Revival B tender!

Steam locomotives had already retired from railroads in Japan more than 30 years ago. But sometimes the opposite happens in a model layout :-) I revive a Btender at my HO layout.

Now it's in charge of pulling a cleaning car. But due to the different coupler, at this moment the cleaning car is just tied up to the loco :( Gotta find a better way, maybe have to find some American couplers because the cleaning car is an American one and the loco is a Japanese one.

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Limited express trains passing by the station!

In any time, railway fan boys enjoy watching out trains passing by a station having their faces sideways at the platform. Now there's how it seems here. Click the pics below to see clips.




Almost remembered my kid's days.

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Making a layout #23 A path and forest at the lakeside

I am now trying to make lakeside scenery before some Realistic water would arrive.

Put some conifers at the background of houses there to hide rails, covered the ground in front of them with green powder to express grasses. Did the beachside with brown powder to express them. Not decided how to do about the path, so just leave it s it is. Tried to put only evergreen tree in front of a bridge which is over a stream, noticed it appeals some visible effect.


Looks like this when you see it from the bridge side.


A Feller mountain restaurant is also located in this area.


T.E.E (Trans Europe Express) train Gottardo is now running behind the trees. Would like to hide it more by putting more trees though. You can see a larger image of this pic by clicking it.


Gottardo keeps going on and on and on.


A JNR (Japan National Railways) electric loco EF60 is pulling a 6 blue train cars behind the trees. When locomotives, passenger cars are painted in similar with green, it looks different from the case of Gottardo.


EF60 and a blue train keep going on.


Came out of the trees.


This is how it looks when you sit in a chair in front of the control board where the power packs are.


Watching out the EF60 train coming out of the trees by sitting on a chair in front of the control board. Many posters at our J-blog say they enjoyed this kind of view by laid sideways putting a textbook of their school just in front of the truck. Now it comes easier here, just by sitting on a chair!

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Cylindrical pots

That have worked with us since I started this business.

27cms, 24cms, 21cms and 18cms in diameter ( Bottom to top ). They are what we call "Han-Zundoh nabe". Han for it means "middle" or "semi-something". Zundoh means cylindrical. Nabe means pan/s or pot/s. A zundoh nabe is deeper then them. They seem to have something like imbricate pattern at their surfaces because I thought it might have helped not to have any uncomfortable noise when some iron stuff e.g. spoons and themselves touched each other. Nowadays I seldom find that kind of pans in markets, wonder if they are still available or not.

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JNR 153 series - time to retire

Born in 1958 for express and semi-express train in some lines which are located in flat places not in hilly or mountain area.


Some express trains e.g
"Washu" ( Wings of eagles ) : Osaka <-> Uno
"Hiei" (A mountain name ) : Osaka <-> Nagoya
"Kanmon" ( The channel between Honshu island and Kyushu island ): Osaka <-> Shimonoseki
"Bingo" ( A region name around east part of Hiroshima pref.) Osaka <-> Mihara
"Naniwa" (An old name for Osaka ) :Osaka <-> Tokyo

etc are still in my memory. They say "Naniwa" had been still in service for some couple of years maybe until October 1968 even after Tokaido Shinkansen got in service from Tokyo to Osaka that's why I have some memories about "Naniwa".
In proportion to Shinkansen started its service further beyond Osaka towards Okayama (1972), Hakata (1975), this 153 series was not able to find any other lines to be active. When I took this pic above in 1976, "Washu" was only available 153 series express train in San-yo main route, but the symbolic big butterfly form signboard was already not located at the front.

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Disposable body warmers

It's snowy and cold place here in Hakuba, so an old man like me needs to have something to warm myself up e.g. at my knees, waists especially when I need to go out for some.

Disposable body warmers have some descriptions which says something like

Hold this side out - not to your body

I am not sure why there is a face side and back side at a body warmer. What is the difference, anyone?? And.... for an old man with far sighted eyes,

It's very tough to read these small alphabet!!! lol...

If it's like the one in the pic above, I know it's for outside, not to my body side but some have stripes as well as descriptions in the same color which confuses me a lot. So, if I can ask....


This above is very much simpler and better to understand :)
( The large kanji combination says it's "outside".[ not to your body side])

Hayaokidori website

Take care of your teeth

Now I got my artificial tooth out of my gums. The artificial tooth is what I got when I broke my own tooth there by my ski pole when I lost balance when I skiied roughly 20 years ago. It hurt a lot when a pole hit the tooth, it even hurt my nerve all over all the way to my brain!
The hard part is now I can not pronounce English "th" correctly due to no tooth there. Silent "th" is okay, I guess but if it's noise "th" e.g. moTHer, oTHer etc, it's hard to do it.
And... I avoid laughing when I talk with my guests now. It's too funny to see me laughing without a tooth there when I see it in a mirror lol....
Until when I go to see a dentist next time - some more days - I need to stay with this situation which kinda sucks :(

Hayaokidori website