These are probably going to be my only foray into the Bandai freight power. Same for the passenger cars and power. I still have unfinished cars on the workbench awaiting shipments of running trucks from Amazon. Did order some more containers on flats, running trucks for them, and some 20 foot liquid bulktainer loads to put on the flats. Somewhere I had spotted the containers for the cars as a separate item but dang nabbit can't find them again.
Was on the Japaneses modelers chat room awhile ago and the subject of adding weight to increase tractive effort came up. A gentleman brought up the use of product called Liquid Gravity for adding weight. Not sure how it would work out dealing with small voids and it seems that the Tungsten Putty would be more easy to use. The other concern I would have is removing it since it appears to be a permanent solution. It doesn't appear to be in this country yet. https://www.deluxematerials.co.uk/gb/rc-modelling/83-liquid-gravity-5060243900470.html I checked a little further and there are a few US dealers.
Finally enough parts trickled in that I could start finishing something. So first out was my mail/express train. 000_0021-1 by John Moore posted Apr 24, 2016 at 7:33 PM The Kato trucks pictured below can't be found in the US. They are snap in fitting rather than mounting pin and the Bandai trucks that take the side frames that come with the kits that come four pairs to a box. And in the center is a pack of nice little bulktainers also from Japan. The US made ones that are 20 footers are sold out here. And they snap onto my container flats. 000_0020-2 by John Moore posted Apr 24, 2016 at 7:33 PM I added a two car set of container flats and redid the containers to Turtle Creek. And last I found some N scale containers on the web that are a download form a German fellow and printed out some of the 20 footers. I got some square dowel from the local home improvement store, cut it to size, and laminated them over the wood. 000_0022-3 by John Moore posted Apr 24, 2016 at 7:33 PM
I got to sit down a do a little redesign tweak to the harbor area now that I have those little containers. Tomorrow I have to find some of my regular flats and see if some small magnets will work with them. If they do I will take some of the paper containers and mount the magnets in the wood cores and create some containers loads for them. My Bandai containers are about 14 feet long where the paper ones are 20 footers. Thinking about a load/unload operation most likely a harbor crane at pier side that can handle ship to railcar. Three to four months until the move if all goes well.
Sympathies...Hurry Up & Wait SUCKS....! This recalls two Vultures on a tree limb..."Patience, Hell. I'm going down and Kill something!"
Started the last four paper containers this morning and while the wood glue sets on the wood blocks I am putting the paper around I am installing magnets. Some of the Bandai kits came with a magnet coupler option and naturally I saved them. Last night I found that they have enough grip through the plastic shell of some models of 45 foot flat cars to hold the containers in place. Drilling out the bottoms of the homemade containers I snipped the car mount bracket off and mounted the magnets with GOO. 000_0023-1 by John Moore posted Apr 25, 2016 at 10:24 AM Meanwhile Wesa, AKA the Big Guy, is taking a break from supervising and not a bit concerned about the move as long as his hammock gets packed. Download by John Moore posted Apr 25, 2016 at 8:56 AM
Two months ago I started my experiment with some Japanese N scale, primarily the Bandai B Train Shortys. The first phase was to order some passenger power and I chose a model that would resemble a shorter more compact version of a RDC. The kits came in two car sets with a cab car and a coach and the cost of each two car set was about $12. The Kato mechanism cost about $21 and I decided to have the cab cars at each end powered for potential grades on the next layout. The Kato running trucks under each unpowered coach cost approx. $2.50 each. At the same cost that I could buy two coaches of 80-85 foot length I had a complete train for $71. With the addition from the parts box of some air horns and some long out of production Sunrise headlight casting I Amercanized them. Substitution of T shank Unimates for the Bandai drawbars between cars gave me closer coupling but still handled 8 inch radius curves and under. At the time my passenger fleet had been reduced to 34, 50, and 60 foot passenger cars and the 50 and 60 foot cars had some running limitations on my radius and the tighter turnouts. The new passenger cars at 32 feet long each had no issues running and in fact ran better than what I had in testing, especially on the tight radius of 8 inch and the Peco turnouts that had 7.5 inch radius. The running performance and the fact that I could Americanize them relegated my entire remaining fleet of these cars to the storage box and I opted to purchase additional car sets, enough to have one more set of a three car train. One of the extra coaches was converted to a cab car with the extra parts in each kit and I constructed another baggage/express cab car out of some donor side and again using extra parts out of the kits. I discovered a baggage/express car kit and two of the cars were made into postal cars replacing my kit bashed 47 foot cars