Japan

[pagroove]

Nice pictures guys!! I hope to have some soon.

Please do. I would like to follow the progress on your new route. One day I hope to connect the Icarus with the preserved SIRL. Only still about 175 km to go to the connection section. I will post and updated map in the futrure where you can see where I situated your SIRL Route in correlation with the Icarus Shinkansen.

[Chuckwagon2010]

looks nice, my personal favorite engine on the Yamanote line is the JR E231

[rowletmaster]

@ Rowlettmaster

Sorry. Here's my tips:
I use a tool from my MSI motherboard for screenshots called MSI afterburner. It allows you to set a screenshot folder and fire away screenshots with a key. I use the HOME key for that.

For screenshots itself. Try to have some object in the foreground. In a picture above I have a bridgerail or a balcony rail in the foreground.
It is not bad to stage the scene. I drive trains in slowmotion or even in the pauze setting to get a good screenshot.

I've found that instead of posting a direct screenshot, it is much better to use something like the Windows snipping tool (part of Windows) to capture the image you want. The Internet tends to darken most pictures quite a bit, so before you post it, I'd suggest using photo processing software to brighten it up a few shades and increase the focus (sharpness) GIMP or even Windows photo processing can do this. Cropping an overly large picture is a great way to focus the eye on what you made the picture for in the first place. having loads of trees around a central point of interest only detracts from the image. If you want to show, for instance, a train passing a row of houses, don't do it from a half-mile away - move in close and capture the essence of the scene.

I'm sure other's will have some advice as well.

Bill

righty thanks for advices ^_^

[AlexMaria]

In other news, the Kintetsu 3200 Series is almost done - i've made the intermediate cars as well. Actually, by my "previous" standards, this train would be directly ready for download, but i'll "delay" the release a little bit as i'm currently attempting at making animated doors (with help from members of another forum) and adding a few scripts here and there.

Finally, it's finished. Unfortunately, i was not able to make correct-working animated doors - i got stuck about a week-and-a-half ago with an attachment problem (only one out of the eight "half-doors" per side worked properly), i posted my problem on another forum (not the official trainz one), waiting a week for a possibly life-saving reply that never came. In the end, i decided to release this model as a plain "non-door-working" model like all my previous ones - however, in the future, when i will be able to properly make animated stuff, this model (and many more) will be retrofitted with working doors.

This model is already avaible at my website [here]

Anyway...

The 3200 Series was introduced by Kintetsu Railway in the late 1980s for the long-awaited commencment of trough-services between Kintetsu's network and the Kyoto Municipal Subway Karasuma Line.

Trough-services between the Kintetsu network (specifically the Kintetsu Kyoto and Nara Lines) and the Karasuma Line had been already planned well before construction of the latter began in 1974. Kintetsu originally expected the subway's construction to progress smoothly and relatively quickly, a forecast that was proved terribly wrong in a few years' time: building a subway under Kyoto is a bit like doing the same under Rome: you can't dig 20 meters without finding something of a historical-archeological value, and evry time this happens, works have to be interrupted and the object in question must be carefully extracted and preserved, something that is relatively simple to do with things like vases or other artifacts, but becomes difficult if you have to deal with something like the ruins of a medieval castle.

In other words, the subway's construction works proceeded extremely slowly, and Kintetsu Railway became increasingly impatient. By the late 1970s the works on the first section of the Karasuma Line were almost completed, and at the same time, Kintetsu decided to build the "prototype" set of what was to be it's series of trains designed specifically for subway trough-services: the 3000 Series. The first 4-car set of the 3000 Series entered service in 1979, being used as a testbed for several new fetaures that Kintetsu intended to use on it's future serieses of rolling stock, such as a proprietary stainless-steel bodyshell design and the current chopper control. Kintetsu's intentions were that when the Karasuma Line was eventually completed, full-scale mass-production of the 3000 Series could began.

After several delays, the first section of the Kyoto Municipal Subway Karasuma Line opened in 1981, connecting Kyoto and Kitaoji stations - this was however an isolated section, as the 3,4Km connection between Kyoto station and Kintetsu's railway network at Takeda was still under construction! By the time this section was nearing completion, it was the mid-1980s, and with with rolling stock technologies having rapidly evolved in the meantime, the 3000 Series was no longer deemed appropriate (under some aspects it could be even considered as "obsolete"), therefore the commencment of full-scale production was not even considered by Kintetsu, wich instead focussed on an entirely new design that would fully take advantage of said new technologies, primarily the brand-new inverter traction control system.

