Takadanobaba Station in Alameda

Tokyo. That's the scenic subject of my T-trak module supplied by https://www.precisionmodelrailroad.com/ . It will be a representation, not a prototypical recreation. The scene needs to cover a 12-inch by 12-inch space. Actually, the street scene needs to fit into a smaller space. The tracks consume a three-inches by 12-inches. That leaves 108 square inches. Is this enough space for a plausible street scene? Of course. People are doing far more in less space.  My idea wa s to build a city street and buildings parallel the tracks. A cross street would dead end into the main road. At the intersection, we’d see an entrance to the Tokyo Metro. The intersection would have a traffic light. Initially I thought the cross street could meet at a 90-degree angle to the main street. The concern is giving the viewer a straight view to the backdrop. That could decrease the scene's plausibility. An alternative is that the cross street connects at a diagonal. Another possibility, the cross str...

A series of medical issues have made it tough to make model railroading progress. In November 2021, my torn left shoulder rotator cuff was surgically repaired. Then I suffered two accidents in 2022 — a face plant in January, while out walking and I was hit by a car while biking on March 26. The latter got me a medic unit ride to the trauma center. I also discovered that I have repetitive stress injury in my right arm. And in early June I contracted Covid.  I’ve tried to put my Covid recuperation and rehab time to good use. I’m nearly current on Paramount+’s Star Trek offerings on AmazonPrime. More importantly, I found a new favorite contributor to YouTube — Cityscape Studio . Majiri, the creative force behind the channel, creates videos showing how he builds gritty Tokyo and Osaka dioramas. His projects include structures, alleys, city streets, freeways, traffic lights, canals and railroad  His content is a good fit and inspiration for the Takadanobaba project. He has a high l...

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...