Tram
Compact Unitrack
was going to post something “soon”, and soon came sooner than expected. I went to a model train show today, and having Kato’s new compact track on the brain after working on my Unitrack pages last night, couldn’t resist picking some up. I bought a CV1 “Compact Oval” set, along with two R150 switches and a small pack of 150mm (6”) curves. This builds an oval with a short-cut inner curve that fits snugly on one end of my coffee table, with plenty of room for the Kato power pack.
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Tram Platforms
Kato recently introduced a couple of low-level platforms suitable for trams. There isn’t much info available on these, aside from machine-translated Japanese summaries, which don’t really explain much. And I thought they were interesting as possible candidates for my One Point Five Meter Line layout, even though that’s using Tomix FineTrack and they’re designed to be used with Unitrack. So I ordered a couple, and now that I’ve had a chance to play with them, I can provide my impressions.
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Two Trams
A “tram” is a light rail vehicle. The word is British English; American’s still say “trolley” even though our light rail systems haven’t used trolley poles in decades. But it’s a word also used by the Japanese (who often borrow foreign words, either for marketing reasons or just because they like the sound).
The Toyama Light Rail line, a company jointly owned by the Toyama city government and some other investors, operates light rail vehicles over a former freight railway running between the city center and the waterfront. This is officially known as the Toyamakō Line, but the locals know it as “Portram” (for Port Tram), and the vehicles introduced in 2006 have come to be known by that name. There are seven of them, all of basically the same design but in different colors. A separate railway operates a city-center ring using similar vehicles, known as the Centram (“Central Tram”, I presume).
Tomytec, the parent company of Tomix, has been making models of these as part of their Railway Collection series since about 2009. These are intended to be collectibles for display, and they’re just empty shells. They cost around US$15 - US$20. But Tomytec also makes a motor unit that replaces the underbody, the TM-LRT01, which goes for around US$30. So for under $50, you can have an operating model. They’re not as nice as Kato’s Portram models, which sell for about US$85 in Japan, but they’re still quite good models.
I had been thinking about getting one of these, just to see how they compared with the Portram (I have one of Kato’s Centram models), but hadn’t gotten around to it. Then, while I was wondering what I’d run on my One Point Five Meter Line layout, I saw this new pair of them and decided that a model tram with a replaceable motor was the perfect thing for a layout that may do a lot of running back and forth. I ordered the pair, and two of the motors (thankfully those were available; they often sell out and can’t be found for months on end).
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The Toyama Light Rail line, a company jointly owned by the Toyama city government and some other investors, operates light rail vehicles over a former freight railway running between the city center and the waterfront. This is officially known as the Toyamakō Line, but the locals know it as “Portram” (for Port Tram), and the vehicles introduced in 2006 have come to be known by that name. There are seven of them, all of basically the same design but in different colors. A separate railway operates a city-center ring using similar vehicles, known as the Centram (“Central Tram”, I presume).
Tomytec, the parent company of Tomix, has been making models of these as part of their Railway Collection series since about 2009. These are intended to be collectibles for display, and they’re just empty shells. They cost around US$15 - US$20. But Tomytec also makes a motor unit that replaces the underbody, the TM-LRT01, which goes for around US$30. So for under $50, you can have an operating model. They’re not as nice as Kato’s Portram models, which sell for about US$85 in Japan, but they’re still quite good models.
I had been thinking about getting one of these, just to see how they compared with the Portram (I have one of Kato’s Centram models), but hadn’t gotten around to it. Then, while I was wondering what I’d run on my One Point Five Meter Line layout, I saw this new pair of them and decided that a model tram with a replaceable motor was the perfect thing for a layout that may do a lot of running back and forth. I ordered the pair, and two of the motors (thankfully those were available; they often sell out and can’t be found for months on end).
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Tram Controller Status
I’m continuing to work on the Tram Controller project (main page, past musings), to the exclusion of all else layout-related, which doesn’t make for interesting posts here. But I’ve made a number of decisions in the past month, and it’s probably worth summarizing them and where that puts the project overall. Short answer: making good progress, but slower than anticipated (what else is new; all my projects run “slower than anticipated”).