Classified as the "3200 Series", the new trains did not even remotely resemble their "spiritual predecessors": the flat front common to all of Kintetsu's commuter trains was replaced by a pleasant lightly curved one, inspired by the 7000 Series for the third-rail powered Keihanna Line wich were being designed at around the same time. Another fetaure derived from the 7000 Series was the asymmetrical front window arrangment, wich included a front emergency door, something mandated by law for all trains operating on subway lines in Japan. Besides the front, the bodyshell design was based on the one of the 8810 Series, then Kintetsu's lastest "above-ground" commuter train, and was made of an alluminium alloy (wich had been previously experimented on formation 8069F of the 8000 Series), making the 3200 Series Kintetsu's first mass-produced train using this material.

Ditching the already-obsolete chopper control, the 3200 Series was fitted with a very modern GTO-VVVF inverter control made by Mitsubishi Electric, something that was made relatively easy thanks to the unvaluable experience Kintetsu had already gotten with the Keihanna Line's 7000 Series and the 1250 Series prototype for "main line" services. To denote the innovative traction control, the 3200 Series trains were fitted with very well visible "VVVF" stickers on the sides, between the first and second passenger doors.

Finally, even the livery was changed: ditching the standard all-over dark red livery of Kintetsu's commuter trains (something almost unchanged since the 1930s), the new trains were fitted with a pleasant, but still nicely sober ivory-white livery with "Kintetsu red" side bands. Extremely well-recieved, the 3200 Series' new livery soon became Kintetsu's new standard commuter train livery, being applied on both newer trains and older ones as well, thus becoming a very recognizable icon of Kintetsu Railway.

With this wagonload of technological improvements, the first 3200 Series trains began to be built by Kinki Sharyo (a manufacturer owned by Kintetsu Railway itself) in late 1985. The first four 3200 Series trains, formed in 4-car sets, eventually entered provisional service in January 1986 on the above-ground Ikoma Line (you may have guessed it - the Kyoto-Takada section of the Karasuma line was not ready yet!), replacing in the meantime the last remaining 800 Series sets, wich were transferred to the Iga Line (today's the "separate" Iga Railway, wich is still however part of the Kintetsu group).

As engeneering works on the Kyoto-Takada section came to near completion, in 1987 the four existing 3200 Series sets were lenghtened to six cars (with the addition of two intermediate trailers), and in the same year, two more six-car sets were delivered from Kinki Sharyo, bringing the total to six 3200 Series 6-car set.

Finally, Kintetsu's long-awaited trough-services with the Karasuma Line began in November 1988, with the completion of the Kyoto-Takada section of the line (a full decade after the 3000 Series had been introduced!). Later that year, in December 1988, one more six-car set was added to the fleet, finally bringing the total to seven 6-car sets (for a total of 42 cars), all assigned at Saidaiji Depot.

As of today, the service pattern of the 3200 Series sits relatively unchanged since the late 1980s, with these trains being mostly used on trough-services between Kokusaikaikan (the current northern terminus of the Karasuma Line, opened in 1997) and Kintetsu Nara (via the Kintetsu Kyoto Line) or further south, to Tenri Station via the Kashihara and Tenri Lines.
However, depsite their status of "trough-service" trains, the 3200 Series can often be seen running above-ground services (even more so after the introduction of the 3220 Series) especially on the Kintetsu Nara Line between Kintetsu Nara and Osaka-Namba station, but above-ground services on the Kyoto Line (Kintetsu Kyoto to Kintetsu Nara) aren't unheard as well. This is possible thanks to the fact that Saidaiji Depot, to wich the whole fleet is assigned to, is located almost at the dead-center of Kintetsu's 1435mm gauge network (the portion in the Keihanshin area atleast).

As of now, Kintetsu has not yet any plans to replace the 3200 Series, meaning that these trains will continue running for the forseaable future.

