Kanjiyama

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Some of you may recall an attempt I made in the 2010 challenge to construct a small Japanese terminus layout based on the now closed station at Kanayaguchi. Well, the project proved rather more long-term than I would have liked, and the layout was pulled from the challenge.

 

Well, the layout was not abandoned, just 're-paced' (to use the IT project euphemism), and two years after inception is still under way.

 

Construction is actually reasonably advanced, with the track down, wiring completed and ballasting more or less done. Most of the buildings have been obtained and put together and a start has been made on the scenic superstructure . The aim is to finally get it finished - or at least in a presentable state - for our club open day in October...7 months.

 

So where is Kanjiyama? All fictional of course, but enough to give a sense of place...

 

Kanjiyama is a small town in the heart of the Akaishi Mountains - the Southern Japanese Alps; within JR Eastern territory. It is difficult terrain, served by a single-track diesel operated line, which links Kanjiyama with Kofu on the Chuo line. Originally the line continued on to Sakuma on the Iida line, but this section of the line was closed down during mass closures of the 1980s, just missing out on privatisation by seeing its last trains in 1986. A reasonably healthy patronage as well as being the junction with the now third-sector Kanjiyama line, saw the remaining 35 miles to Kanjiyama retained.

 

The branch line which heads away from Kanjiyama was transferred to local operators in 1987, the move being planned for a little while and saving the line from being closed along with the Kanjiyama to Sakuma section. Despite modernisation changing the rolling stock on the JR Eastern section - passenger services were for many years exclusively in the hands of KiHa110 DMUs, with only now having their monopoly challenged by the latest KiHa130 units - a taste of past times can still be enjoyed on the Kanjiyama line, with a mixture of older units and railcars being put to work.

 

This view shows the main station and town section. The JR Eastern platforms (1 and 2) are towards the back...platform 1 holding the usual fare for travellers on this line - a single car KiHa110. he Kanjiyama line uses platform 3 - in the foreground. Today their passengers are being treated to a two car KiHa58 unit; some may argue a far more comfortable - albeit a little noisier - offering than their JRE counterpart!

 

The station is a standard Kato product, given the attention of a paint brush. Buildings in the town are a mixture, with mainly Kato and Tomytec visible in this shot.

 

Sometimes things get a little busier on the JR line, prompting something with a little more capacity...that gap in the platform needs some attention!

 

Away from the station area, the landscape rises before being swallowed by the dense woodland that covers the valleys in this region. There are still a number of gaps here... the occupants of said gaps (in the form of two Sankei apartment buildings and a small factory) are currently winging their way over from Japan. To the left of the picture is a farmhouse with outbuilding. The two small buildings the opposite side of the road (just discernible) are farm workers cottages. In the foreground, the cross over linking the Kanjiyama line with the JRE line can clearly be seen.

 

The cross over is mainly used for freight access.

 

The Kanjiyama line is extremely fortunate to serve an area where the roads are not great, meaning any freight of any volume has to go by rail. In reality this is limited to the aggregates trains that operate in this area. In addition a clearly uneconomical fuel oil train is also operated.

 

From a JR Freight point of view, motive power is almost exclusively in the hands of a DE10, with a DD51 sometimes deputising. The Kanjiyama line has a couple of locomotives, although the aggregates trains are almost exclusively in the hands of their flagships - a pair of ex JNR DF50 locomotives...one of which they insist on fitting with headboards, reminiscing on the days when these locos hauled the most prestigious of diesel expresses.

 

The operation for the freight train is quite simple. The train arrives from the JR line and pulls into platform 3. The Kanjiyama line loco then runs out of the stabling sidings, hooks onto the end of the train and takes it up the branch. The JRF loco then runs to the stabling point to await the train's return. When it does return the whole process is reversed.

 

At the opposite end of the layout, things are a little less advanced. Here we have the stabling sidings for the Kanjiyama line, also used by the JRF loco, as well as the fiddleyard. The fiddleyard will be hidden beneath the hillside eventually.

