Japan

Nice pic Hirochi. I just finnished watching the cab view journey of that train. Question. What trees are you using? I'm trying to find other trees besides the pine and launch trees to use on my JR part of my layout.
 
Oh the JVC trees. is there a certian type like say the Birch or Maple trees that you used in the pic. I use JVC too but I was trying to match the trees to the territory like I doubt you would find a California tree in Japan.
 
Well I got some time to work on my layout a little. I was able to make a new mini city of Kojimaru, lucked out and got a triple meet on the WS line the third train is in the back of the freight train on the upper right. Also got a good shot of the Super View Express. Enjoy
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4K cab view - Tōkaidō Main Line Sekigahara to Toyohashi via Nagoya, Aichi, pref, Jpn

For great inspiration I can recommend this YouTube video and subscription to his channel:

https://youtu.be/N-or1dKcOlU

Best seen in 4K aka on high resolution monitors and a good Internet connection.:)
 
I also have something new.

It took quite a lot of time, but now it's here and ready: the TRTA and Tokyo Metro 6000, 7000 and 8000 Serieses megapack!

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A few representative consists from the pack. from left to right: 6000 Series prototype, pre-production set in full-service, 7000 Series, 8000 Series, Tokyo Metro 6000 Series (refurbished with VVVF control but with small windows), Chiyoda Branch Line 6000-1 set, 7000 Series (Yurakucho Line livery), 8000 Series (VVVF-controlled cars), 7000 Series (Fukutoshin Line Livery).


DOWNLOAD


All the necessary dependencies are included in the pack or are avaible on the DLS (for example, the bogeys), except for the pantographs, wich must be downloaded from Rizky's website (jirctrainz.com - they're included in the "freeware EMU packs").


This is quite a large pack (101 different cars, around 25 consists, three weeks' work for a total of 489 MB of uncompressed package), so enjoy the reading below while you download and install it.

And yes, it will work in Trainz 2012.

...

After the Tokyo Olympics of 1964, Japan was entering in a phase of superb economic growth, nicknamed the "economic miracle". As the economy boomed, so did cities and metropolises around the country, Tokyo in primis.
In Tokyo, TRTA had just completed the Tozai Line, and the Toei Subway was building it's second line - the Mita Line (wich, at the time, was still called with the official name of "Line No.6"). And both companies were already planning for several more lines to be built.
At the same time, electronics were quickly evolving, with many new components, such as diodes and thrystors, finding an use in railway technology. One of these applications was the Current Chopper, wich was intended to replace the energy-inefficient rehostat as the traction control system for electric trains.

In this context, TRTA decided to develop a new standard subway train design for future lines, under the concept of a "lightweight, easy-maintainance, new technology cars with a 40-year lifespan".

Unlike many other railways (such as JNR) wich still preferred to rely on the well-proven rheostat, TRTA decided instead to bet on the current chopper for it's new trains, partly also out of necessity: with little space to build shallow-level subway lines, deep-level ones were the only option, but these posed even more problems if resistor-controlled trains were to be used, as the heat generated by multiple trains when departing from a station could've been unbearable, and deep-level ventilation might have been quite complex.
Chopper-controlled trains instead did not produce heat when departing, meaning that the need for ventilation could be scaled down, and deep-level lines made practical.

Yes, betting on a new and largely unproven technology was a bit of a gamble, so TRTA decided to order a prototype train for tests only, before making a large-scale adoption of the chopper.

Classified "6001", the prototype train was a 3-car set manufactured by Kisha Seizo and introduced in 1968. It was to be the predecessor of the 6000 Series, wich was planned to be used on the then-under-construction Chiyoda Line, wich was TRTA's first deep-level line.

A far cry from it's predecessor, it's asymmetrical front devised by Nippon Sharyo (inspired by the concepts of the A-type cars of the San Francisco BART, wich at the time was still under construction) was unique, distinctive and quite futuristic for the late 1960s, and incorporated a very unique fetaure: an emergency exit wich worked like the drawbridges of medieval castles. Furthemore, the asymmetric cab meant that the driver's cab could be larger and more comfortable.

Each of the three cars of the prototype set was equipped with a different traction control system: cab cars 6001 and 6003 were equipped with current choppers manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric and Hitachi respectively, and the middle "pantograph car" 6002 was equipped with a "back-up" rheostat. Assigned to Fukugawa depot, starting from 1968 the 6001 prototype underwent several test runs on the above-ground sections of the Tozai Line.

Initially, the prototype was fitted with a large noise-reducing skirt, wich was almost immediately removed as it was quite a nusiance for the technicians that had to coninuously open and close it to access the traction control and other under-carriage equipment for maintainance or fault-fixing.

In August 1969, a 6-car pre-production set, manufactured by Kawasaki and also classifed "6001" joined the 3-car prototype on Tozai Line test runs. By then, tests were taking longer than anticipated, and with the initial section of the badly needed Chiyoda Line being completed before time, TRTA couldn't delay it's opening, and so, in December 1969, the Chiyoda Line opened between Kita-Senju and Otemachi, provisionally using resistor-controlled 5000 Series trains identical to Tozai Line ones.

