Japan

Sakura tree

Some new shot form my newest route. I finally got the chance to take the Azusa out for a spin on the Orange line. I don't think I got the car constant quite right though I'll have to edit it.
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May i know the name and the creator of sakura tree in your first screenshot?
 
Fascinating video. Although I lived for three years in Japan, I was in the very northern part of Honshu (Near Hachinohe, at Misawa) and only got down to Tokyo maybe five or six times a year, the trains service is a joy to ride. The long-range trains (Misawa is roughly 700KM north of Tokyo - an 8+ hour ride), especially the second and third class trains, are a great way to travel and meet people. When I was in Tokyo, I rarely took a taxi, relying on subways and trains for most all my travel.

Much later, after I'd retired from the navy, I worked for a transportation computer company and spent a month at the ATC control room in Hoboken Station, NJ helping perfect better train control for NJT. It was exacting work and some of that is evident in the video as the controllers strive to keep the trains running.

Bill
 
@Hiballer: Thanks your interesting story Bill.
Being in Japan more times or for a longer stay you will never get Japan out of your blood. This is my experience.:)
 
A new Shinkansen is testing on the Colden Shinkansen. The S2 Shinkansen Series. The train will replace the 500 Shinkansen Series that runs on the Kodama serivce
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New model for this week, and another first for me: JNR's DD54 Diesel Locomotive!

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From left to right: prototype units (1 to 3), full-production units (early style), full-production units (later style with round windows) and the same as a static object.

The pack can be downloaded from my website (here) or directly from here. All the necessary dependencies are either included in the package or are avaible on the DLS. As a disclaimer, the dependencies that are not mine are property of their respective authors.

Besides the three "driveable" variants, the pack includes also an "object" DD54 that can be placed on your layouts as a preserved locomotive, for example in a park.



By the mid-1960s, the Japanese National Railways were pursuing their so-called "smokelessness program", whose main objective was the as-fast-as-possible complete replacement of steam locomotives with electric or diesel ones. For services on non-electrified lines, JNR had been designing a series of different standard locomotives, each for a different duty (an approach similar to British Rail's "standard diesel types"). Among those, the B-B-B sulzer-engined diesel-electric class DF50 was designed for mainline freight and passenger services, while the more powerful, modern and versatile B-2-B diesel-hydraulic class DD51 was designed for heavy freight and "road switching" duties; finally, the B-B DD13 was designed for shunting work.

Unfortunately, the DF50s were seriously underpowered (1060 or 1200hp at best), wich meant that the JNR lacked a suitable locomotive for passenger trains. At that time, interest fell on the diesel-hydraulic transmission, wich was already proving successful with the 2200hp-powerful DD51s.
Owning to the good results of the experimental class DD91 of 1962, wich used a West-German Maybach-made motor with Mekhydro torque-converter transmission (both having already been used on British Rail's Class 35 "Hymeks" and on RENFE's Class 340 "green torpedos"), JNR finally embarked in the quest of designing a medium-weight diesel-hydraulic locomotive for passenger services.

The new locomotive, to be classified DD54, was to be a single-engined, medium-weight diesel-hydraulic locomotive with a torque converter. It's 40 units were intended to replace the C57 and C58 steam locomotives on non-electrified lines in the Kansai area.
The DD54 were primarily based on the West German DB Baurehie V160 (later 216 and 218), wich almost perfectly mirrored JNR's ideas, just with a little addition: instead of a common B-B wheel arrangment, JNR opted for the unusual B-1-B arrangment, wich was basically a B-B locomotive with a central unpowered axle, used to lower the axle load and permit the usage of the locomotive on branchlines with a low axle load limit.

To manufacture the new locomotives, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries acquired the production licenses for both the MD870 motor (renamed by JNR as the DMP86Z type) and the torque converter from Maybach, altough the contract had one fatal clause: JNR and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries were not permitted to make any modification or adaptation to either the motor or the converter.
Production of the DD54s started in 1966, with the first three "prototype" units (distingushable by their top-mounted headlights) being delivered to Fukuchiyama Depot in the same year. After undergoing some test runs in 1967, they entered in regular service, both on "regular" passenger trains on the San'in Main Line and the Fukuchiyama and Bantan Lines and sometimes even on the "Oki" express trains.

