Since I wanted the center of my module to be a bustling festival or farmers' market scene, I needed a good base for it. The first step was making a paper template of the exact area to be covered.
I then cut a piece of 0.060" styrene to size and laid it on top of some oversize graph paper. A series of 1/2" lines were drawn on the styrene with pencil, and then the lines were scribed with the pointed tip of my compass tool. In one area the tip slipped, so I needed to hide that with something later.
Based on the good results obtained for my Albany Steel scene on my HO layout, I then painted the styrene with tan paint and used alcohol washes to bring out the cracks.
For the food market vendors I looked online for suggestions. There are several inexpensive ones available as paper/cardstock kits but I was concerned about their durability on a traveling module. Faller made an excellent "Market Stands & Cart" styrene kit (#272533) which is European themed but I thought I could make it work. Unfortunately, it was expensive and hard to locate and I had to order it from Germany. That was one reason the project slowed down.
I wanted to personalize everything to make it more "Japanese", so much of it was repainted in bright colors and redecorated for Asian products. For example, the food trailer was painted orange and rethemed as a Ramen noodle vendor.
However, I only got about a week's worth of time into my module in April 2022 when two things conspired to shut it down again: first, I acquired some Lionel passenger cars and they took priority. Second, my son Harrison arrived three weeks early. So, once again I set my T-Trak module on hold and it wasn't February 2023 when I dug it out again!
With my wooden engine house complete and the offer to exhibit my module with the local T-Trak club's layout at an upcoming March train show I decided I had better work on it again. So, during the Super Bowl weekend I pulled it out and took stock of what I had, what I could work on now, and what I needed to order.
The most glaring needs were: (1) trees for the left hand side of the module, and (2) the market scene in the middle needed at least something done. Less pressing were automobiles, figures, and backyard details installed behind the structures on the right.
I had started working on the Faller kit and enjoyed painting and assembling everything. However, the pieces were really tiny and difficult to hold when painting. Also, even though I enjoyed every minute of the process it took about 10 hours to assemble and paint them (not including drying time). Nothing makes me happier then sitting at my workbench totally immersed in a project like this but free time is difficult to find these days.
Finally, some of the pieces were ready for installation. Can you imagine that everything together would easily fit onto an index card and not look cramped?
I spread it all out on the area and then slowly moved things around until I had an arrangement that looked pleasing to me. I wanted to make sure that the viewer of the layout could see all the interesting parts, so most everything faced forward.
Then, it was all glued in place. I only took up half the area for now, and I am not sure exactly what I am going to do on the left side. I am hoping to do some sort of Japanese festival scene there, but I doubt it will be ready by the train show later this month and I have plenty of other things to focus on.
The finished farmer's market area.
As much as I like painting details, I absolutely hate painting figures. I have done it for my HO layouts, but will gladly fork over my money for good looking tiny people. What aren't good looking are those wretched discount ones you can find on Ebay (well, you do get what you pay for). I do like Tomytec figures which are about $1 a person (not including the shipping), and if you combine shipping on multiple packages it isn't too bad. I had purchased sets of school children, business employees, standing people, and people in traditional yukata robes for my retreat at the top of the hill.
I thought I had plenty, but the layout just sucked them up! I added lots here and there in meaningful groupings but soon ran low. I have about a half-dozen reserved for future scenes, but I sure do need to purchase more. Sadly, I don't think any American vendor stocks them and importing them from Japan is crazy expensive.
My buildings were given further details like rooftop appliances, antennas mounted on the sides of buildings, and junk in the alleys. It all came out of my scrap box and I have no idea what they all represent, but once painted and glued down (and viewed from 2 feet away...) they look fine.
I scoured my HO and N scale scrap boxes and took anything that might even remotely resemble some sort of detail. Having done the same thing for most of my HO scale scratchbuilt structures, the stash was running low. At the next train show I should look under the tables for cheap junk to resupply with.
The row of stores along the side were given some figures and plants but not as many details in the alleys because they aren't readily visible from the front of the layout.
The rear sides of those buildings are very visible, however. They are the backyards of shops and I left plenty of space to create mini-scenes there, though I am not yet sure what I am going to do.
The front building has a scene with a man walking (or fighting with) his dog.
The road crossing area had been left open from the start because I didn't know what I wanted to do there. I could have just continued the styrene "pavement" over the gaps but while watching Japanese television shows I noticed that they frequently use concrete or rubber crossing guards. They are commercially available in N scale and I considered buying some, but figured I wouldn't lose much by trying to make them myself.
I first took some thin styrene rod that I had on hand and filled the gaps on the outermost edges.
I took some 0.015" thick styrene and cut it into five pieces. Extra clearance was left at the flangeways because some T-Trak operators might still be operating old equipment with "pizza cutter" wheels and I didn't want them to derail on my crossings. The thin styrene was also just low enough from the top of the railhead that a Brightboy wouldn't scuff it up while cleaning the track.
The styrene was then scribed to represent joints in the rubber panels that are bolted down. I didn't bother to research prototype dimensions but instead just divided the 75mm wide pieces by three. Thus, each block is about 25mm wide and 7.5mm deep. The large middle portion divided perfectly into these dimensions as well.
For the final touch, I used the point of my compass to emboss "bolt" hole details. There probably should be more per panel, but in N scale you probably couldn't even see them anyway if modeled correctly to scale.
The panels were painted a dark charcoal gray paint. Black would have been better, but then the detail would be lost. Over the gray I lightly misted flat black paint, which dried as tiny black droplets on the surface. This looked just like the textured rubber panels I saw in pictures, which was perfect. Some clear spray finished them.
I then painted all of the areas underneath them with black paint so that any gaps in the road panels wouldn't show through as white plastic. There was no turning back now!
I was about to glue the panels down when I noticed that the molded-on spike heads were preventing the styrene from laying completely flat on the ties. And despite them being only 0.015" thick, I was concerned that gluing them down onto the spikes might cause bumps from the flanges of passing trains. So, I took a tiny chisel blade and cut away the spike heads. You can see in the picture all of the light gray plastic where the black paint was pried away.
After testing, and painting the newly exposed raw plastic black, the panels were glued down with thick superglue gel. Testing with some trains confirmed that the wheels safely passed, while rubbing a track cleaning block over the crossing didn't scuff the road. Perfect! Not bad for about 25-cents worth of materials.
My streets needed some cars, but all I had were the cheapo Bachmann and Life-Like N scale autos that use to be loaded on the auto-rack flatcars. Years ago I repainted a bunch, and even added diesel classification light jewels to the tops of some to make police cars and ambulances. I think I got pretty good at it too (my efforts are the 20 cars on the right), but they weren't really correct for a Japanese themed layout.
So, I turned to Ebay and surprisingly the cheapo offerings are pretty decent. You can get 50 of the cars on the left for about $12 delivered to your house. That's about a quarter each. And they look good with shiny finishes, black window "glass", painted hubcaps, etc. They are based on modern Japanese cars but that is perfect for my layout. Note the white block of styrene I glued to the bottom of the flipped over black car on the left. Once painted black, it is invisible but it offers a much larger gluing surface for attaching the cars to the road.
The streets were then filled with cars... left-side driving don't you know. I wish I had a nice bus to include, but that will have to wait. I did leave a space for it prominently in the road though.
Next up is the left side of the layout.
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