Takadanobaba Station in Alameda

 Just a few days before we leave for Japan. The travel plans are mostly set. We fly into Osaka. We will be met by a guide who will help us convert currency and buy train tickets. First stop is Kyoto.  The next day will be a light day to allow us to get our bearings in Japan and see a little of Kyoto. I discovered that there's a Kato store in the Kyoto train station. I'm hoping to go there. If I don't make it, I'll hit hobby stores in Tokyo. Then we go to Hiroshima. To see the site of the dropping of the first atomic bomb and Peace Garden. Then back to Kyoto. All transport will be on the Shinkansen. That's the bullet train. The next day to Nara on a Kyoto to Nara direct train. Nara is the location of lots of tame deer. I'm looking forward to seeing them. At the end of the week we will again take the bullet train -- this time to Yamagata (via Tokyo) to visit a ryokan (a traditional Japanese inn). We will also go to the hot baths (onsen) and experience a Japanese T...

The flights have been booked. My wife and I are are still working on the hotel and in-country itinerary. We're headed on a two-week lifetime bucket-list trip to Japan. My interest in Japan goes back to the fall of 1969, when my parents travelled there. I was only six years old and not invited on the trip. I stayed at home with Granny. She's my father's mother and a significant influence in my love of trains. One of the souvenirs the parents brought back for me was a fold-out pamphlet for Japan National Railways' Shinkansen. I looked at that and at some point it fell apart from having been folded and unfolded. At that time, I didn't know much else about trains in Japan.  Well, I did know that Japan was a major source of brass locomotives imported into the U.S. (At least that's what I learned from the back pages of the model railroad magazines.) Fast forward to December 2021. At that time, I was recovering from rotator repair surgery (left side). With nothing else...

Train operations on the Takadanobaba will be automated. Unlike the B&OCT , which will feature a hands on operator action, this is a display layout. My primary goal is to turn it on and watch the trains go back and forth. Hopefully, I'll have a decent scenic facade to make this realistic. (More on this in the future.) Takadanobaba track diagram. The blue rectangle is an overhead pedestrian bridge connecting the two active stations on the layout. Here's the concept: The scenic portion of the layout will have six through tracks -- grouped as three pairs of parallel commuter lines. These are the Yamanote Line, the Yamanote Freight Line and the Seibu-Shinjuku line. On the Yamanote and Seibu-Shinjuku Lines trains will stop at platforms in the scenic portion. After stopping at the station, the trains will exit off the layout onto a sector plate in staging. There, they will stop, the sector plate will shift to the other line, the train will reverse direction, head out of staging, s...

I taking a break. I'm building a multi-deck layout in N scale based on Chicago belt line railroad operations ( The B&OCT in N Scale - read that blog here ). I still need to come up with a better name. It's a big project and has gotten overwhelming. On top of that, I had shoulder surgery in November. It has curbed my agility.  I'm looking to take on a small project -- something that could be achievable in a reasonable length of time and will stretch my modeling skills. I'm getting the idea that those skills will be really tested. This blog is about that project. The writing below was my first post on this topic -- on my other blog. It gives an introduction.  Come along for the ride. I think it will be an interesting journey. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately. That’s because I’m recovering from rotator cuff surgery on my left shoulder. That has limited a lot o...