Trivia#1

The ivory-cream and dark red livery introduced with the 3200 Series in 1986 remained Kintetsu's standard commuter train livery until 2000, with the introduction of the "Series 21" family of trains, wich had an ivory white and grey livery with a thin yellow line. The first train carrying this livery was the 3220 Series (introduced in 2000) wich coincidentally is also a commuter train designed for trough-services with the Kyoto Subway Karasuma Line - the three sets in this series are actually intended to supplement the 3200 Series and can thus be used interchangeably with the latter.

Trivia#2

The 3200 Series hold the very niche distinction of being one of the few trains designed for subway-trough-services to regularily run trough mountain tunnels, as is the case for Kintetsu Nara Line services between Kintetsu Nara and Osaka-Namba station, wich run trough the Ikoma tunnel. Another (very recent) example are the two JR East 209-1000 Series sets, former Chiyoda Line inter-running trains moved to the Chuo and Ome Lines.

[duskeyduskey]

Finally, it's finished. Unfortunately, i was not able to make correct-working animated doors - i got stuck about a week-and-a-half ago with an attachment problem (only one out of the eight "half-doors" per side worked properly), i posted my problem on another forum (not the official trainz one), waiting a week for a possibly life-saving reply that never came. In the end, i decided to release this model as a plain "non-door-working" model like all my previous ones - however, in the future, when i will be able to properly make animated stuff, this model (and many more) will be retrofitted with working doors.

This model can be downloaded here at the moment (with dependencies and prototypical 4- and 6-car consists included) - it will soon be avaible on my website as well.

Lovely! Looks wonderful, I tested it out and works perfectly. I'm currently fixing bugs I found in the route such as: trains stopping at yellow lights, random switch changing, I don't know why but randomly Uncoupling, Ect. I'll keep everyone updated.

[AlexMaria]

Lovely! Looks wonderful, I tested it out and works perfectly. I'm currently fixing bugs I found in the route such as: trains stopping at yellow lights, random switch changing, I don't know why but randomly Uncoupling, Ect. I'll keep everyone updated.

I'm glad they work well! Here's something more that will be useful for your route: the Kyoto Municipal Subway 10 Series in both the "early" (batches 1 and 2 - left) and "later" (batches 3 to 6 - right) versions!



As with the Kintetsu 3200 Series, this pack is already avaible at my website [here]

These were introduced by the Kyoto City Transportation Bureau in 1981 for services on the soon-to-be opened Karasuma Line, Kyoto's first subway line. The designing of these trains, classified as the "10 Series", actually began in the (very) late 1970s and was primarily influenced by the TRTA 8000 Series for the Hanzomon Line, then Tokyo's newest subway train, wich was being designed and built at around the same time.

The most notable influence coming from the 8000 Series is the angled, asymmetrical and convex front design incorporating an emergency "drawbridge-like" exit, something wich was relatively common in Tokyo (as it was already used on TRTA's 6000 and 7000 Serieses) but almost unheard of in the Kansai region, thus making the 10 Series the first subway train with an angled front in service there. Another influence was in the bodyshell design, wich was made out of aluminum.

As these trains were planned to have inter-running services on Kintetsu Railway's network from the beginning, numerous influences of the latter can also be found on the 10 Series as well - most notably the two top-mounted headlights and the two "towards-the-bottom" tail lights, wich also double as service indicators, both having been a staple of Kintetsu's commuter trains since the early 1960s (and in some form still are today!), and of course, as the Karasuma Line had to be compatible with Kintetsu's network*, the 10 Series had to be built for the 1435mm standard gauge.

Finally, taking advantage of the aluminium bodyshell, the trains were left mostly unpainted, except for side horizontal lines on top of the passenger windows and doors and a vertical band on the front, wich encompassed the front emergency door, both being painted in the Karasuma Line's blueish-green color (wich was inspired by the tonality of green then in use on the busses operated by the Kyoto City Transporation Bureau itself). The same green color was also used to paint the front unit numbers and the small logos of the transportation bureau found on the sides of the cars, below the central passenger windows.

Kinki Sharyo (a manufacturer owned by Kintetsu Railway itself) was contracted to build the bodyhsells and other "mechanical" components such as bogeys or pantographs, while Hitachi was contracted to make the "electrical components", such as the traction motors and a modern armature chopper control system (again derived from the one used by the TRTA 8000 Series), wich would then be shipped to Kinki Sharyo for the final completion of the trains.