Finally, by 1970, the tests were completed, with Mitsubishi Electric's chopper being chosen over Hitachi's one as it was more reliable. TRTA immediately ordered full-production 6000 Series trains, with the first sets entering service in time for the opening of the Chiyoda Line extension from Otemachi to Kasumigaseki on the 20th of March 1971.

These were quite different from the two prototypes: most notably, they had a full frontal green band instead of the "around-the-headlights-only" of their predecessors, wich was a notable improvement.

At the same time, the pre-production set was lenghtened from 6 to 10 cars and upgraded to full-production 6000 Series standards, while the 3-car set was taken out of service and stored at Ayase Depot.
With the influx of the new chopper-controlled trains, the Chiyoda Line 5000s were gradually transferred to the Tozai Line, except a couple of sets wich were kept at Ayase Depot as spare trains.

With the Chiyoda Line being completed, trough-services started at both ends (with Odakyu and the JNR Joban Line), with the new 6000 Series (except for the pre-production set 6001) travelling from Hon-Atsugi as far as Toride, the border between 1500V DC and 20Kv AC electrifications.

Briefly after the Chiyoda Line, another line opened; the Yurakucho Line, wich started operations on the 30th of October 1974, this time with it's own proper trains: the 7000 Series. These were almost identical to the Chiyoda Line 6000 Series, with the exception of a "predisposition" for an additional service indicator over the emergency door, as these trains were planned to have a variety of trough-services with the Seibu and Tobu railways. Another difference was the background color of the roller-blind, wich was changed to a more conventional black.

Not many years later, on the 1st of August 1978, another line opened: the Hanzomon Line, wich was to be the long-awaited relief line for the overcrowded Ginza Line. This time, as the line was quite short (only 2.7 Km with three stations), TRTA decided not to immediately introduce new trains, opting instead to operate the line 8000 Series trains lent from Tokyu Railway (in fact, the Hanzomon Line at the time operated as an underground extension of the Tokyu Denentoshi Line).

In 1979, the Chiyoda Line 3-car prototype was taken out of storage, upgraded to full-production standards, converted to one-man operation, reclassified "6000-1" to avoid confusion with the pre-production set and put back in service on the newly introduced Ayase to Kita-Ayase shuttle service togheter with the two "spare" 5000 Series sets, wich were shortened to 3 cars. Of these three trains, two were in service and one in "reserve".

This service, also nicknamed the "Chiyoda Branch Line" operated on the connection between Ayase station and Ayase Depot, wich was located a couple of kilometers to the north. The depot had initially opened togheter with the rest of the line, but as residents along the connection demanded a way to get to Ayase station, TRTA decided to open Kita-Ayase station and run a shuttle between the two.

Starting from the early 1980s, the 6000 and 7000 Series trains were retrofitted with air-conditioning, and at the same time, their windows were changed from the 103 Series-style "4-section" ones to more modern-looking 2-section ones.

Finally, in 1981, the Hanzomon Line's proper trains were introduced: the 8000 Series. Unlike it's predecessors, the 8000 Series had a new, quite distinctive, slanted front and rectangular headlights, wich gave it an even more modern look than the 6000s and 7000s. Furthemore, it was air-conditioned from the start and was TRTA's first train equipped with the distinctive "T-shaped" two-hands master controller.
Depsite all the differences in looks, the 8000 Series was still technically-speaking very much identical to the 6000s and 7000s; in fact it still used the same well-proven MELCO chopper.

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Unlike the Yurakucho Line, the Hanzomon Line's construction progressed slowly, mainly due to land acquisition troubles. In fact, for the whole of the 1980s, the Hanzomon Line remained a quite short line, meaning that there was quite a surplus of brand-new 8000 Series trains.
In 1987, TRTA had completed the platform extension works to enable the lenghtening of the overcrowded Tozai Line's trains from 7 to 10-car sets. With the 5000 Series being reformed into 10-car sets, there was a need for new trains, and with the development of the 05 Series underway, TRTA concluded that buying new 5000 Series sets wasn't a viable option. Instead it adapted three surplus 8000 Series trains (sets 12, 13 and 14) and moved them to the Tozai Line in November 1987 as a stop-gap mesaure. These were retrofitted with JR East's ATS-B saftey system (enabling them to run trough-services on the Chuo-Sobu Line) and had their driving desk changed for an older-style type similar to the one on 5000 Series trains.
Depsite all the modifications, the Tozai Line 8000s kept their Hanzomon Line purple livery, with the exception of light blue "Tozai Line" stickers placed above each door.

With the 05 Series entering service in 1988 and the Hanzomon Line being finally extended to Mitsukoshimae in 1989, by Janurary 1989 all the three 8000 Series sets were moved back to the Hanzomon Line.

By the early 1990s, both the 6000 and 7000 Series trains underwent a refurbishment program, as by then they had been in service for almost 20 years. This refurbishment program included the changing of the 6000 Series destination display from roller-blind to a LED-type, the first such modification for a Japanese train and the conversion of both types from the chopper control to more efficient, less demanding in terms of maintainance IGBT-VVVF control.