 

So there we are, the first introduction of Kanjiyama. It has taken two years to get it to this point - one of my excuses is that it is in the shed, and I am a wimp when it comes to the cold! Hopefully it won't be another two years before it is completed!

[Claude_Dreyfus]

More work on Kanjiyama today, but this time away from the layout itself. My latest delivery from Japan turned up during the week containing a couple of Greenmax tunnel mouths and three Sankei 'paper' kits...in reality laser-cut cardboard.

 

This is the first time I have attempted some of their kits, but the word was they were not too difficult, and produced to a very high quality.

 

First up was a small factory building.

 

As can be seen in the picture above, the parts are very cleanly cut, only requiring a tiny cut with a sharp knife to remove them. The three kits I have all follow more or less the same technique of having double layered walls - enabling a far smoother join between edges, as the dovetails are in the inner walls.

 

All that I required for construction was a knife, cutting board, metal rule and some glue.

 

As with so many other Japanese models, instructions are not in English. Fortunately there are good visual directions, which meant construction was a straight forward task.

 

The factory was chosen first as it looked to be the simplest to construct, and began with the main building. The double walls were put together and the glazing - simply a piece of clear plastic cut to size - added. These were then positioned onto the base, followed by the attached out building, with its very finely detailed support girders.

 

 

Following this, the roof was added, thereafter the extra details around the windows. You will see that some of the walls did become a little separated towards the top. This was resolved when the roof was fitted.

 

All in all, this took about 1 and a half hours of work, but was certainly a nice little kit to construct. All that is left to do is to just take the white edges off from the edge of the roof. This is because the roof colours were on a separate sheet of printed card that needed to be cut out, as opposed to just having the sprues removed form the laser cut.

 

The finished product is a really nice model, with some very fine details. Yes, the access steps along the side of the building are cardboard as well.

 

Next came to apartment block featured in the first picture, which had a slightly more complicated feature of the full balcony along the side of the structure. The kit of parts were a little more involved than the factory.

 

With this model, I remembered to photograph the wall assembly, which in this case is the more complicated access side of the building. With all three of the models I have, the brown is the inner wall.

 

 

The card is very strong, and is forgiving of a decent amount of glue. I used Copydex for this part of the construction.

 

Although looking complicated, the balcony section was fairly easy to apply, assisted by accurately positioned locating holes and perfectly correct dimensions of the different parts.

 

Again with the factory all that remains to be done on this model is to colour the ends of the roof and window tops.

 

I have been looking forward to trying these kits for quite some time, and although not cheap - they cost about £10.00 each - they make up a really high-standard model with certainly makes them worth the price. These Sankei kits show what is capable for cardboard buildings, and do come thoroughly recommended.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Also included in my consignment of buildings were a pair of tunnel mouths.

 

Today, as part of work to the superstructure of the scenery, I tied them out for size, and discovered to my horror that they were too wide! Some hasty measuring indicated to me that none of the commercially available Japanese tunnel mouths would be suitable for the space...and I really did not want to get the PECO versions and try to hack them around.

 

Answer?

 

Build it myself.

 

This should be a simple answer, except I have never built a tunnel mouth before...or much else. I decided to use my original purchases as a template - I liked the design...it was why I bought them in the first place, and them play around with the widths to ensure they fitted into the space available.

 

I have quite a bit of mount board, which is ideal for this purpose.; being strong, fairly forgiving when trying to cut thin slivers and (hopefully) not liable to warping when painted.

 

Firstly, I used the Greenmax tunnel as a template to draw the 'hole'. From them I worked outwards making sure the whole ensemble did not exceed 6cm in width. To allow for the multi layered effect of the original, the main part of the tunnel is double mounted... the inner section appears at the top as part of the support structure.

 

What the picture below does not show, as the lighting is not very good in the room the pictures were taken, is the light scoring across the main part of the tunnel mouth to show the concrete sections the prototype would be constructed from. When painted, these lines will be a little more prominent.