Production of the 10 Series lasted from 1981 to 1997 and was subdivided into six batches:

The first batch included nine 4-car sets built in late 1980 and completed in early 1981, on time for the opening of the first section of the Karasuma Line, between Kyoto and Kitaoji stations, on the 1st of April 1981.

The second batch was delivered in 1988 and consisted of 18 trailer cars used to lenghten the existing nine 4-car sets to 6-car sets between may and september in time for the opening of the long-awaited Karasuma Line extension to Takeda and commencment of trough-services with Kintetsu, wich began on the 4th of November 1988.

The third batch was also delivered in 1988 and consisted of five 6-car sets, delivered as well for the commencment of trough-services with Kintetsu Railway.

For this batch, the design of the 10 Series was extensively modified, with numerous changes being made (primarily to simplify production), most notably in the front, where the "TRTA 8000 Series-style" convex front design was changed to a simpler and cheaper concave front and a window was added to the emergency door to ehnance the driver's visibility of the line ahead. Other minor modifications were made with the side passenger windows, with their corners being changed from 90° square ones to more modern round ones and in the interiors, with a slight modifications to the gangway doors and windows and to the vents of the passenger compartment's ventilation and air conditioning system. All subsequent batches have been built to the 3rd batch's specifications.

The fourth batch consists of a single 6-car sets delivered in october 1990 for the 1-stop northwards extension of the Karasuma Line from Kitaoji to Kitayama, and was followed two years later in august 1993 by the fifth batch, wich consisted of two more 6-car sets intended to increase the line's overall capacity.

The final batch of the 10 Series was built between April and May 1997 and consisted of three 6-car sets delivered for the Karasuma Line's final norhtwards extension from Kitayama to Kokusaikaikan, the current northern terminus, wich primarily serves Kyoto City's International Conference Centrer, wich shortly after the opening of the line's extension, in December 1997, hosted the signing of the very important Kyoto Protocol.

The 6th batch 10 Series trains bear the distinction of being the last chopper-controlled trains ordered by a railway company, a tie-in with the 8th batch Toei 10-000 Series for the Shinjuku Line, wich had been ordered in 1997 as well (these however are generally regarded as the "winners" of the title, having entered service in December 1997 compared to April-May for the 10 Series).

The reason for this was a purely technical one: the design changes made from the 3rd batch onwards only applied to the exterior and bodyshell design, while the traction control and most other technical equipment was left exactly the same, in order to simplify and to reduce the costs of the trains' maintainance. This however had somewheat of a paradox "side effect", as the transportation bureau had to continue purchasing armature chopper-control trains even when the more advanced VVVF inverters had become already commonplace.

In the end, by late 1997, when the final 10 Series batch had entered service, the Karasuma Line was served by a total of twenty 6-car sets, all assigned at Takeda depot (adjacent to Takeda station). These were also supplemented by the six 3200 Series 6-car sets owned by Kintetsu Railway specially designed for inter-running services.

Thruought the years, several modifications were made to the 10 Series trains: the motor generators of the 1st and 2nd batch trains were replaced with static inverters and between 2017 and 2020 the destination indicators and interior lighting on some "later"-style trains were changed to LEDs. However, the most extensive modification came between 2015 and 2016, when four sets from batches 3, 4 and 6 were converted from the obsolete armature chopper control to an up-to-date IGBT-VVVF inverter with SiC components, manufactured by Hitachi, wich also supplied the necessary three-phase AC motors. A fifth set, no.20 from the 6th batch was also scheduled to undergo the same modification in 2020.

As of today, all twenty 10 Series sets are still in service, either running as Karasuma Line-only trains from Kokusaikaikan to Takeda station or as inter-running trains on the Kintetsu Kyoto and Nara Lines from Kokusaikaikan via Takada (where a Kintetsu crew replaces the Transportation bureau's one) and Yamato Saidaiji to Kintetsu-Nara and vice-versa.

