Monday 24 December 2012

Attic

With the Christmas holidays here, i finally got up into the attic to have a look over what i have to work with.



 






A few years ago i was into wargaming, so i put 8 foot by 4 foot gaming table in the middle of the attic, and built a display shelf above to keep my armies in.  Here are some photos of what the space looks like now.  I have laid my stock out to see what i have got, and what needs added to it.

Having a wee boy seems to take up more space all over the house, so i have a lot of boxes.  I have floored the area under the eave's to put these boxes in.  I have a water tank in the top left hand corner of the attic, this sits about 3 feet high.  So my base boards will begin above this height.


    At the top end of the attic i have built a workstation which will sit just below track level.  Alot of the shelves in here will have to be taken out and re-sized to suit the Kato and Tomix Stock Boxes.

  
 



This is the display shelf i built to store my wargaming models and armies.  I still have two of them, so i will need to keep part of this to store them.



 I managed to grab the last of the carpet underlay to put down to help the attic a bit more comfortable, so once i have the base boards built i will put this down in the walkways.  I am hoping no to have any duck under's but i would like to get a long a run as possible with the trains, so it may mean i have to have one or two.  All the boards that are down just now will be removed.  So i have a clean open space to start with.  I will reuse what i can.  I am not sure if i am going to this a night time layout, as alot of the passenger locos i have, have interior lights.  But i am undecided on that front.









This give a view from one end to the other.  I am hoping to built a A main line station, with some hopefully very long runs.



 
 
 
 
My Stock so far, built i will need alot of building materials before i add much more to this.
 
 

Sunday 16 December 2012

Stocklist Extended

The EF81 class of electric locomotives are Bo-Bo-Bo wheel arrangement multi-voltage AC/DC electric locomotives operated on passenger and freight services in Japan

A Bo-Bo-Bo in UIC classification is a locomotive with three independent two-axle bogies with all axles powered. In the AAR system, this is simplified to B-B-B.
The Bo-Bo-Bo configuration is often used to lower axle weight while keeping lateral forces low compared to a locomotive with two three-axle bogies, thus allowing the locomotive to use lightly laid track, in particular narrow-gauge railways.




14 locomotives built in 1986 and 1987 and mostly operated along the Kanmon Tunnel, although some locomotives operating on a few "Blue Train" services served some railway lines in Kyushu, in particular sections of the Kagoshima Main Line and the Nippō Main Line as well as the entire Nagasaki Main Line.

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ED79 shape, the Japanese National Railways (JNR) is 1986 ( Showa from 1961) Tsugarukaikyosen was manufactured for exchanges for electric locomotive is. 国鉄分割民営化後にも、 日本貨物鉄道 (JR貨物)が1989年平成元年)から新製した。 Privatization of JNR division even after, Japan Freight Railway (freight JR) is 1989 ( Heisei Shin was manufactured from 1989).




 
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Kato 10-412 Eiden 900 Kirara 2-Car Set, Orange



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The DF50 class of diesel-electric locomotives were Bo-Bo-Bo wheel arrangement locomotives operated by Japanese National Railways (JNR) in Japan.

DF50-0
Full-production batch delivered from 1957 with 8LDA25A 1,060 hp engine. 65 locomotives were built.

DF50-500
Later batch with V6V22/30MA 1,200 hp engine. 73 locomotives were built.




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Diesel locomotive form DE15 (Kikan-sha diesel ye Dii 15), Japanese National Railways was medium-sized development, design, manufacture (JNR) liquid formula for snow removal diesel locomotive





As locomotive plowing ceremony Russell, 1961 to form DD15 but had appeared, when the devices are installed snowplow axle load for is 15.5 tons, grade line to line section following line hei low is Nyusen I was unable to.  Therefore, in these low standard train schedule, from the old snowplow car was forced to perform in a manner that will promote snow removal in the locomotive.  Order to and modernization of high-performance vehicle plowing there, form DD20 -based, fixed to the locomotive equipment snow removal Russell form DD21 is 1963 was the prototype, in while wearing the device snowplow local line I stayed in the manufacture of only one car there is inconvenience to business operations and input Rectify the shortcomings of the form DD21, shape DE10 locomotive for snow removal can be Nyusen is this format to train schedule standard low was developed based on, in 1967 from 1981, both total of 58 were produced between the time During snow removal before and after the main body 2 axes locomotive bogie connecting the Russell head was used.  In addition to stage snow removal will stop to consider that it is also used to tow the car貨列customers mainline industry and input on campus, work focused solution consolidated Russell head has been designed to be labor saving simplicity.







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Monday 3 December 2012

Stock list and Loco Info

The following is a Stock-list of all the loco's i own, and what they would have looked like in the real-world.  I have tried to find any information i can on each one to give an idea what they are about.

As i buy more Loco's i will update the lists.


Kato 10-388 223-100 Series Electric Car

This is a nice 4 car unit with full lighting inside and directional lighting on the front and rear.

 
 

 

 
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Kato 10-296 209-500 Series (SOBU LINE COLOUR) Yurakucho Line
 
The Tokyo Metro Yūrakuchō Line (有楽町線 Yūrakuchō-sen?) is a subway line owned and operated by Tokyo Metro. The line connects Wakōshi Station in Wakō, Saitama and Shin-Kiba Station in Kōtō, Tokyo. On maps, diagrams and signboards, the line is shown using the color "gold", and its stations are given numbers using the letter Y.