On the 28th of June 1968, DD54 n°2 was running one of these services, when between Tottori and Koyama on the San'In Main Line, the universal joint linking the transmission shaft to the front bogey of the locomotive broke, with the transmission shaft immediately falling down on the tracks, getting caught between the sleepers and thrusting the whole locomotive upwards. This incident, later nicknamed the "pole vault crash" (pole vault being the sport where the athlete launches himself up in the air using a long, flexible pole) was the culmination of a series of issues and faults the DD54s had been suffering just months after their entrance in service.

Depsite being binded by the license agreement, wich barred both Mitsubishi and JNR from modifying or adapt either the motor or the converter, and all the previous issues, JNR proceded to order the remaining 37 DD54s anyway, as the national railways were desperate to get rid of the last steam locomotives, in an attempt to improve it's image, wich had been extensively tarnished by a percieved mismanagement and inefficiency. Furthemore, JNR had to face the growing challenge of the private automobile, a challenge that it could not face with steam locomotives.

The full production units entered service starting from 1968, all assigned at Fukuchiyama Depot; they were largely identical to the prototype units, except for the headlights wich were moved under the front windows. From unit 25 onward, the front windows were also changed, from larger squared ones to more resistent, smaller, rounder ones. In 1971, the last locomotive, DD54 40, left the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and joined the other 39 at Fukuchiyama depot. With the entrance in servce of the full fleet, issues on the DD54s only multiplicated: the overengineered and complex torque converter kept malfunctioning, motor oil kept overheating and the driving shafts kept breaking.

In 1970 it was discovered (with much anger from JNR), that Mitsubishi had made an error when calculating the resistance of the shaft, meaning that the DD54 were all equipped with too much fragile ones, all of wich were replaced in the same year (at quite the cost). Things weren't good on Mitsubishi's side either, with Mayback stil stubbornly denying the permission for any modification or adaptation to the troubled components, and with Japanese engineers lacking experience with these engines, one of the only possible ways to make major repair works on the motors was to pack and send them to the Maybach factory in West Germany altogheter - a ludicrously expensive and time-consuming operation. Another criticism towards these locomotives was moved from the powerful and very active railwaymen unions, wich rightly claimed that the cab was too uncomfortable for drivers.

Furthemore, even day-to-day maintainance was a problem: the locomotives had to be sent all the way to JNR's Takatori workshop, wich had a small ad-hoc detachment of Mitsubishi technicians, but with information scarce, and possibly vital communciation with Maybach almost absent, DD54s had to spend most of their service life stored awaiting repairs.

Meanwhile the DD51s (also produced by Mitsubishi, but without foreign-made components and binding license agreements) were proving to be extremely versatile and incredibly reliable and cheap to run and maintain while being also very well liked by railwaymens and with DD54s becoming an ever increasing pain-in-the-butt, JNR began to seriously consider their retirement and replacement with DD51s.
In 1976, JNR's last steam services were finally abolished, effectively completing the long-awaited "smokelessness" plan, but at quite the cost.
By the mid-1970s, only an handful of DD54s were operable, the rest having been stored or shelved due to serious or unrepairable faults. At the same time, JNR decided to shift from diesel-locomotive-hauled passenger trains to DMUs, meaning that the remaining DD54s were either to be replaced by DD51s or by new DMUs.

The agony of these unlucky locomotives came at an end when the last two DD54s (nos. 12 and 33) were taken out of service on the 14th of June 1978.

With none of the units reaching the legal minimium of 18 years of service life, averaging instead a very low 7 years and 4 months (with the shortest being 4 years and 10 months), DD54s quickly became the subject of a brief but intense and very unpleasant discussion within the Diet (the Japanese Parliment) about wheter or not JNR was being adequately managed, especially taking also into consideration the budget and the company's rapidly-growing debt.
Things became even sourer when a Japanese Communist Party dietman noticed that at the time of the purchase, the person in charge of the auditing of JNR (a certain Yasujiro Okano) had previously been the president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, hinting at a possible meddling and favouritism within JNR's top brass, wich may have led to the purchase of the troubled locomotives.