However, these trains are all atleast 25 years old, and with the 1st batch trains having surpassed the 40 years in service mark a week ago (at the time of writing), a replacement is soon to come: the transportation bureau has already announced plans to replace the 1st and 2nd batches with a new design (wich, as far as renders go, bears a striking resemblance to the Tokyo Metro 16000 Series) planned to be built by Kinki Sharyo and introduced this year, in 2021. However, nothing new has come out as of today.

Furthemore, no mention of a replacement for the trains of batches 3 to 6 was made so, taking also into account the fact that the transportation bureau's finances are (as with many other municipally-owned transportation operators) quite strecthced, we could safely assume that these will probably run on the Karasuma Line for a few decades more.

*While Kintetsu does have both 1067mm and 1435mm networks (and formerly some 762mm lines as well!), the Karasuma Line was planned to connect with the Kyoto Line, wich is part of the 1435mm gauge network.



And with this, #24 on the "i'd like to do in 2021" list has been done!

[pagroove]

@AlexMaria.

Thank you and great work. I like those asymmetrical fronts on the Trains. They have that 80's/90's look.

Found a nice Kyoto Subway Video:





For others:. Reminder The Building Update for Icarus Shinkansen is still up. However the link stays up for 6 days. More info in Post #6228 on page 416. So get it while you can or you can wait till next months update.

[Jdriver]

Okay so random screenshot I found

Does anyone know who made this E217 Series? I'm just wondering

[duskeyduskey]

Okay so random screenshot I found
https://images.n3vgames.com/trainzpo...shot-Image.jpg
Does anyone know who made this E217 Series? I'm just wondering

I'm not sure but I think it was made by "ATC" I don't know who it is but I have visited their website before.

[AlexMaria]

I'm not sure but I think it was made by "ATC" I don't know who it is but I have visited their website before.

ATC trainz did a model of the E217 Series but not this one. The train in the screenshot was released by Rizky_Adiputra a few months ago.

Wait, lemme see if i can find the post...

found:

E217 Series
The interior is still wrong but okay..
Download here :

[pagroove]

@. AlexMaria.

I drove your Kintetsu 3200 series and Kyoto Municipal Subway Series 10 yesterday. Excellent work. Question. They worked both perfectly in Quickdrive so you must have used an updated engingspec. I believe you wrote about it before. But are you updating all your trains with that spec?

Because this can be driven very good in both realistic mode and quick drive mode.

[AlexMaria]

@. AlexMaria.

I drove your Kintetsu 3200 series and Kyoto Municipal Subway Series 10 yesterday. Excellent work. Question. They worked both perfectly in Quickdrive so you must have used an updated engingspec. I believe you wrote about it before. But are you updating all your trains with that spec?

Because this can be driven very good in both realistic mode and quick drive mode.

Thank you. I'm glad to hear that they work well.

Yes, all trains i have made since the Tokyu 9000/2000 Series pack (included) are all equipped with a new updated enginespec. I indeed plan to implement the change to the rest of my content next. Basically, what i'll do is that i'll directly modify the old "32 notches" enginespec to make them identical to the new ones, while keeping the same KUID and user name, so the first time someone will install the "updated" 32 notches enginespec .cdp, the old version will be overwritten and thus the change will be made to all of my content, without the need to painfully modify each train's .config file.

[pasha2]

Hello, some missing kuids from Snapshot 3 of Icarus v2.0:

kuid2:146087:60820:1
kuid2:60850:23113:6

Searched for em, but only got results of other peeps looking for them online.

[Railshuttle]

Hokay some pics form my new layout. A small city that I haven't named yet, the site of a future large city by the lake, The makings of the Mid Central Line/ Azure line junction.

[ricardolucasandoval]

Hokay some pics form my new layout. A small city that I haven't named yet, the site of a future large city by the lake, The makings of the Mid Central Line/ Azure line junction.

Nice work about you're route! A question though, just how big is this route? Cause by the looks of it I feel like this is more than 50km of track. And what trains operate here other than Odakyu/Odawara line trains?

Again, nice work. And sorry for my absence of any screenshots of my route. I stopped development temporarily. Because of school, and focused on other games. Like I recently got an ATC Simulator on my 3DS called Airport Hero and *DUN DUN* now I'm hooked to it. Im so sorry yall. Im gonna see if I can get more work done and give other games a break.