I’ve also been thinking about the diorama-like layout I’m going to initially use this with. The current candidate plans for that are on the new One Point Five Meter Line page.
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I’ve also been thinking about the diorama-like layout I’m going to initially use this with. The current candidate plans for that are on the new One Point Five Meter Line page.
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One Point Five Meters
One point five meters, or about five feet. That’s how much space I’m giving myself for a short layout designed to display my buildings separate from the main layout. It’s also going to give me a short rail line that I can use with the controller I’m working on for the tram line on the Urban Station scene.
The germ of this idea was a conversation at a local hobby store that holds an annual show in the store to display the model-building skills of its customers. Last month, just before the show, I was asked about some of the pre-built buildings I’ve been detailing for my Village scene. At the time, I didn’t think the couple I’d mostly finished were really in a displayable state, but the idea of perhaps doing some kind of diorama crossed my mind as we discussed how to display something next year.
I also wanted some way to actually see the tram line in operation, as on the layout it’s going to be hidden away behind buildings, providing some background activity without really being visible (something I really need to fix on a future layout). And that led me to think: how small can I make a layout with the tram controller and my buildings?
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The germ of this idea was a conversation at a local hobby store that holds an annual show in the store to display the model-building skills of its customers. Last month, just before the show, I was asked about some of the pre-built buildings I’ve been detailing for my Village scene. At the time, I didn’t think the couple I’d mostly finished were really in a displayable state, but the idea of perhaps doing some kind of diorama crossed my mind as we discussed how to display something next year.
I also wanted some way to actually see the tram line in operation, as on the layout it’s going to be hidden away behind buildings, providing some background activity without really being visible (something I really need to fix on a future layout). And that led me to think: how small can I make a layout with the tram controller and my buildings?
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Arduino CPUs and Motor Shields
I’m still playing with Arduinos this week, but the little beasties are multiplying. That’s partly because I want to be able to test with the various CPU architectures, but also because each has unique strengths and weaknesses, and I’m still evaluating which of them is going to be the right choice for my tram controller. At the same time, it turns out that there are a number of options for motor shields, as I mentioned last time, and they too have strengths and weaknesses.
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Revisiting Arduino
Two years ago I wrote about my plans to use an Arduino to control a pair of trams on a double-track line sharing single-track stations at each end, replicating the design of the Tōkyū Setagaya line. That’s briefly written up in that earlier post, and I also have a full page about the project that goes into more detail, with a sub-page about the current testing work.
Back then I bought an Arduino Mega 2560 and a bunch of other parts including a “shield” used to drive DC motors, loaded the basic test program that blinks a LED into it just to convince myself I could do it and the hardware worked, and then put it on a shelf for “later”. And forgot all about it while I worked on other things, only infrequently looking at the empty tram tracks and thinking “I really should figure out how to make that work.” It’s not like I dislike the work: I enjoy both programming and soldering simple circuits together. I just never could work myself up to starting what I expected to be a fairly major project. It was always: “I’ll work on that after I finish project ‘X’”, but there was always another “X” to occupy me.
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Back then I bought an Arduino Mega 2560 and a bunch of other parts including a “shield” used to drive DC motors, loaded the basic test program that blinks a LED into it just to convince myself I could do it and the hardware worked, and then put it on a shelf for “later”. And forgot all about it while I worked on other things, only infrequently looking at the empty tram tracks and thinking “I really should figure out how to make that work.” It’s not like I dislike the work: I enjoy both programming and soldering simple circuits together. I just never could work myself up to starting what I expected to be a fairly major project. It was always: “I’ll work on that after I finish project ‘X’”, but there was always another “X” to occupy me.
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An EMU for the Tram Layout
04 October 2011 00:30 Filed in: Model Trains,Trams
I haven’t been working on my tram layout all summer. I’ve run the tram around a bit, but the bus roadway had a gap in it as I’d run out of parts before finishing the loop, and I didn’t have a commuter car for the outer loop of track, which was a lack I keenly felt. I also had only one power pack to move between the two tracks (unless I wanted to cut up one of my Tomix feeders and connect it to a Kato pack, which I didn’t). So all I could do with it was run one of my Modemo Setagaya line trams at a time. Which was nice, but a bit less than what I wanted. That’s all changed recently (or will shortly). Read More...