 

All in all, this took me about 45 minutes, and does not look too bad for a first attempt. As I said, it still needs to be painted, and will be finished as concrete. I will also add the distinctive fence along the top of the tunnel.

 

This picture shows my attempt on the right, beside the Greenmax offering to the left.

 

The third sector line tunnel will be different...less clean-looking and a little more rural. It will also be a bit smaller, partly because I have about 5mm less space to play with. I am still working out if this will be stone or brick effect.

 

I'm quite pleased with these efforts so far, and it certainly gives the layout a little something different to have some scratch built structures on it...no matter how simple.

[Guest AlexTM]

Hi,

 

Must admit to knowing nothing about Japanese railways and further not having giving much thought to them. This, however, is good and interesting; I'll keep watching. I like the look of the laser-cut card buildings. Do you find that you have to import a lot from Japan or are there retailers here that supply?

 

Wish you well with this.

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the positive comments... Many of the items on the layout have been imported from Japan, in particular the Sankei structures. You can get quite a few of the Kato and Tomytec items from here in the UK.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

More scenic progress to report...this time at the other end of the layout where I felt progress was clearly lacking.

 

Before this, however, I had one more Sankei structure to complete. This was the most complicated of the three, but made up a really nice model.

 

 

 

Perhaps the pictures don't show it in the best possible light...and yes, I still need to line out the roof edging to get shot of the white from the tile paper.

 

Now the three Sankei buildings are complete, I was able to roughly position them on the layout in more or less where they will be living. The landscape still has to be properly formed, but I hope you get the idea. There will be a tree lined bank between the right-hand Sankei building and the much larger Kato structure beside it.

 

 

A drawback with these very fine kits is that they are perhaps too fine compared with the altogether more 'rural' Tomytec offerings. This does look odd, so I have had to separate them to an extent...trees will come in very useful here!

 

The previously mentioned Kato apartment is the final town building to be added...save for a few small outbuildings etc. It was purchased to fill a large gap which I had not accounted for. It is still a bit bright, however will be toned down in due course.

 

This rather indifferent picture shows the overall townscape, awaiting the finer landscaping features before the first layer of paint and plaster is applied.

 

 

At the other end, the fiddle yard has now been obscured by a new hillside.

 

 

Just visible in the foreground is the start of the form work for the front hillside, which will be relatively high. I liked this idea as it would loose the trains in the landscape to a certain extent...and try to disguise the fact the layout is only 1'6'' wide. The area I have to play with in terms of the third-sector companies yard is now a little more apparent.

 

 

This final image shows the front edging more clearly. This is to protect the scenery from the front, and at the board join. The pink foam will form the main basis of the hillside. The woodwork will be painted black to blend in with the framework at the front of the layout.

[kiwinewt]

Looking good - Cant wait to see it progress!

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Progress has been really good this weekend...by virtue of the Easter break and my usual reluctance to go away over this period; really busy roads, still unpredictable weather etc. The scenic structure is more of less complete now, just some finer details to complete before starting on the colour. This is the state of play yesterday...

 

 

The hill has been completed on the left, whilst the road now heads into the background. Its sudden stop will be where the backscene cuts across from the back of the layout to run behind the half-hill hiding the fiddle yard.

 

Today was about completing (more or less) the hillside and start adding the plaster and mod-roc.

 

 

There are still a few gaps around the tunnel mouths. This will be concrete retaining walls, which may be added tomorrow depending on the weather. The new road section can be seen on the right with the blue car marking its course. There needs to be another layer of plaster over the hillside to hide the bandages of the mod-roc.

 

Now that the hill is in place, access will be a little restrictive to the track accessing the yard. When complete most of this area will be covered with trees.

 

Talking of which...

 

 

I have a number of trees for Kanjiyama. First up is a box of cheepo Chinese trees, which will form the background of the woodland. Mixed in with these will be some of the Woodland Scenics 00 branches from their tree kits. Ideal for smaller N gauge trees. Finally are the trees in this picture.

