T-Trak Japan: The Start of Something New

The Japanese have a saying: 兎を追う者は一兎をも得ず.

I bet you have no idea what that says. I don't blame you... I can't read it either. It means "One who chases after two hares won’t catch even one." Or, put differently, those who try to do two things at once will fail at both. That is the essence of my modeling career. I need new projects like I need a hole in the head. I have an HO scale layout; a small N scale layout that I built for my wife; another old N scale layout; my live steam trains; my G scale trains; and various other projects. I don't need more. But, something has been nagging me for a while and I thought I would give it a go.

Every once in a while I would look on EBay for random N scale things, and I would find lots of Japanese themed structure kits. I love kits, so they looked like fun. A friend recently put together a model of a Shinto temple for a miniature wargaming project that I gave him some advice with, and it was a neat model. But more importantly, my wife loves everything Japanese. And she loves N scale. And I love my wife. So, it seemed like a way to combine our hobbies (more so then dragging her to train shows or live steam meets or railroad museums or tourist railroads or...) 

At one time I considered joining the local Albany Albany N-trak club. However, fitting even one 2'x4' module into my car is difficult. And, I didn't want a large layout module that size which I would need to store for 99% of the year, only to get to run it about 1% of the time (if that). It just didn't make sense. Then I remembered T-Trak, the concept of building even smaller modules (some as small as roughly 14" square) with Kato Unitrack on the ends to link them together. Here was something I could do. Of course, I automatically defaulted to the "triple" module which is roughly 36" wide but I had in my head an idea for the scenery and realized I needed space.

But, it would satisfy several creative itches I had and still be small and easy to store. It would also allow me to join a club where my wife could run her own N-scale collection of equipment. When I discussed the idea with her, her first reaction was "I would love it if you would join an N scale club." Sold! So, I reached out to the Albany club again to confirm what standards for T-trak they were using, and they were pretty helpful. I also found the Toyko in N Scale blog, which was pretty useful.

I explored EBay and the internet to find what structure kits are out there. If you search on Ebay for the brand "Tomytec" (or "Tomix," which I guess is a corporate sibling) there are lots of cute Japanese themed building kits that are small and look fun to put together. Tomytec sells them prepainted, or perhaps molded in the colors shown but I may repaint them as I see fit. I found the dimensions of lots of building kits, drew up the dimensions of the bases on metric graph paper, and then shifted them around on a piece of posterboard cut to the size of the module. Other companies sell more modern, realistically proportioned kits but I avoided those. There are lots of paper-structure kits too, which I didn't consider. Having realized I could fill my layout with interesting buildings, I then decided to get serious on the project. Depending on how nice this module turns out, maybe I will mount it on the wall on shelf brackets and display it in the house as a diorama.

I researched prefabricated benchwork kits and ordered one from Masterpiece Modules. It was about $50, so certainly not as cheap as building it yourself... and the web is full of ideas for building them out of cardboard, pizza boxes, foamcore, regular extruded foam, dimensional pine lumber, shipping crates, etc... but I wanted my focus to be on the top of the module, not the framework for it. Kato Unitrack was ordered too and for now I am having just a plain double-track mainline across the front. No switches means no derailments or stalling problems. Wiring is super simple if you only have two mainlines and not much else to deal with. But what to actually build? Humm... 

My wife loves Japanese food, Japanese games, Japanese music, Japanese culture, and especially Japanese cartoons known as Anime. I sometimes watch them with her, but she prefers to view them in the Japanese language with English subtitles which I find hard to follow. But, as a fellow cartoon fan I can appreciate her passion. My favorite anime movie is "Whispers of the Heart" by Hayao Miyazaki. It is about a couple of teenagers in school who are preparing for college whilst dealing with the issues of regular life. While watching anime with her, and especially this movie, I have seen many common themes that I thought would be fun to include on my layout, including... 

(1) A bustling city with lots of tiny stores selling fun things. 

(2) An open air market or a festival where people are dressed up and celebrating something. 

