Vertical motors transferered from Yamashina, Kyoto

One of regular poster in my Japanese blog "Yamashina no tecchan" sent me 10 vertical motors the other day. This type of motor was main one when I started collecting model trains 40 years ago. The gear system is called " inside gear" I guess because gears are all set inside the two wheels. I have never heard "outside gear" yet and I don't think they can set gears outside of the wheels lol....

But anyway, this motor is a bit bulk for HO scale train cars, so it occupies rooms in a train car or a locomotive. Nowadays people tend to enjoy putting interiors as well, so they prefer other system motors which are smaller and they can put them under the floor so that they can put interior in the car.

Hayaokidori website

Checking ED70

Been checking a model train locomotive ED70. When I do this, I make it into pieces to see what is wrong. Usually some dust are around gears because sometimes we need to put some oil there.
With my old eyes, it's a bit tough to keep doing this kind of things for long hours. Need to finish in an hour or two then keep trying next day or later...

Hayaokidori website

Inpatience after raindrops

Japanese sometimes talk about baby bamboos after raindrops because they grow very fast after raindrops. I have never heard of it if it's impatience but they seem to grow faster after raindrops than in fine dry days though they don't grow that fast while we give water when it's not rainy. This shows how nature works.
I made this pot full of vermilion flower since I would have liked to make a small vermilion spot in green.

Hanging baskets. A combination of vermilion, pink and white. Hanging baskets gets dry sooner than other pots which are for example unglazed pots. We need to manage water for them. From my experiences, as far as we put inpatience in the shade or half shade, we had better keep them a bit dry rather than moist. If it's moist, impatience tends to die.

A combination of vermilion, red and white. White makes its contrast very clear. But hum.... looks each and every pot grows as they like lol.... Maybe I had better cut them a bit sometimes to keep the looking better.


A combination of vermilion, red and pink. There used to be a kind of pink which was a bit dark and was in good combo with white. But I have never found that pink anywhere recently. Probably they don't grow that one any more.

Hayaokidori website

Fine day at Hakuba Goryu Alps daira

Went up to Hakuba Goryu Alps daira botanical garden to pick up weeds there. I prepared some towels to protect my neck from sunburns and a hat to do my head. Noticed that when we get older, we prepare something different for different purposes which we never needed when we were young lol......
Pay attention at the left side pole which is a bit vended. Some pulleys for chair lifts wire are hanged at the middle that may look a bit funny for skiers and snowboarders who visit ski resort in winter. They hang the pulleys lower in summer beause if they leave them at the top as well as in winter, passengers are to move very high in the air which might be a bit danger. This is why they hang them lower in summer if the lifts were in service. Only for this event, they need to get an authorization, Japan is full of authorizations here and there!
As we get 2 - 3 meters snowfall here in winter, they need to hang them upper in winter.

The altitude of Alps daira is around 1,500 meters. It was 20C today with cool and dry windblow which made us comfortable to do the work.

Hayaokidori website

Spain the winner of Euro 2008!

They won the Euro 1964 which was 44 years ago, this is the second tire for them to be the winner. Congratulation!

Final : Spain 1-0 Germany
Semi final : Spain 3-0 Russia
Quarter final : Spain 0(PK4-2)0 Italy

ED70 doesn't work :(

One of the couplers of my ED70 was replaced into American one as it started to work to pull an American rail cleaner car. But suddenly this ED70 seemed to get some troubles and now it does not work right. I overhauled this one.


No wires are disconnected, so I really have no idea what is wrong :( Perhaps I had better take another similar locomotive into pieces to compare! Wonder how it will go though...

Hayaokidori website

Coffee glinder

Nowadays I get a lot of sales advertise for some package coffee which is already glinded by fax or e-mail.

BUT

I believe that the best way to serve some coffee is to glind the coffee and brew it soon before serving some. Maybe using some "package" stuff is a lot easier but tasty stuff needs you more time to prepare. We can get a can coffee with a hundred+ yen through a vending machine but that is not what we provide. Each and every time when customers show up to the breakfast tables, this simple process is repeated in our place. It just takes some minutes to 10 at the longest. Perhaps this is something tiny accommodations can offer :-)

Hayaokidori website