 

They are produced by 4D Workshops. Their shop is in London, more or less outside of Fenchurch Street station, and about 15 minutes walk from my work. Although mainly aimed at architectural modelling, these suit me perfectly...they just happen to be 1/150!

 

Amongst this lot are beech trees, silver birch, pine and a more general deciduous...one of which is bare. There is also a tree in blossom, which will take over from the Tomytec blossom trees for the orchard at the front of the layout.

 

The next picture was taken this afternoon, now having had the first of the plaster surface added.

 

 

The white strips are intended for tow purposes. First to mark around the buildings, adding a little extra road height and therefore disguising the bases. Secondly was to mark out distinctive areas. The area around the station will have a very different road surface.

 

The roadway continues through the village...

 

 

I need to get that retaining wall behind the tracks completed as a next task, before getting the sand paper out to smooth those road surfaces...

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Today I was able to take a couple of hours adding the first layers of colour to the layout. The base colour is a mixture of brown and green poster and powder paints, which dry quickly, and will be absorbed by the scuptamould, hopefully disguising any of the inevitable chips and knocks that are bound to take place.

 

The tunnels are starting to look more in place now, although there is still some work to do inside to hide the white foamboard used for the superstructure. Some additional scattering has been added to the trackbed since this picture was taken...

 

That picture, and the next, show the first of the buildings to be fitted in place. This is a small farm building beside the orchard, which I have needed to build into the landscape as it has quite a prominent base. The white around and leading to it will be a farm track. In the distance, some further work has taken place in the yard...

 

...which is seen a little clearer here.

 

This is the basis for a hard standing area around the yard, which is formed from mountboard, with the joins filled in by the same fine plaster used for the road surfaces. Where the board ends is filled with a little balsa filler, and will lead on to a gravelled/dirt area. There may well be another small building towards the front of this area as well.

 

Another view of the orchard area and entrance to the yard.

 

The other building to be attached is the second farm shed. This will be beside the farm house, and again is slightly built into the landscape. Both of these structures are Tomytec.

 

This picture shows an overall view of the country end of the layout, with the farm, farm buildings and workers cottages visible. You can see in the very foreground the base for the factory unit in place and given an undercoat of grey paint.

 

The retaining wall behind the station needs to be completed - I cut the plasticard for this today - as well as the road surface, before the niceties of scatter and attaching the buildings is looked at...

[Claude_Dreyfus]

More progress, and this time progress is certainly tangible. The flock powders are starting to be added...

 

Work has been carried out in almost all parts of the layout over the lest two days, so to save jumping around, below is a little photographic tour of the layout from the station to the yard...

 

In the town the first of the buildings have been stuck down and bedded in. The car park has had a surface added, and the road has been painted with a textured paint. This did require some sanding as the texture is a little too course. I do quite like the colour of the road, the grey is fairly light...I do find a lot of N gauge roads too dark.

 

Moving on, the area around the apartments has been covered, and the first layers of grass added. The base of the factory unit is also in place and painted. Most of the buildings here have now been fitted in place and bedding in also taking place.

 

Further up the layout, the farm and out building are in place; although the Tomytec farm needs a little more work. A small yard is now in place at the front of the layout, now home to a portacabin. The beginnings of the orchard are on the right at the front.

 

The road at the front leading away from the yard serves a small outbuilding in the orchard. The main road disappears into the backscene at this point, and you can see the junction for the stabling yard clearly.

 

Finally we have the yard. There is still some work to do here, as it still looks very bare. Just constructed and not in this picture is another portacabin and a small concrete permanent way building; from Tomytec and Greenmax respectively. There will probably be another couple of small buildings to the left-hand side of the yard...although I don't want it too cluttered. When the layout is complete this view will be partially hidden by a small extension to the backscene to protect the tree line, which runs along the top of the hill. The ground covering in the area where the trees will be at their most dense will be more brown than green.

