Talia's Toytown - Floors added

Another project where I added floors to an existing model I had completed. Again, I love the fact that the building isn't empty anymore. It had massive windows on the sides and seeing nothing inside REALLY bugged me. :)

Model Rail Radio

MODEL RAIL RADIO
http://www.modelrailradio.com/

A must hear model rail podcast!

Not only do they put out a fantastic podcast (available on iTunes), but they also tape the shows live with some audience participation elements via chat. You can listen to the live show and chat with fellow hobby enthusiasts about the show and the hobby. The flow is fantastic and some of the shows are three hours long and packed with a significant amount of valuable information.

Content ranges from chat about what people have been doing at home hobby wise to detailed discussions on train tech, details and work flows.

This show fuels my love for model trains even when I might not have time to actually sit and work on my projects.

Check it out for sure! They are a friendly group of experienced hobbyists.

From the site:

About the Host Tom Barbalet has been a podcaster since 2006. His interest in model trains comes from childhood when he was give a Lima "The Overland" train set in Australia in the late 1980s. In 1999, when Tom first moved to the US having spent nearly four months flying continuously he vowed not to take an airplane for an entire year. Through this time Tom travelled between US and Canadian cities by train traveling coast to coast by different Amtrack routes.

Tom has travelled by train throughout Australia, the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Malaysia and Thailand.

Moving back to the US in 2005, Tom was re-introduced to model trains by a coworker and began planning a model railroad layout. He started building benchwork in early 2009 and laying track mid 2009.

Interviewed on Podcast411 (the inside the actors studio for podcasters) in 2007, Tom stated that it was astonishing the lack of model railroad podcasts. With a proven record building a community with freely available, always accessible podcasts without paid subscription or advertising, Tom saw the need for a similar style of podcast being available to the model railroading community. The live internet radio format meant anyone could contribute and the format was actively decided by the listeners.

Over / Under Project - sketch

In the future, (when we have flying cars and food we eat out of space tubes) I hope to have a space in our home for a layout where I can combine the various bits and pieces of n scale trains and buildings I've collected into one set. You can see what I have going in the PROMO VIDEO for N-RAIL.

I've been thinking about a double deck layout for a long while. The original plan was to have a mine with a coal train that ran from the upper area to a lower, underground cave area completely with stalactites, stallagmites, underground monsters, bats and hanging lights. However, my overall layout idea has changed and this new idea would work well with it.

I'd have my upper areas blocked out into sections - Old Town, City and Industrial areas. I'd have a tram running through part of the layout connecting the Old Town and City areas and a more robust "subway line" connecting all three areas for commuters.

The "subway line" would have an upper area and lower area that it would run through. The image above shows the way this could work.

• I'll have the train run down into a lower section which will have a subway style wall look in the front area with lights and the like.

• The loop will wrap around and back up from behind the front, subway wall

• An overhead station area - maybe two - will be the main boarding area. Depending on the size of the layout, I may have an underground station area as well.

I'd like to have a layout plan that is in a corner space in the shape of an "L". It will lend itself well to what I'm thinking. The three sections will have a little space between them so they don't run together. And, seeing as it's N scale, I'll be able to have a little more land space with a smaller overall footprint.

Ah, planning. It's going to keep me busy for a while without having to buy anything! :)

In the meantime, I'll keep detailing my existing structures to stay busy in the hobby.


Perfect samples and examples for the underground section thanks to MODEL RAIL RADIO information! http://www.metromodels.net/

~

More Tomy Tomica Trains

Tomy Tomica Trains and Cars

I was walking through Toys R Us looking for tub toys for my daughter (...only to find a slim, sad little collection of lame offerings) when I stumbled onto these gems. The TOMY TOMICA trains and cars. Evidently, they are huge in Japan and are just coming out here in the States. And what an offering!

The battery powered trains come in a wide variety in Japan and have a somewhat impressive showing here. I saw a bullet train style along with several other "real world" and "play world" offerings - like a yellow and black drill train. :)


These have a fun look to them. Very much toy trains, but with a style and design that's cool and interesting. Switches, bridges and various other train track gadgets make it easy to add some interest to play. A wide selection of cars seems to be available in Japan, but Toys R Us just had a few offered on the shelves. It looks like the cars are bigger than the trains, which makes me think they were first and the trains came out as an additional item for them, not vice versa.

They have a HUGE selection of cars in Japan. It's really amazing.

With the right amount of cash, you could have a rather large city built up for sure. The cost seemed reasonable as far as toys go. $50 will get you a "mega set" with tracks, roads and buildings. Smaller sets can be had for around $30. Trains run somewhere around $15. Cars around $7. So, $200 will get that someone special a rather nice Christmas showing for sure.

My daughter is only a year old, but I thought about starting to get some of these packs and storing them away for her for later...just in case I can con her into the train scene along with dolls and things. No reason girls can't play with trains! :)



20 Trains running at one time

MiWuLa TV News: July

Make sure you hit the Closed Caption button for English translation!