Garth has been posting links for a new scale of trains to be released in Japan. T Scale = 1:450! Translated from Japanese: [SIZE=-2]* Photograph = Osaka belt highway package [/SIZE]
Oh boy..... well, I am sure you will be the first to dazzle us with what can be done with it Robert. Maybe a little custom painting. Charlie
This overhead shot shows shiney metal rails: Look at the display board lower left, and see how tiny the controller is: Here's the rear of the train and above is the front showing directional lighting: And someone at the tradeshow promoting the scale:
Did you figure out how to order yet or when they are due out??? That's a pretty elaborate layout for a brand new scale. Way cool if they are planning to release all those building and vehicles right away!
Loyal to Z Scale? Me? Not a chance! Only loyal to the sweetest tiniest trains available! I want them now I tell you. I can always start with a Milwaukee Road line, crossing the static NP tracks at Lombard! hehe!
Don't know what the wheelbase is on those cars, but the proportions look about right for 85' cars. That means these Japanese cars could be turned into North American passenger cars pretty easily. If they turn out to be two powered and two unpowered cars for ~$45, we can almost power every car in the train and just push smaller F-units around, assuming all that space is needed for the mechanism. A mile in this scale is under 12' long!
this could come out to be near 2 foot gauge in Z. Zn2! (3 foot would be perfect!!) if the mechanism/motor is small enough and efficient enough to pull two or three cars, we could be looking at a kitbash Shay/Climax/Heisler chassis. dave f.
There is also 1:900 (TY-scale), and this should be the URL: http://www.tiny-trains.com/ However, the site does not work.......
Hmmmmm... I have a feeling Robert's favorite movie is 'The Incredible Shrinking Man. Soon we will see his trains attacked by spiders....and then 'poof'...gone. Robert will post a photo of the head of a pin..and tell us the NP main from Seattle to St Paul is all right there....take a look...
source of parts for Z narrow gauge? Yeah, I posted a few comments/questions to Z_Scale this morning as well as to Garth offlist. He doesn't have much more info yet, but it looks like these were announced back in July and have been at a couple of shows since then. Yes, it looks like the whole layout other than the track and trains themselves are RP. Even the risers under the trains! I am particularly interested in parts: What kind of motor and what voltage? Metal or plastic wheels? What diameter? Can they be regauged (ie widened out to Zn3)? Is the electrical pick-up through metal wheels or electrical pick-up shoes? What is the track made of? Flat bar stock or profiled rail? What code is the rail? What are the dimensions of the trucks and chassis? Can we use these for some industrial "critters"? It looks like these are slated for relase in early 2007 and there is mention of airplanes and airport accessories (with sound) possibly to include a monrail!? Adam Amick is in Japan right now doing research on their N scale "J project" so I forwarded it to him to try to dig up more info, but haven't heard anything back yet. Also forwarded to my JRM friends. Yes, the TY scale "trains" are smaller at 1:900 but they don't actually run on electric power from rails but rather are pulled through a slot by a pulley system. This is pretty exciting. I was already looking at trying to get some of the "ZJ" Japanese Z scale to use for some kitbashes and chassis for things like RDC's. These look like they could be a great product for the pricing target. Now we need to figure out how to get them outside of Japan. We could even use these for half scale park trains in Z scale instead of Z scale always being used for this in other scales. This scales out to to around 1:2 scale for Z, about 1:2.8 scale for N, 1:5 if used for HO, 1:9 for O and 1:14 for G (1:32). It even scales out to about 1:37.5 for 1:12 or dollhouse scale (that's smaller than typical garden railway scales even)! I can't wait to see ordering information. Randy
T & TY EEK!, were are my eye glasses and I don't think my hands can handle things that small anymore. Looks cool though... mg: mg: mg: mg:
Hmm, dual radius secitonal track for parallel main lines. Wonder what linking method they use? In the picture with the directional lighting, there is a significant offset bewteen the 2nd and 3rd coach. The overview picture is all the same color, like styrene casts or RP? Note the roller coasted in the lower left corner That means even smaller track Maybe some mining cars for T gauge?
So, for the people who are into that, finally a scale that can represent a reasonable live-steam scale to a common indoor scale.