 

I really need to remember buffer stops!

 

This final picture shows the retaining wall beside the station, which has now been completed...

 

It still looks very bare at the moment...hopefully the addition of the trees will will change the appearance.

[Bibby Line]

Very reminiscent of Japan, looks good and good progress.

 

Look forward to seeing developments and some people !

 

Eddie

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Thanks for the comment.

 

Ah yes, people.

 

There will be people on Kanjiyama, but not too many. More rural locations such as this are very quiet in the main... There is some concern over the depopulation of the countryside as more people - especially the young - move to the cities for a better standard of living. This means it would not look right for full platforms and thronging streets.

 

Also I don't want to emphasise the fact only the trains are moving. So the majority of the people will be in sedentary poses and the road vehicles will be parked etc.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

When we left Kanjiyama last, the town was progressing slowly, but the yard has been left behind a little.

 

Well, the layout needed to be disassembled for a trip to railway club for a running session, as well as giving me the chance to see what had been missed out in terms of painting etc. When it returned home, some long-overdue tidying was carried out in the shed, meaning that the layout was kept dismantled, and work progressed on the boards separately.

 

This time I decided to focus my attention on the yard to start off, with the first of the buildings being added. This view shows the still rather bare yard - note Phaal in the background enjoying some rare time in the garden (as the weather has been so bad over the last few weeks). Guinea Pigs make great lawn mowers!

 

 

Buoyed by this early progress, work continued adding little details such as buffer stops and guard rails, as well as the usual detritus seen in yards of this nature - still more bits to add on this score. Finally one of the yard buildings was nicked off of Yamanouchi Oshika (replaced by a portacabin) and re-sited in the yard. This view shows a Micro Ace KiHa53 basking in the afternoon sunshine. In the distance can be seen the encroaching tree-line along the back of the layout, which will cover the top of the embankment.

 

 

Moving on from the yard, the basic orchard has been added, along with a tractor and trailer. This is a Tomix product, supplied with one of the agricultural buildings. It is quite nice, but a little basic, and had a slightly wonky axle. This, and its trailer, has been stuck down.

 

 

Pulling back, the trees can be seen clearly here. The ground around them may have some extra detailing, and something else needs to be in the yard...but I'm not sure what as yet.

 

 

Pulling back even further, the trees above the tunnel can now be clearly seen. There is still a way to go here; Yamanouchi Oshika was car-hungry (it takes well over 100 vehicles and still does not look too crowded), whereas Kanjiyama is tree-hungry. So far both boards have consumed 55 trees, with plenty more scope.

 

 

More detailing has gone on with the town, with the final plastic buildings being fitted in place - the Sankei structures will remain loose. The last two were the shops. This was because their interiors were clearly visible, and were plain grey plastic. I had to add a little colour and lift to them, and this involved finding some suitable transfers and a couple of people. These additions can be seen in this rather indifferent picture.

 

 

More trees and green have been added to the town overall as well...

 

 

...and finally I have been able to more or less complete the farm. Still as few trees to go in here though.

 

 

I'm getting to the point where the final large piece of work cannot be put of any longer - the backscene. I have gone through hundreds of possible pictures, but it looks like I may need to get creative with the paint brush to fit it in to the layout design - matching up roads and the like.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

It has been a couple of months since the last update, although to be honest not a lot has really taken place; at least on the face of it.

 

Activity has been centred on the stabling yard board, with a low back scene being added, predominantly to protect the row of trees that run along the hillside. Most of these are now in place, with only a couple required to give a little more depth to the woodland behind the yard. The majority of the trees are from the Woodland Scenics tree kits, but only the branches, which are ideal for medium sized trees in N gauge. The rest of the really nice offerings from 4D workshop, although similar versions are available from Graham Avis. Adding these trees is a long job, but hopefully looks well worth the effort.