By early 1979, the discussion around these locomotives had gradually died down, being replaced by the bigger Douglas-Grumman bribing scandal, thus JNR quietly but quickly prodceded to dismantle all 40 DD54s.
All of the DD54s were scrapped by the 1st of December 1978, with the exception of just one: DD54 n°33 (one of the last to run) was saved from scrapping by the interest of Fukuchiyama Depot's local branch of a railwaymen union, wich originally intended to preserve it as an example of bad locomotive design. In 1984, DD54 33 was handed over to the Modern Transportation Museum of Osaka. With the closure of the latter in 2014, the locomotive (among many other historical railway vehicles) was moved to the Kyoto Railway Museum, where it has been on display since the opening of the museum itself in 2016.
 
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[continues from preceeding post]

Trivia#1

In some cases, with quite the irony, faulty DD54s had to be often towed by the C57 steam locomotives they were intended to replace.

Trivia#2


According to a "railfan legend", the locomotive's motor was so loud that JNR secretly supplied all DD54 drivers with earplugs.

Trivia#3


Again, the DD54's motor was so loud that for all the (brief) service life of the locomotive, JNR's Fukuchiyama branch was flooded by complaint letters about the noise written by those that lived along the railway. In one of these, a farmer claimed that the locomotive's loud noise scared his chickens so much that they stopped laying eggs.

Trivia#4


In the mid-1970s, it was extimated by JNR officials that the maintainance costs of a DD54 were 18 times higher than those of a DD51.

Trivia#5

DD54 was the last full-body diesel locomotive to be made in Japan until 1992, when JR Freight introduced it's DF200 class. It was also the last Japanese locomotive using mostly foreign-manufactured components.

(Model)Trivia#1

The "static object" locomotive is DD54 33, wich in real-life is the only DD54 unit to have been preserved.

(Model)Trivia#2

At 60'000 polygons and counting, this is by far my most complex model yet.
 
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We needed a new shinkansen station building/tracks

so as i have been thinking of making another shinkasen high speed route again. but with me gotta deal with motivation and everything. and with a plus colden and icraus(i forgot how to spell) shinkansen are already there for some time and no offense. with some of the platforms being just too low to shinkansen standards. it just doesnt seem right (that issue is for colden shinkansen and i had mention it before). and what i have find problems is when building... when you have to create a terminal station... its rather you will have to make one yourself which is hard mind you despite being that you gotta align very well betweem the train and the platform. and has this build "JMA shinkansen station"

is one of the only one station building that is a building and have a 4 track layout and as the station is based on Shin-Aomori Station. And yes i know that there is another station building which has a 2 line which is "JMA shinkansen hakusan ST"

now if only that....i feel like something is missing, as i dont know does any of you would know. there are more shinkansen stations types then just a 4 track straight layout or a 2 track with 2 passing track in the middle. as in there are these.

as i dont have a picture i will just try and explain.

1. having island platforms.

so the layout of it is basically this.

Track 1 -- platform -- track 2 -- passing track -- passing track -- track 3 -- track 4

As the current shinkansen station track as seen common has only 4 tracks with 2 tracks being a station track while 2 being in the middle having a passing track.

as station example would be fukushima station.

and as well as some one island platform like

track 1 -- passing track -- passing track -- track 2 -- track 3

or

track 1 -- track 2 -- passing track -- passing track -- track 3

example would himeji station and shin-iwakuni stations.


Another type would be same as a 4 track station but this time not being a station building but a station track.

as it would be the same as 4 track so it could somewhat recreate Hiroshima station and okayama station. as the current building one is just a building. it cant do curves or have the platform longer so it can fit longer trains such as the E6 and E5 linked consist being 17 cars and the building can only fit 16.

and there are more types of shinkansen stations that havent been added or still be missing to create or recreate more shinkansen stations.
if you would like me to continue. then please say so, i would like to.

and one more thing. can anybody try and create some platform screen doors or platform screen gates? like in this picture here?
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We needed a new shinkansen station building/tracks

Just a suggestion but why don't you do it as a kit rather than creating a station with a set number of platforms? That way you'd have the versatility to create a variety of different style Shinkansen stations with varying numbers of platforms and things like that, whereas if you create a building say that has 4 platforms and a couple of passing tracks you're pretty much stuck with that design? Of course I can't tell you what to do, but I think you'd get greater benefit creating a kit than one individual asset.

