Japan Train and Rail Blog

Filling in a few more gaps in the "ground" on the left end of the lower-level station:

As elsewhere, using Tamiya 3mm foamboard to build up a "base level" up to about sleeper level on the Tomix track. Once cut to shape, each piece can be removed to do scenic work on it in the comfort of my own workbench, rather than bending over the layout. Not a very conventional method, but makes life a lot easier.

The segment on the left will become an extension of the road which currently ends in the foreground.

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One of the perennial issues with N scale is laying ballast which doesn't look unplausibly oversized when viewed close-up (such as through the unforgiving lense of a digital camera).

The grey ballast here is Kato 24-331 (video in Japanese):

which is the finest ballast I've come across (I understand it's actually by Woodland Scenics) and doesn't look too bad, but still gives the impression the truck has driven up to the side of a river.

Assuming it's dried firmly in place, I've found vigorously rubbing it down with coarse sandpaper breaks down the individual ballast stones and smoothes it down giving something more akin to the "compacted ballast/aggregate" effect I'm after:

Treated (above) and untreated (below) in comparison:

Close-up of a treated section (left; the ballas next to the rails has not been treated yet):

Overall I'm quite pleased with the effect.

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Today's small but surprisingly time-consuming task was to install the dummy manual point levers Tomix provide with their points.

I went to the trouble of painting the lower half of the "indicator disc" (for want of a better word) white, as that seems prototypical. See e.g. this picture (from this page showing DD13 allocations).

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As part of the project to add two double-decker cars to Chuo Line E233 sets by 2023, lengthening them from 10 to 12 cars, most Chuo Line platforms will need to be extended.

Until very recently however there was very little sign of any construction activity. Most recently (2020-01-04) I noticed that the platform at Asagaya is being extended on the western end:

Other than that, currently I'm only aware of work at:

• Kunitachi (platform extension work)
• Nakano, where an extensive construction site has appeared at the western end of the station
• Ochanomizu (ongoing comprehensive rebuild)
• Ogikubo, where a small turnback siding on the west end of the platform has been resited somewhat further to the west, to create space usable as a platform

By the looks of it, most stations east of Tachikawa (other than maybe Ochanomizu and Nakano) have sufficient space at either end of their Chuo Line platforms for extensions without significant infrastructure work other than relocating various lineside equipment etc. currently occupying the space.

Stations which are limited express stops (Tokyo, Shinjuku, Tachikawa, Hachioji, Takao etc.) will presumably not require any major work as these are already equipped to handle 12 car expresses (Azusa etc.).

 

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I've been working on this layout in various forms for the last 5 years or so, and it seems to be taking an awful long time. Mind you, my free time has been quite limited due to work and domestic reasons, and it probably doesn't help that I've changed the design quite a bit as I go along. It occurred to me recently that it would be nice to look back and see how far things have come in 2019, so we'll start off with this piece of under construction embankment from January of that year:

A couple of weeks later it looked like this:

Following a change of plan, the embankment has since been moved 180 degrees around the layout (it's in the background of the picture in this recent post, with the above bridge just visible on the far left). Meanwhile, the lower level station was looking like this:

but has since also been relocated. Originally I wanted a wide-ish road with a tram line running down the middle (visible on the left), but that left very little space on the other side (right hand side as seen here) of the station for any kind of "town". The tramline has been relocated so it runs off to the right through the built-up area, and the station shifted to the left.

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Some minor modifications around the rear of the train depot.

Locomotive is a MicroAce 9600 class.

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Following the earlier post, a couple of impressions of the current state:

Obviously quite a few things still to do, but the general area is starting to look reasonably complete.

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A recent auction find was this pair of MicroAce DD51s - ca. 3,000 yen for the pair, unboxed.

DD51-1156 (on the left, catalogue number A8528) in JRF livery is currently a non-runner as it causes some kind of short circuit when placed on the track. The end railings are also somewhat loose and need fixing.

DD51-1805 (on the right, catalogue number A8521) was the last DD51 produced and the model is in as-delivered livery. Runs fine but one set of end steps is missing.

However these issues should be fixable, and at that price it's hard to complain.

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Concentrating on the rear of the train depot area at the moment, where it borders on a section of road and the lower-level loop.

The depot area is 5mm higher than the base scenery level, which is not a huge amount but enough to convey a subtle change in elevation and avoid the "flat baseboard" effect. It also helps give the impression that the lower-level loop beyond the crossing is in a shallow cutting.

Next steps are to fill in the gaps in the train depot ballast, finish off the transformer mast (the brown structure behind the truck with the square grey body) and add some detailing to that area.

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Currently mainly working on the depot area, which consists of five storage sidings and a short headshunt-style spur which will serve as a diesel fuelling point.

The sheds consist of a pair of Tomix train sheds intended for longer units, and a Tomytec single unit wooden shed, which doesn't look too incongruous next to the modern Tomix ones.

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