Although fictional, the idea has always been to locate Yamanouchi Oshika in some sort of reality, or at the very lest plausiability. Early on the location was set 'somewhere on the Chuo line', which although a start, still gave us over 400km of line to be more specific with.

Immediately some areas were ruled out. The Tokyo to Mitaka was not suitable as it was part of the rapid line, which is four-track. Also, this section is very heavily urbanised, more so than Yamanouchi Oshika, and relatively level, which the layout most definitely is not! Mitaka to Takao is also used by the suburban trains, and although not four track, again did not fit the layout design.

The variety of stock available in N gauge also guided us more to the eastern section...in any rate the western section had less prototypical variation than the east.

Takao to Shiojiri seemed to be the most suitable as it benefitted from being JR Eastern operated, therefore having all the interesting stock, and also running through less densely populated areas.

We had a location more or less sorted, however even this stage had proved challenging to reach. The big problem being the (relative) lack of English language material available on Japanese railways. Wikipedia assisted greatly, as did a number of other websites and forums...I am also a member of the JNS forum who specialise in Japanese modelling and prototypes. Being a member of the Japanese Railway Society also helped.

Research into particular train types and tentative forays into Japanese language websites...armed with Google translate...also enabled me to identify the types of trains that could be used. Also, now we knew the location we were looking at, a rough idea of the prefecture could be gained, and thereafter some scenic inspiration.

Much of the selected section of the Chuo line runs through the prefecture of Yamanashi, a mountainous area which contains Mount Fuji on its southern border. Indeed the donor names for the layout are small towns in the Yamanashi and neighbouring Nagano prefectures.

A huge boon to the research came earlier this year, when a friend in the Japanese Railway Society brought to my attention a series of books covering various Japanese lines, with detailed station photographs and track plans...oh and by the way they've just bought out a Chuo line edition.

Although this is entirely in Japanese, which is not a langauge I know at all, there are plenty of pictures as well a a plan of every station along the section of line Yamanouchi Oshika is set

So work goes on as we aim to get the layout into a presentable condition for the open day in a couple of months time. In the meantime, the research continues, with new and interesting little snippets cropping up on a regular basis.

So whilst Yamanouchi Oshika is, and will remain, a ficticious location, hopefully enough background work will be undertaken to give it a realistic grounding. Maybe a bit of a half-way house, but it certainly keeps the interest and after all, is that not why we all do this modelling lark?