(3) A train station, as public transit is very popular in Japan. 

(4) A grade crossing, as nearly every Anime we watch has people waiting to cross the tracks or the crossing bells ringing in the background. 

(5) A scenic portion with something secluded at the top of a hill like a temple, bath house, or country inn. 

That's a lot to cram in a space 14" deep by 36.5" wide, huh? 

When the module kit arrived in the mail I put it together with wood glue. It didn't fall into place exactly how I thought a laser-cut kit would, but it came out fine. It is super light, but feels sturdy. The corners of the module contain 1/4-20 threaded inserts to attach leveling screws to allow you to raise or lower your module to match it up with others. There are also several holes in the back for passing wires out. It also included a scrap of sandpaper (I used my belt sander instead) and some screws to mount the Kato Unitrack. Having the mounting holes pre-drilled was pretty convenient. All in all, it went together in about 30 minutes. After the glue dried, I then painted the top with brown paint similar to that used on my HO scale layout.  

  

Then, I mounted the Kato Unitrak. This stuff is very popular in Japan where many people temporary layouts, but it felt flimsy to me. It seemed ready to break at the connectors when I lifted up two connected pieces. But, once screwed onto the base (the mounting holes were conveniently drilled into the benchwork already) it was fine. I hate the look of shiny rails so I painted the sides  with Model Master acrylic Flat Railroad Tie Brown paint (#4885). This helped a lot. Then, to eliminate the plastic-like look of the track, after the track was secured I also applied several coats of an india ink and alcohol wash which also toned down the base. While not perfect, I think it looks a lot better than stock Kato track. 

While waiting for some of the Tomytec building kits I had ordered from Japan to arrive, I allowed my imagination to wander. I looked into building interiors for them, and lighting them up with LEDs (and even purchased some from EBay), and sealing the interiors and corners to prevent light leaks. I also looked into attaching the buildings with small rare earth magnets to make them removable, and considered what I would do with the roofs. Then, my first building arrived and I was a bit underwhelmed. It is a cute kit, a combination of two buildings that together make up a "Country Inn." The pieces for each building were sealed in small bags with extra air for protection, and rolled up into a box.

The instructions were in Japanese but included a general assembly diagram that was pretty easy to understand. Most of the parts were prepainted, though not to the standard I would like, and some parts were already assembled. The window frames and glazing were already installed, details were painted, etc. Oddly, some of the color choices didn't match the image on the box.

Unfortunately, at that point I realized that some things I wanted just weren't going to happen. I don't know if these kits were designed to be put together and taken apart repeatedly, but the corner joints were very loose. The plastic is a soft, flexible type that did bond together with MEK solvent but I had to hold each joint together for a while to overcome large gaps in the edges. Having everything line up square without the aid of the base (which I didn't want to use) was a struggle. There wasn't much room in the corners to add additional bracing. It was, honestly, disheartening. The first building I worked on had the end walls brown and I wanted them white so I repainted them, but white doesn't cover brown well and getting nice clean, square edges in the trim was tough. I also repainted areas that suffered from glue marks and sloppy painting from the factory. Thankfully, it is N scale and trees will cover some of the view lines.

But, I have another four of their buildings in the mail. This experience has tempered my expectations and now I have a better idea of what I can do, and what I can't. I might still add lights to the building, but interiors will likely be a no-go. I will instead focus on detailed scenes outside. As for the finish of the buildings, I will just try and get them as close to what I want as possible. Perfection it cannot be. Unlike American kits (and perhaps kits from other Japanese manufacturers), these Tomytec kits are more like "toys" than "models." That might be how they are advertised in Japan, but I wouldn't know. Still, there is a lot to like with them.

I started working on this project on November 4th, and about a month later I am pleased with my progress. I am not rushing it along, but just enjoying the diversion it is providing. I began working on my scratchbuilt D&H bobber caboose too, so several things are going at once.

Maybe this is the time I will catch that hare...