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As you can see, I’m hard at work…

You may have noticed that things have been a bit quiet here this year, or at least the last half-year. I noted back at the beginning of the year that I had several projects I planned to work on. These were microprocessor-based systems for the planned layout. Those projects all stalled out for one reason or another. Not abandoned, but I ran into problems I couldn’t easily solve, and set them aside for other things, not all related to the railroad. One of them was a software project unrelated to the layout that ate all my spare time this fall. If I can get any of my railroad projects actually advanced next year, I’ll report on them.

I am still planning a “new” Sumida Crossing that’s more directly based on real-world urban Tōkyō. I have lots of ideas for what I want there, but it’s centered on JR East in the vicinity of the Sumida River. Which, honestly, doesn’t really narrow the scope all that much.

Planning for actually making that into a layout is advancing, and ideas are starting to come together, but I need to sit down and draw some track plans before I have a feel for how the various ideas I have work as a whole. I don’t have any firm decisions on what’s included or how I will size-reduce it to fit in a realistic space as yet. But I do have a number of “scenes” in my mind, bits of prototype I want to include.

I intend to share partial track plans as the ideas become more fully baked. I’m also planning to buy a house to put the layout in (well, there are other reasons to buy a house, honest), and that hasn’t happened quite as quickly as expected. This constrains my planning some, as I don’t know if I’m going to end up with a spare bedroom or a large basement to work in (I’m hoping for the latter, of course).

Mostly my problems are those of too many distractions and too little free time to spend on the railroad, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with this site.

I’m really hoping that construction will begin in 2017, and I’ll have a lot more to post once I get closer to actually starting. But for now, I thought I’d mention that I was still out here, still thinking about Japanese railroads, and that I hope to post more regularly in the new year. And on that note: Happy New Year to all! I’ll see you in 2017.

Tags: Administrivia