 

The yard still needs some extra bits and pieces, for example a couple of oil drums are needed for water and oil (to service the third-sector lines units) and sand. An old container may well be pressed into service for extra storage. Fuelling facilities for the units is provided by the road tanker seen in the foreground of this view of a JRF DE10 being stabled between duties.

 

 

A general view can be seen here...

 

 

 

The siding at the back is used for stabling locos for the stone trains that cross between the Kanjiyama line and the main line, alternating between the JRF and Kanjiyama locos. The other two sidings are used to stable and service the branch line units, this next view showing that the two-car KiHa58 set just about fits!

 

 

This overall view of the board shows that the hillside at the front of the layout still needs some work to be carried out. The grass needs improvement, such as improvement to the ground cover - it will be the subject of the attention of a friend's Grasmaster over the next couple of weeks - and more trees.

 

 

Looking the other way, the woodland needs to extend to the board join, and there is a small section of back scene that requires fitting...that damage to the backboard behind the road also needs sorting out...

 

 

So there is plenty to keep me occupied on this board alone...I still have the town board to complete!

 

We have a club working day in a couple of weeks, which will give me a good solid 6 hours on it, before its showing at the club open day at the end of October.

[ess1uk]

nice looking layout

look like i imagine Japan

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Not too much has happened on the layout over the previous couple of months, although yesterday I finally managed to get a couple of hours in the dining room to put together the long overdue backscene for the station board.

 

I have been hunting around for quite some time for a suitable image to use. As Kanjiyama is set in the mountain, I wanted a mountainous scene, without looking too European, or American; however Japanese scenes are really tricky to get hold of, especially decent sized panoramas. European Alpine scenes would be fine, as many mountain views in Japan look German, or Swiss, with lots of pine and rocky outcrops.

 

In the end, it was not just one scene that was used. I had an overall image upon which I overlayed a number of smaller scenes, for example a closer hillside behind the farm. The various joins were disguised by trees and bushes.

 

This overall view shows the town board, although the light in the shed is not great.

 

 

The backscene runs behind the main station board, and along the station end. This is mainly to provide some protection for the buildings immediately behind the platforms along the end of the layout. This end board is still being completed, with a couple of additional pictures - including a view of the disused trackbed looking away from the station - to be added.

 

 

There are two roads which lead directly into the backscene in the town. The main road has a simple Japanese street scene culled from the net, whilst the other is simply a photo of one of the buildings already on the layout, cut out and fixed to the backscene. This keeps the style of building the same, as well as (and perhaps more importantly) the shade of road surface.

 

 

Finally we move up to the farm. The same technique as in the town has been used for the barn. In addition, an additional wooded hillside scene has been added to improve the visual effect...a number of trees have been added to try to blend the backscene.

 

 

It's not perfect...the colours are a little pale (although distance views often are) and you can see the joins. I am also not absolutely happy with the quality of the card used, it has not fixed to the backscene perfectly. That said, it looks pretty good, and I am reasonably pleased with it.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Thanks...

 

I am trying to create an impression of rural Japan, as opposed to something slavish. No temples or lots of shrines and pagodas...just an everyday little town. There is still a bit to do before it is ready, but it is intended for exhibitions...its due to its first exhibition in February.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Well, we are now into a new year...and this year the layout will be completed! It's only taken three years since delivery of the boards!

 

Over the last couple of months between jobs, I have been able to take advantage of some available time, and press on with those tasks that needed doing...just little things; extra foliage, a new shrine in the town centre, telegraph poles etc.

 

I am also on the homeward stretch as the layout is due at its first exhibition in February (the Midhurst show, Sunday 17th; the usual stamping ground for the club).

 

Today I was able to get a couple of pictures of the town board following an outing to the club last night for opinions (I have a list of minor tweaks and changes based on feedback!). This first shot shows the board with the board join dowels. These are really only guides, as the boards are held together by coach bolts.