Also as far as the passenger gates go, I imagine they'd operate in a similar way to train doors except you'd want them on a trigger system, so that when your train stops at a certain point the doors activate (unless you have them activate manually but not sure how that'd work for AI)
 
I think Rowletmaster is saying there is nothing available out there to make the stations he would like - and perhaps is also suggesting someone else makes them.
I find that there is enough Japanese platforms etc. already available on DLS to kit-bash what ever you need.
 
I can see kitbashing larger stations fairly easy with available content, but my routes tend to be much more rural with perhaps a terminus at one, or both, ends of a medium station. There are not many rural stations at all: moss-covered platforms made of wood with cracked and flaking concrete, rusty railings, gravel parking lots (if any) and nothing but perhaps something the size of a bus shelter for the passengers to wait in. Most of those stations are painted in peeling paint and fading colors, if at all. A lot are like rusty shipping containers with the side cut off. I'd love to see more of those around.

Bill
 
Hey everyone, I hope this is ok to ask here but I just thought I'd ask whether there are any new limited express trains currently in the works? The ones I'm particularly interested in are the E353 series, the 285 series "sunrise express", the Nankai 50000 Series and the Tobu 100 Series.
 
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Just a suggestion but why don't you do it as a kit rather than creating a station with a set number of platforms? That way you'd have the versatility to create a variety of different style Shinkansen stations with varying numbers of platforms and things like that, whereas if you create a building say that has 4 platforms and a couple of passing tracks you're pretty much stuck with that design? Of course I can't tell you what to do, but I think you'd get greater benefit creating a kit than one individual asset.

Also as far as the passenger gates go, I imagine they'd operate in a similar way to train doors except you'd want them on a trigger system, so that when your train stops at a certain point the doors activate (unless you have them activate manually but not sure how that'd work for AI)
What do you mean by kit?

I think Rowletmaster is saying there is nothing available out there to make the stations he would like - and perhaps is also suggesting someone else makes them.
I find that there is enough Japanese platforms etc. already available on DLS to kit-bash what ever you need.

Yes accept for the extra side track one.
 
"Kit bashing" is a term used to describe making a finished scene ie: Station using different platforms/buildings & tracks etc. from assets already available as built-in or from DLS.
 
"Kit bashing" is a term used to describe making a finished scene ie: Station using different platforms/buildings & tracks etc. from assets already available as built-in or from DLS.

oh ok

but anyways. the reason why i dont do kit bashing

its because its not really accurate. e.g
the gap between trains. only buildings can align them well but if ur gonna make one on your own. all i can say is that you will have a bad time doing that.

Hense why prefer tracks with already having a platform or a station building with a platform and track to make out stations and etc.
PLus again some of the stations i mentioned before cant be made with the current things in/on DLS. such as the walls for the shinkansen stations on extra side tracks
 
@JDriver. Thanks for the nice Electro Island screenshots
@AlexMaria. Thanks for the nice diesel units.

@ Rowletmaster & others about the discussion about Shinkansen Stations

I think you are right with your request for a sort of new type of standard Shinkansen station. Indeed the type with the Island Platform. In defense of your request I am gonna say that this type is difficult to kitbash. Especially if you are making a raised station.

Indeed if you make a station on ground level then a person can use the platforms. But these platforms are not really Shinkansen Platforms. So indeed having a sort of "standard 6 track" Shinkansen station would be handy as would be some new connection parts to connect to these platforms

Also some of the larger type of stations would be handy. At the moment a Hakata Type or Shin Osaka Type station would be difficult to kit bash. Also handy would be a "Japan Passenger spline"

So maybe Hirochi could consider making these if he drops by and if he wants to do that. I agree that this would help making Shinkansen Routes easier to make.
 
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