with 32 foot cars and one box car out of the set became a mail storage car. The remaining three cars in the set became a club car, a diner/cafe car, and a business car. Add in my kit bashed 34 foot open tourist cars and I have either a business train or an excursion train to be pulled by my 4-4-0. Passenger needs satisfied I turned my attention to some freight, and again Bandai because what caught my attention was the small containers of about 13 foot length. Again those sets come with two cars and four containers to a set. Same price as the passenger cars. They come with display trucks (dummy trucks) and one buys either the Bandai freight trucks or Kato running trucks to run on the rails. The Bandai trucks come in sets to do 4 cars. Couplers are the next issue since both the Kato trucks and the Bandai trucks only come with Rapidos. I found that a T shank Unimate (that had the T shank portion trimmed some) or the Kato couplers fit the Bandai coupler boxes. Advantage went with the Bandai trucks because I could use the truck side frames provided in each kit. Note here that the Bandai trucks take the side frames from the kits unlike Kato's trucks where the side frames are cast on. Bandais mechanisms also take sideframes unlike Katos. Why these container flats and small containers you ask. Because it fits into my modeling scheme and downsized layout. The containers are a good fit as a deck cargo on my small vessels and barges. 13 and 20 foot containers fit better in the confined spaces of my small port. For the 20 foot containers I made my own for the following web site. http://www.igshansa.de/igsdownload.html I am using some of my 45 foot flats to haul them. Next I turned my attention to tank cars and liquid bulktainers. The liquid bulktainers are 20 foot and fit on the Bandai container flats although of a different brand. I have two and two more are on order. I also had been looking at the beer can shorty tank cars but for the price I could get a set of two tank cars by Bandai just a little larger so I took the plunge this week and order three sets. They will go into dedicated marine varnish, terpentine, and creosote haulage from a plant located near the sawmill to the port. Lastly I turned my attention to some new power that could equal the small fleet of LL SWs, that although they could handle the tight radiuses, were not the equal in performance to the fleet of 44 and 7o tonners or my Shays. Plus lack of parts support and a maintenance headache made them prime candidates for replacement. The Bandai DD51 and the DE10 caught my eye and especially after viewing the video I posted earlier here I decided to take a chance on them. Using the Bandai #5 power chassis they were purchase for again about $12 for a single and $24 for a double set of DD51s. The mechanisms for each ran at $24. They are comparable in size to both the 44 and 70 tonners and with the Tungsten putty I have shoehorned in the body exceed the pulling power of of the SWs and the 44 and 70 tonners. I settled on using the Kato coupler after trying several other different combinations. Other than one SW8 and one SW9 all the LL Sws have been permanently retired from my motive power roster now. The only thing I would have done differently would been to purchase out right at the start the Bandai #3 mechanism for the passenger instead of the Kato 105-107 series. One #3 mechanism would power easily the passenger consists up to 5-6 cars on the grades. For me this has worked out great. The smaller size has been compatible with my existing N scale rolling stock. I found that the Bandai running trucks are as good as the existing MT trucks as far as free rolling. The only thing is you are limited to the choices of couplers. The other issue is the lack of availability of the Kato running truck and the Bandai running truck to Japanese and European markets. I have found the the Japanese modelers have adapted these to DCC , and directional lighting with red to white depending on whether the cab is trailing or leading. A number of the car kits have different roof options allowing electric or diesel modeling and Kato, and Tomix make replacement pantagraphs that can replace the existing plastic kit ones. For a small city background with a trolley line these are not bad models to have running in the background. And using the draw bars in the passenger kits capable of tight radiuses of under 7 inches. And for the critter builders the Bandai #3 or #5 mechanism with it's all 8 wheel drive is a better choice that the Kato with it's 4 wheel drive. It is also a poor man's choice for a bullet train of 6 cars with a single Bandai three mechanism in a middle car. Again see the earlier posted video back at the beginning pages of this thread. Below is a photo of the existing Bandai passenger and freight with some of the smaller steam and a few of the 44 and 70 ton diesels. The excursion/business train in front with the 4-4-0 gets the cheater car when Amazon ever ships me the Bandai #3 mechanism. 000_0024-1 by John Moore posted Apr 27, 2016 at 9:40 AM Size wise everything fits. On order still are the tank cars, one more set of container flats with containers, the liquid bulktainers, two more fishing boats which seem to be drying up, and a barge which should be here next week. Thinking about some refrigerated 20 foot containers to use with the fish market and cannery.