 

 

Looking the other way, the main street can be seen clearly. I am still thinking about suitable road markings. At the very least I will need to unleash the steady hand (if one can be found!) and add the white lines along the shoulder of the road. The very front of the layout will need some attention as well. The front will be protected by a perspex sheet, so more growth and foliage will be added here.

 

 

The idea for the station design is that it was originally on a through route, which was curtailed in the mid 1980s. This means the tracks stop suddenly, however the track bed continues. Some time was spend hunting down a suitable picture for the back scene, which was blended with the main backscene image by using the footbridge, plenty of trees and a fence.

 

 

The opposite end of the station has had a couple of little details added. The foot crossing now has the yellow lining, and the two red stop lights have been added - orange poles - to guard the foot crossing. The small maintenance yard at the front still looks a little bare; I'll see what I can add without it getting cluttered. One of the new Kato Toyota Hiace vans - in JR Eastern livery - will be added to this area.

 

 

Back to the main station, and a couple of shots of the station with a Kato KiHa110 two-car DMU in platform 1. I have two of these two-car units and another two single cars, which form the basis of the JR Eastern passenger service on the branch.

 

 

 

Finally I have more or less completed the factory scene. A few pallets have been dotted around, as well as some fencing along the back. I'm quite pleased with it, although the yard surface needs a little more weathering. The rather nice lorry is a Tomytec product.

 

 

We have a final working day in about a months time before this layout, along with five others (yes five!) represent the club in some shape or form at the Midhurst show...

[Claude_Dreyfus]

We have had another of our club's occasional working days, in preparation for an upcoming exhibition, which has given me the opportunity to carry out some long overdue work on Kanjiyama.

 

First up is the completion and positioning of the fuelling point. This is not a slavish copy of anything in particular, more my version of the fuelling point shown in an earlier prototype photograph. It is probably not accurate either, with pipes leading to apparatus which seems to me to be logical, but is probably totally wrong in reality!

 

 

As you can see, it is of mixed parentage...with the pipe from the Tomytec lorry being wire casing, and the pipe to fuel the trains being black thread. I cannot recall the company that produced the really nice black and yellow fencing. The little man is a Preisler model, with just the right pose to fit behind the truck!

 

As well as some trees and stuff, the main addition to the layout is the plexiglass protection along the front...a necessity for exhibiting as it keeps fingers away from the stock and other fragile items! Here it is being fitted...

 

 

...and then following completion, with the addition of the curtain, especially made for the layout. Looks very smart!

 

 

Well, just a couple more weeks before showing, so I also sorted out my stock for the layout in a specific carry case. Saves all the hassle of unpacking and packing during the show... The case is the Parkwood 'Park 'n' Go'.

 

 

Finally, this a shot of a rather busy looking yard. I need to remember to fit the number plate to that TDE10!

 

 

Now only two weeks until Midhurst...hopefully see one or two there!  

[Claude_Dreyfus]

It has been a few months since Kanjiyama went out to play, and in all honesty since then not a lot has happened. I do, however, have a couple of photos of the layout on its last outing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The layout performed well, no real issues with track or electrics, and the stock always performs faultlessly. There will be some small tinkering, especially with the board joins, but in general the layout is essentially finished.

 

There are a couple of possible show invites in the pipe-line, but nothing confirmed. Anyone interested in a small Japanese layout at their show, let me know!

[Mark 37]

What an unusual yet rather interesting subject to find.

 

Mark

[Ralph]

Great looking set up, a change from UK/European/American layouts

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Thanks...

 

There is so much variety with Japanese railways, as well as support from the main manufacturers. Even something as obscure as a JR Eastern diesel-operated branch has most if the suitable stock available.

 

Cleaned out the shed today, and set up the layout on the patio. Idiot! It was in direct sunlight, and the perpex front buckled...! Hopefully as it is cooler tonight it will set itself right...if not, I might need to replace it.

[009matt]

Doh!

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Doh indeed!

 

Fortunately a quick check in the shed this morning revealed this had calmed down a little... Note to self for future; don't leave the layout in strong sunlight for any period of time!