Tram Layout Installed
08 August 2011 23:07 Filed in: Construction,Trams
My tram layout moved to it’s semi-permanent home today. I finally gave up any hope of doing more work on the scenery any time soon, so after finishing the backdrop I moved it into the living room and wired up the tram track. The bus roadway is mostly in place, but I’m still waiting on the additional bus set (now due in late August) to add the final 140mm segment of that so I can actually run busses.
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A Tomix Bus/Tram Coffee-Table Layout
I have a number of two-car articulated light-rail vehicles, aka., trams, mostly from the Tōkyū Setagaya Line of western Tōkyō. These, like the new Tomytec bus system, were bought to be used in Sumida Crossing’s Urban Station scene, as small details to make the station more than just a place to park trains. However, because the viaduct station is in the front of this scene, these would both be behind and below it, and largely out of sight. That’s bothered me for some time, but with the addition of the bus I really wanted to be able to run these where I could see them. And there really isn’t any place on the big layout suitable for that. And so, I’m building a small tram layout.
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Plans for an Arduino-based Tram Controller
Today I want to mention one of my other projects: the control system for the Tram line of the Urban Station scene. Now this is a simple, short, out-and-back line, which exists mainly to give me an excuse to buy some of the Tōkyū Setagaya line light-rail vehicles (see the Tram section of my Roster) and to experiment with Tomix’s mini-rail Finetrack. So far I’ve run this manually, with a Kato powerpack. But I want to automate it, since the trams are just supposed to be background activity to make the station look busier, as I concentrate on running my commuter and express EMUs and freight trains.
The problem I had was that I wanted to replicate a two-track line with unidirectional running, and a single track station at each end that let the trains switch between the two tracks, and I wanted to do this with more than one tram running at a time. The track I’m using has slip switches, which allow a train to run through them even with the switch set against it. This lets me leave the switch in one position, and have a train enter the end station from one track and leave on the other, without any switch-control needed. Read More...
The problem I had was that I wanted to replicate a two-track line with unidirectional running, and a single track station at each end that let the trains switch between the two tracks, and I wanted to do this with more than one tram running at a time. The track I’m using has slip switches, which allow a train to run through them even with the switch set against it. This lets me leave the switch in one position, and have a train enter the end station from one track and leave on the other, without any switch-control needed. Read More...
Japanese Trains
07 July 2010 14:07 Filed in: Model Trains
It occurs to me that I’ve been writing about my layout for over six months, and haven’t really mentioned the central reason for it: to run Japanese trains in a setting that evokes their natural urban landscape. In particular, I’m focused on contemporary Japanese passenger trains operated by JR East in and around Tōkyō. That may seem rather narrowly specialized, but Japan has such a variety of passenger trains that it really isn’t.
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Tram Platforms
10 April 2010 00:33 Filed in: Structures,Trams
Streetcars often allow people to enter from ground level, without requiring use of a platform, much like a bus and for the same reason. Kato’s recent Unitram model of the Toyama City Portram (like Tomix’s earlier models of the same) depict such low-floor trams. However, Tōkyō’s two remaining light-rail lines use high platforms and trams designed for them, which is one reason I didn’t use the Portram. Read More...
A Tram Line for Sumida Crossing
The latest change to the evolving design of the Urban Station scene is the addition of a light rail line, or tram as they’re commonly called in Japan. This is a simple half-loop of double-track, with stub terminals at each end, and one mid-route station. The line begins immediately under the main station, heads towards the river and curves across the “commercial avenue” that parallels the station, then runs along behind the row of buildings until it reaches the far end of the scene, away from the river. This use of a private right-of-way running behind buildings is typical of the two remaining tram lines in Tōkyō. Read More...
March 2010 Status - An Urban Station, almost
Another month, and it seems like there isn’t much to show for it. That’s somewhat deceptive as many things have been accomplished, but nothing has been finished, and that makes it seem like less was done. I’ve covered most of this already, so I’ll quickly summarize the work. Read More...