John, excellent recap, thanks. Your equipment roster is enviable for your back story, and should be lots of fun creating a layout with which they can play.
Mr. Moore, containers like these? http://www.some train store.com/Deluxe-Innovations-N-20-Container-ANL-p/dlx-30041.htm
Link doesn't work but if you were trying to link to the 20 foot containers, whether conventional or bulktainer, they show out of stock. Same for the refrigerated containers also in the 20 foot version.
To me creating the rest of the story ala Paul Harvey is part of the fun. Linking it altogether is more fun. The port supports a fishing fleet, which supports a cannery, which ships by reefer or container by rail. The ships need fuel and supplies which come in by barge or tank cars on a car float. Railroad serves the car float. Sawmill ships by rail, in boxcars to the mainland, or to the harbor to be ship loaded. Some valuable woods go into containers to be shipped overseas either direct from the port or go by car float to Washington State. Pinewood chips go from the sawmill to a plant that distills terpentine, and wood creosote that goes into the tankcars for either ship loading or car float to the mainland. The bulktainers the same except they are deck cargo for shipment overseas. A produce cannery operates in the port and the shipping is again done in containers, reefers or boxcars. The quarry ships by rail and then barge or ship. Roads are far and few in between and generally lousy thus a flourishing passenger service. The port hosts a ship repair and a marine salvage company, a marine research outfit, NUMA, and is the base for a small USCG fleet. Civilian traffic to and off the Island is by seaplane or ferry. The train station serves both with connections to the ferry service and ticket sales for all three. I've managed to tie together my marine interests, railroading, logging and quarrying in one package. Got away from road name specific locos and can now run any car that is 40 foot with whoevers name is on it. Best part is that 95% of the structures are already built and packed up for the move. I finally have arrived at a point where in my doddering old age where I am happy with what I have. Just have to get relocated and settled and build the layout that is operationally geezer friendly.
One thing I am looking at is whether the containers will fit on the Bandai cars. In that regards Tomix (TomyTec) makes quite a few. The scratch built 20 footers out of paper I am using some 45 foot flat cars for. The one set that I was interested in was a selection of 20 foot bulktainers and containers by Delux as a set. Alas they are out of stock everywhere. Since then I have found similar containers at a Japanese site that do fit the Bandai cars. Incidentally the Bandai flats are about 34 foot long and either will take a single 31 foot ,a 20 foot, or the 13 foot ones I currently have. I probably going to feed my sawmill either by a flume or a highline from out of the woods which will free up a lot of my 34 ft log cars which will then go into container service. Using that design on my sawmill log feed will free up quite a bit of space, and I will just need to buy containers.
If I can get enough fishing boat kits from TomyTec I may modify a few of my trawlers to carry deck cargo. And I currently have one vessel the lumber carrier Nogero that can hold them. Lumber Carrier by John Moore posted Dec 6, 2012 at 8:53 PM Also have my fleet of tugs and some barges that may be loaded with containers for the mainland ports. Looked at one vessel that was in N scale as a potential candidate for a modification. Alas it was out of stock. Can't go to large though as the port area will have limits. I have to fit in quite a few vessels. You can see the fleet of barges and vessels here. http://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?media/albums/maritime-vessels.2866/
Mr. Moore, alougth really expesive, it is pretty! https://nscaleships.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/portbow3.jpg