In 2004, the TRTA was reorganized as Tokyo Metro, consequently, all trains lost their iconic "S-arrow" logo for the light blue "M-heart" logo of the newly-formed Tokyo Metro.
Tokyo Metro contiuned the refurbishment program of the 6000 and 7000 Serieses trains, with the last 6000 Series being converted by the late 2000s. At the same time, most of the converted 6000s recieved new doors with large windows, replacing the older ones with their distinctive small square-like windows.

In 2008, Tokyo Metro's first (and to this day, only) new line opened: the Fukutoshin Line, wich was designed to relieve congestion on the western side of the Yamanote Line. For the opening of the new line, Tokyo Metro had introduced the new 10000 Series, but instead of "concentrating" it on the new line, it decided to split the fleet between the new line and the Yurakucho Line.
Consequently, part of the Yurakucho Line's fleet was reformed into 8-car sets, refurbished repainted into a new brown livery and transferred to the Fukutoshin Line. Gradually, the new livery also replaced the yellow one used by proper Yurakucho Line trains, wich disappeared by the early 2010s.

Now, the relationship between the Yurakucho and the Fukutoshin Lines is really quite interesting, as it dates back to the opening of the "Yurakucho New Line" in 1994 and before, and i'd very much like to elaborate on it, but i fear i might be running a little longer than what i should.

With the opening of the connection between the new underground Shibuya station and the Tokyu Toyoko Line in 2013, Fukutoshin Line trains started to run all the way south to Motomachi-Chukagai on the Minatomirai Line. One year later, in 2014, the two 5000 Series sets and the 6000-1 Series set operating the Chiyoda Branch Line services were replaced by an uniform fleet of 05 Series trains converted from retired Tozai Line units, and in 2015, the last Hanzomon 8000 Series was converted from chopper to inverter control.
Finally, on the 11th of November 2018, after an enviable 48-years long career, the last full-production 6000 Series set was retired from the Chiyoda Line, being replaced by the 16000 Series.

As of today, the 7000 and 8000 Serieses are still in service on the Yurakucho, Hanzomon and Fukutoshin Lines, but Tokyo Metro has already announced the soon-to-enter-service replacement: the 17000 and 18000 Serieses.

6000 Series trains are actually still in service in Indonesia: almost the whole fleet of the 6000 Series (29 sets out of 35) was sold to Kereta Commuter Indonesia, where it still operates to this day, along a smaller fleet of four ex-Yurakucho Line 7000 Series sets.

The 6000 and 7000 Series trains still running in Indonesia will reach soon half-a-century of mainline service while remaining reliable, modern, perfectly adequate and innovative train after all this time.



(i'm sorry for the humongous post, but i can't help myself - these are my favourite trains - i could easily write a book about them...)

Now, this package was quite a lot of work, but the real deal comes tomorrow...
 
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Very nice! Finally some good electric locomotives! And with a proper functioning cab too!



Yes, they do work perfectly in Trainz 12.

They're really fantastic locomotives, and they run perfectly.


They are really fantastic. I like that they feature it's own cabin with the speed wheel. Very nice.
Thank you.

While browsing Youtube I found this video (not my video). What is interesting about it that this movie seems to be from 1964. Recolored and HD 60 FPS. The quality of this rework is really stunning it features the opening of the Tokkaido Shinkansen with super interesting views from the 60's from Japan.

 
I am currently working on this:
The famous "Blue Train" Expert: Gohachi-san :wave:

Blue Trainz Summer Freight Car

JNR EF 58 10

Very nice work! I curious to see it once it's finished!



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Now, this package was quite a lot of work, but the real deal comes tomorrow...

As promised...

...and after quite a lot of work...

*drum roll*

My website is now open for business!

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Here's the link:

https://www.socimi.it/

As of now, the homepage is a bit bare, but the Trainz Downloads Area is fully up and running.

It includes almost all of my old reskins, plus many yet unrelased ones, such as the full 113-115-415 Serieses reskin pack (something wich i wanted to make for quite a long time) and other minor relases such as the Hanshin 7001/7101 Series.

As a bit of an interesting trivia, the choice of a Yurakucho Line 7000 Series (both for the "inaugurational image" and as part of the previous pack) isn't completely casual: in fact, a Tokyo Metro 7000 Series was my very first reskin, wich i made almost six years ago
.

Now, as part of, you could say, "celebrations" for the opening of the site, for the next four days (until the 8th of August) anyone can request one of the following trains in a personalized livery (real, semi-fictional or fully-fictional).

- TRTA 3000 Series
- TRTA 6000 Series
- TRTA 7000 Series
- TRTA 8000 Series
- Tokyu 1000 Series
- Tokyu 8090/8590 Series
- Seibu 9000 Series
- JNR 301 Series
- JR West 125 Series
- Nagano Electric Railway "OS-Car" 10 Series
- Osaka Subway 30 Series
- Osaka Subway 10 Series
- Osaka Subway 20 Series
- Osaka Subway 60 Series

For more informations about the requests, please PM me.
 
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