - dark blue and light blue - 4 boards 100cmx50cm - this may very a bit to have the best combination to join the boards together - lower part will be for conventional trains and the upper one for Shinkansen There will be at least one scenic part of the layout. I plan it to be based on real location. I think there might be two scenic parts as well. Of course I will be working on my Polish modules and dioramas. Japanese project is in the "concept car" stage. What do you think about it ?
Looks somewhat busy. Unless that is what you want. I think with your skill you can make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
Silk sounds Japanese.... You are right with your comment that it looks to be very busy. As far as I know Japan is very busy and crowded country with high density of almost everything. My initial inspiration was photo I found in the Internet: This is east approach to the Kioto train station. My initial plan was to model this place as a scenic part and the rest should be an extensive fiddle yard. Some research on Google maps with Google Street View extended the area a little bit. This is the satelitte view showing all those lines. There is a great potential with the river, several streets, bridges... General idea is to have on the left hand side of the river "city" side and on the right side the hill with blooming Japanese trees.
I see some nice pink cherry trees on the left side; they will look great. I like this idea. It is basically a snapshot. I will be following. Be well. Jim
I thought wow at first that’s a lot packed in a small space. Then I looked at the photo and yup I think your plan is a pretty good starting point. I’m amazed at such density like that. It should be fun!
The plan definitely needs some more considerations and corrections but I think it is a good starting point. I have some other projects in "work in progress" stage so this is not a problem to spend some time for research. There are four areas on this plan. A - this is the scene with Shinkansen bridge in Kioto (see the photo above) B - This is going to be Kioto station representation with platforms C - not matching any prototypical place - to be hidden - technical part - of course there will be an access to the trac area D - There are two options - small open area but only for quadraple line or hidden area In meantime I bought four flat cars by PRMLOCO on e-bay. Japanese rolling stock seems to be very clean according to the photos in the Internet. Due toi this fact I weathered it just a bit. The most weathered are some of the containers.
I found the same thing with my PRM loco and Rokuhan KOKIs. I just used a thin wash of track colour to highlight the details on the chassis and trucks and weathered the containers using different techniques. Some were given a weathering wash of either light grey or rust and some were dry brushed Your right though that a lot of the freight stock seems to be immaculate. I've got quite a few Taki 1000 and Taki 4300 fuel tankers and looking at videos of them on youtube they look as they have been lovingly polished sometimes so I've been carefull not to go over the top The guys on the JNS forum are always posting links to trainfans videos on youtube and these are a mine of information I don't think you can tell from this picture but these are some of my lightly weathered KOKIs running on Hakuho Kev
Kev, Your Hakuho and your job was inspirational for this idea of Japan project as well. There is no British nor Polish rolling stock commercially available so we both have to make an efford to have some homeland trains. Well It is a bit easier for me due to history - I can repain some German rolling stock... Japan might be an interesting altrernative for homeland railway modelling ...
My daughter brought home some Japanese paper building kits for me from Tokyo recently and I finally got around to building the Golden pavilion Kinkaku-ji. It measures out to 1:200 scale. I don’t know about the other, there is no scale on the box. I figure you guys might be interested.
Paper and thin card stock it’s textured and colored but lighter built then say an Archistories or NOCH kit
My first attempts to digitalize Rokuhan EMU - Tobu 500 - Revaty. I used microdecoder from ZIMO. I still have to work with lights bu the engine works OK. That is my first step with DCC: