三滝本町 - Mitakihonmachi

G'day to all, and all the best for 2018.

I haven't posted anything for a while as I've been flat out with both work and full-size tramway restoration projects, but things have calmed down a bit so I can finally start building a proper layout to showcase my 1/80th scale Japanese trains.

A while back I thought about building a simple display/exhibition layout based on Hokoku station on the JR West Hakubi line. I finished the basic structure and supports, and installed the subroadbed, ballast strips and point motors. And that's as far as I progressed, because the more I thought about it, the more I realised I didn't want to build 10 feet by 2 feet of steep-sided mountain and try to cover it with dense forest. Apart from the task of making a large number of realistic trees, or at least ones that satisfy me, I'm not happy with the overall composition and/or visual balance that I've so far achieved. The only composition I liked was a long way removed from the actual arrangements there.

So my thoughts keep coming back to Mitaki, a small station on the Kabe line in suburban Hiroshima. It's an interesting little station with good scenic potential. I'd rather build structures than trees, anyway. I played around with track and simple structure mock-ups on the Hokoku base, and I think I can get a much better looking composition of the various elements without losing too much of the prototypes features. But since it won't be an exact copy of Mitaki station, I'm going to name it after the district it serves, Mitakihonmachi.

So just before Christmas I cut up some 12mm plywood, removed the remaining bits of Hokoku, cleaned up the aluminium layout frame, and made a start on the new layout.

Cheers,
Mark.

 

Thanks, Ian, Toto. In between work and visits from the family, in-laws and outlaws there's not much modelling time for me at the moment.

But having mostly finished doing the boring bit - making the base for the layout - I then spent a bit of time placing track, trains and structures so I could visualise how it's all going to go together. I prefer to do my planning like this, rather than trying to draw the layout accurately in a small scale then scaling it up to the base.

The platform will be long enough to accomodate a typical four car EMU like a series 103 or 115 suburban set. I have both types of train, made by Tenshodo and Dentetsu Workshop. The photo below shows the 103 in yellow. The short section of platform shown here is just to establish how wide it needs to be. A few European buildings are standing in for more typically Japanese apartment buildings, again so I can establish the width and final position of the street behind the station. In reality the street is barely one lane wide, so the model street won't require a lot of space.

Until at least the late 1980s Mitaki was an attended station, as the method of safeworking on the Kabe was single line electric token, and Mitaki was a crossing loop with token instruments housed downstairs in the station building, with accomodation on the second floor. The first photo I posted clearly shows the hoop for exchanging the token in the cab window. I haven't yet found a clear photo showing all of the station building, so I have to rely on written descriptions that state the building was similar to the building further down the line at Kake. The dogleg in the street to get around the back of the building is still there today. The vacant plot is now the inevitable bicycle parking area.

Early days yet, but I think the concept will work. In one sense it's just a bigger and better "plank" than my previous effort, but one that can be taken to an exhibition and have trains actually running on it. At the moment it's just sitting on sawhorses in my shed so I can do the messy work on it, but it will eventually have integral legs with castoring wheels on one end so it can be easily moved.

Cheers,

Mark.

 

In the last few weeks I've been flat out with work and playing with heritage trains at Maitrland, but now that I've had some days off I have some progress to report. I've finished building the base for the Mitakihonmachi scenic module. It now has diagonal braces to prevent twisting, attachment points for the legs, and a power bus for the track and building lights. Next thing to do is prime it and paint it. Once that's done I can start tracklaying.





Cheers,

Mark.