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There is a Discussion Group formed on Yahoo for this topic. Visit this web address:- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Japanese-Z-Scale/ The list is open to all interested. Postings are monitored to ensure junk mail does not get in. To participate in the discussion you need to either sign your name and city or fill in your profile on Yahoo with your name and location. |
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 Mr Nansatu photo |
Akia ZJ 485 express in standard colours shown in a brief case layout at the JMRA convention in Osaka in Aug 2006. |
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Picture of a C62 Hudson built by a Mr Nimitz but the e-mail address shown on the page did not work so I have no more information. This was found on the Japanese ZJ resource pages at this web address. http://c623.blog54.fc2.com/ |
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More ZJ steam.
Japanese C57 Pacific & D51 Mikado Engines |
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| C57 Pacific built by Garth Hamilton September 2006 Niagara Falls Canada |
Since I made these models Tenshodo have introduced their version of the D51 with tender drive and it runs beautifully. Still no C57 but Tenshodo have introduced their C62 which also runs well. |
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C57
Pacific This is a different version of the C57 from the first one I built using a Suntory Boss Coffee Tin Premium for the body. This body was created using a 1:200 scale C57 from a Diorama produced by Japan Railfan Magazine from their volume 1 of 2004. Because the shell is plastic the complete engine and tender are very light in weight. There is room to add some weight on the sides and I am going to do that in the future. However the detail is very much improved from the Suntory Boss Coffee static model. You can actually see some of the dioramas created by Japan Railfan Magazine on the left. |
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| D51 Mikado built by Garth Hamilton September 2006 Niagara Falls Canada |
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D51
Mikado This body was created using a 1:200 scale D51 from a Diorama produced by Japan Railfan Magazine from their volume 1 of 2004. The tender under frames for the D51 and C57 were taken from Marklin tenders in my scrap box. Because of the type of plastic used to create the trucks and under frame to hold the wheel sets it is very hard to alter this detail. I need to purchase a scalpel in good condition so I can flay the detail off the side of the frame and glue on the correct truck side frames that I have saved from the static models.
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These are the 4 passenger cars from Takara which I modified by removing the original trucks with couplers and replacing them with Micro Trains 904 Passenger Trucks for Z-Scale which do not have couplers attached. MTL new pn is 004 02 240. and body mounted 905 couplers on the ends of the cars. Mtl new p/n 002 02 021. This string runs through reverse curves of Micro track with out problems. The scale appears to be 1:200 in height and width and 1:220 in length. | |
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Here on the left we have a view of a body mounted 905 coupler as it mates to a MTL GP35 coupler. On the right we have the same view only with a talgo mounted 905 on the MTL passenger truck using a strip of brass. Notice the Talgo coupler is slightly lower than the body mount and both are below the height of a standard coupler on a Micro Trains car. |
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Here is a look at the talgo mounted 905 coupler on the MTL 904 passenger truck The brass strip has an offset that places the bottom surface of the 905 coupler below the cross bar it is attached to. The pin sticking up goes into the opening on the bottom of the car to prevent the truck from over rotating to the left or right. On these passenger cars the talgo mounted coupler performs better in some aspects than the body mounted coupler, but it is much more difficult to adjust to get it operating 100%. The talgo mounted coupler also allows the cars to come closer to-gether because the coupler is mounted partially under the car. Something you can not do when you body mount the coupler under the car as there would be no room for the car to swing left or right. |
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| The TakaharaTomy cars that were available as M-gauge in the 24/25 series of Japanese passenger coaches were:- | ||
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in Green livery of the Twilight Express of JR West sleeping car type OHANEFU 25-500 sleeping car type OHANE 25-560 compartment car type SURONEFU 25-500 luggage van type Kani 24-0 |
in Blue livery of the Hokutosei of JR East sleeping car type OHANEFU 25-0 sleeping car type OHANE 25-0 saloon car type OHA 25-500 luggage van type KANI25-500 |
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Here is a picture of a complete train pulled by the C57. | |
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Here we have a shell from a Z-scale static model of a 1:220 EF-58 Japanese Electric that has been modified to fit on a Marklin GG1 chassis. This is not quite the correct mechanism to use as the driver axle spacing is incorrect on the two driving trucks. However the overall wheel arrangement is correct for this locomotive and the only modification I made to the chassis was to remove the circuit board and hard wire the pickups to the motor. The shell has a lot of grinding done on the interior of the roof of the shell to get it to sit down properly on the chassis. So the look is correct but the rivet counters will find fault. I have put lighting in the headlight using fibre optic. So this whole train has been created from static models of a toy train that were in scale or close to it. | |
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For more on the emergence of Japanese Z-scale you should be reading
the magazine Ztrack. Click on the image to visit the magazines site.
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www.Nn3.ca |
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