After looking over some photos and videos, I started seeing little items and areas I could include in my Shizuka section of the layout. Some city areas that would be fun little details to work out. The hardest part will be the street markings, but that will come and I'll get them as close as I can to the real thing, but won't stress about it TOO much. :)
The first thing was the overall space of the section and arrangement of the buildings. The old arrangement was close, but not 100%. I spent a little time shifting buildings and spacing around. I like the overall as it stands now, though a few more tweak rounds are bound to happen.
The little island section above (front / center) will have walkways leading to the left, right and through the center of the buildings above it. I've seen several walkways that are structured like this - through ally areas of buildings and the like with pedestrian and bike markings. I think this will be a nice little detail after the people and bikes are placed along with bike parking and vending machines.
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| Walkways detail |
Working out traffic flow is another interesting nugget. Things get rather complex in Japan, so I was trying to add a little of that traffic complexity into the scene. Again, a lot will depend on street markings and signs to pull everything together.
I moved a few items out of the Shizuka section. One of the moves involved the snack vending area with parking. Now I have a whole snack central going complete with restrooms. :)
The Soyokaze Village area also got a bit of a re-org and switch around.
...as did the Village area.
In all the confusion of road building, I had completely forgotten the front gate! So, I moved it up a bit. I think it's working overall, but we won't be having large truck deliveries going into this section. Maybe they will have to use the other gate towards the back of the layout. :)
Temple parking is working. I just need to address parking lines and railings.
PEOPLE
People are going to play a large part in my layout. I'll be adding more and more and will eventually be buying nothing but people and adding scenes with people in here and there as time goes on. Even the people inside buildings tend to make a huge difference. Seeing people in doing things and being busy really makes me happy. They tend to add to things even when you are not 100% aware that they are there. Background folks being busy.
While cleaning track, I found myself on the other side of the layout. Things are working from there as well, but there are some areas I'll need to address here and there to make sure things work from both sides...even thought there is really NO room to move around back there! LOL! I better not gain weight!
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| I moved a building from the area at the bottom of this photo and it really needs something in that spot. Far too bare. |
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| I'm moving the "farm" out of the Village proper and into this little section between tracks. Odd, but interesting. |
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| This back section of the harbor will be built up with more industry. (I made the purchases yesterday!) |
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| Things are GO GO GOing in Soyokaze! |
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| The subjects of a SOYOKAZE STORY - soon to be written! |
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| Trams and buses moving things along. I'm planning on removing the bus bases (left) and re-painting the bus markings on the Smooth-it road deck that is under it currently. It'll be far better and make more sense. |
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| Can't wait to detail sections like this! |
And, I cleaned the track today because we're having guests over tomorrow and they may want to see the tram run. I've run into this before - dirty track and visitors calling out for the tram to run, then smirking as it stutters across the tracks and needs pushing to get moving.
Every time I clean the track I think, "Man, I gotta buy that track cleaner car!" I think what I really need to buy is a step-stool. That would solve a lot of reach issues. It's now on the BUY list.
I really do love this MODEMO tram. More so now that I've disconnected it and just run the one section around. I plan to get a few more "country style trams" to run. Maybe around Christmas or my birthday. I really do love the look when the tram rolls through.
More and more and more things come to mind every time I see the shots I take. Scenes, scenery, details, plans and more more more. It's a fun hobby in many ways. I can work on the actual item in my office, pieces upstairs in the house, plan and blog, write stories about scenes or simply use various videos and the like to research items I want to add.
Danny Choo is helping A LOT. He's...an interesting dude. He's involved in many aspects of Japanese culture and has gone from a simple blogger type to this media giant. He has many videos that are cool to see, like this underground bicycle parking area (soon to be built on my layout!)...
...and this great, detail filled video of him cycling though the streets of Japan. Details abound!
Yeah....I have more than enough to keep me busy. No need to add that hole in the wall for a Shinkansen high speed train....right? ::::shifty eyes:::::
CHEERS!
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