Services
The Yūrakuchō Line has inter-running counterparts on its northern side, both of which are "major" Japanese private railway companies in Greater Tokyo. One is the Tōbu Railway at Wakōshi, north to Shinrinkōen. The other is the Seibu Railway at Kotake-Mukaihara with its bypass line Seibu Yūrakuchō Line connecting to its main Ikebukuro Line, through trains north to Kotesashi or Hannō.
According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, as of June 2009 the Yūrakuchō Line is the fifth most crowded subway line in Tokyo, at its peak running at 173% capacity between Higashi-Ikebukuro and Gokokuji stations.
Semi-express (準急?) services ran on the Yūrakuchō Line between June 14, 2008 and March 6, 2010, operating twice hourly between Wakōshi and Shin-Kiba. Between Wakōshi and Ikebukuro, semi-express trains stopped only at Kotake-Mukaihara; between Ikebukuro and Shin-Kiba, trains stopped at all stations. The semi-express trains ran between rush hours during weekdays and more frequently on weekends and holidays. These services were abolished and replaced with local services on March 6, 2010.

 
 


 
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Kato 10-227 M250 Series Super Rail Cargo
 
The M250 Series Super Rail Cargo is a freight electric multiple unit (EMU) train type operated by Japan Freight Railway (JR Freight) in Japan. It entered service in 2004 with the objective of reducing emissions and carrying general freight for small package forwarders (such as special delivery services). The M250 series is JR Freight's first container train with distributed traction. It is manufactured by Nippon Sharyo, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Toshiba.
 


 
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10-397 700 Series Shinkansen "Nozomi"
 
The 700 series (700系?) is a Japanese Shinkansen high-speed train type built between 1997 and 2006, and entering service in 1999. Originally designated as "N300", they formed the next generation of shinkansen vehicles jointly designed by JR Central and JR West for use on both Tōkaidō and Sanyō Shinkansen lines.
 
Design
The 700 series is characterized by its flat 'duck-bill' nose designed to reduce the piston effect as the trains enter tunnels. 16-car units are painted white with blue stripes beneath the windows, and are used for Nozomi, Hikari, and Kodama services on the Tōkaidō and Sanyō Shinkansen lines, while 8-car units used for the Sanyō Shinkansen Hikari Rail Star services have a darker livery (grey with black window areas and a yellow stripe beneath the windows) which also acts to visually deemphasize the units' nose area, resulting in a more streamlined impression.
As with the 500 series trains, yaw dampers are fitted between vehicles, and all cars feature semi-active suspension to ensure smooth ride characteristics even at high speed. Compared with the small fleet of high-performance, high-cost 500 series trains built for JR West, these trains were designed to give improved ride comfort and interior ambience over the earlier 300 series trains at a lower cost than the 500 series trains. The cost of a 16-car 700 series unit is approximately 4 billion yen compared with around 5 billion yen for a 16-car 500 series train.


 

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10-474 251 Series "Super View Odoriko"
 
The Odoriko (踊り子?) is a limited express train service in Japan operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), which runs between Tokyo and Izukyū-Shimoda or Shuzenji in Shizuoka Prefecture.
 
Operations
Services are currently operated by 7-, 10-, and 10+5-car 185 series EMUs, making it the longest Limited Express train running in Japan (excluding shinkansen trains).
The word odoriko means a girl dancer in Japanese. The train service was named after the title of novel Izu no Odoriko (The Dancing Girl of Izu) by Yasunari Kawabata. The stage of the novel is the destination of the train, Izu Peninsula.



 
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 More to follow
 


 
 

 
 


Sunday 2 December 2012

Why Japanese N Gauge

Looking over all my railway stock i had a bit of everything, American, British and some German HO and OO.

Having floored my attic, put some walls and a roof up i had 17 foot (5m) by 7 foot (2.1m) to play with.  I started an On30 American backwoods steam logging layout, but found i just didn't have enough running in it.  So i moved to an American HO Steam Service layout,  but i was only able to get one loop of track in and it was not big enough for the long American Boxcar trains i was trying to run, so that was scrapped also.

The Railway club i am part of (The Thistle Modelmakers) decided to plan and build an Japanese N-gauge layout to take to shows, I had a wee look on E-bay and picked up a Kato 10-412 Two car unit in Orange for only £30m and that was from japan.




Kato 10-412
 
I was planning just to run this when the layout was at shows, maybe put some people inside, just to change it abit.
 
 
That was about 4 years ago and the club has still not got round to building this layout, so i have decided to put an Japanese N-gauge layout in my attic.  This will give me nice long runs and no shunting whats so ever.
 
John Bowman from my model railway club is building a huge 40 foot by 20 foot layout in a shed in his back garden, which will be American along the bottom level and German along the top.  As he had a load of Japanese N Gauge stock we decided to trade to expand our collections and give me one direction to follow.
 
So hopefully over the course of this blog i can cover my planning, Design and building of my Japanese N Gauge layout in the Attic which i have Called Kokutetsu.