Yesterday was just shopping. Getting ready for our trip home next week. First my Sis-IL took us to Costco (which is like 1 mile away as the crow flies but takes 10 min in traffic). They were worried about the crowds and parking since New Years in Japan is like Christmas in the US in terms of holidays and importance and people shopping and getting ready and traveling. But it was pretty easy in and out. Crowded but not unmanageable. The Sis-IL needed a few things for the NY celebrations and the wife wanted a few things to take home (mostly snacks but also some non snack food items). I ate a "Bulogi Bake" at the food court. It was awesome actually. About $5 and like a chicken bake but with korean style beef and sauce inside instead with cheese. Also cheese baked on top.
We then went home and got ready and we all went out. My son and I went down to "Den Den Town" in Osaka, which was over an hour on transit and walking. 3 trains and I think 3 subways. "Den Den Town" is like the Osaka "electric" town. Not anywhere near as big as Akihabara in Tokyo but similar. Lots of electronics and similar stores (appliances etc), plus maid cafes or similar, some anime, and that sort of thing. Basically a many block long section of a street with this stuff plus some side streets. I wanted to go to "Super Kids Land", a specialty store run by Joshin Denki. Joshin Denkin is you standard Mall and stand alone store like a super best buy but they have these specialty stores in Den Den Town. Super Kids Land is 5 stories of Gundam and similar models, models, a floor for Tamiya (Tamiya World), R/C, Airsoft, and a floor for model trains.
The son wondered off and looked at stuff and went to a different Joshin with videos games and stuff and then went and got himself some curry. I spent a good 90 minutes in the train store. Mostly N, though some H0 and some Z. About 5 or 6 aisles about 50 ft (rough guess) long. Mostly Japanese trains but they also had a section for Euro trains (mostly KATO, Fleischmann, Minitrix/Trix, and Hobbytrain) and also a section for US trains (mostly KATO though they had a bunch of other random freight cars and stuff from others).
I had an idea of what I wanted but overspent by a factor of 2x or slightly more. One item I wanted (a Swiss locomotive from KATO I decided to not get) and ended up with 2 of one thing where I had planned 1 and then a bunch of things I saw at the last minute and put in the basket
The first thing is one of those plastic static N-scale models that can be upgraded to be runnable. This is fro the Nankai railway, a private railway in Osaka, and has a "Sumikko Gurashi" livery. Sumikko Gurashi is a very popular, mostly with girls, line of toys. My daughter like Sumikko Gurashi and I have several other trains with it. One of which is the MicroAce Rapi:t from Nankai, the Star Wars looking train you may have seen before -- I got that last summer and now have this new one to join it. (The upgrade parts are below).
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It had been marked down an additional ¥1000. I noticed that when I was at checkout they were replacing some of my items (that all had anti-theft tracking devices strapped to them) with ones from behind the counter without the devices -- I guess so they wouldn't have to take the device off mine and then replace it on a new one for the shelf.
These next two items were kind of spur of the moment impulse buys The top one is a DEC10 diesel. I already have a bunch of DE10 diesels but this is a special black one and it is used I think as a helper with a specialty site seeing steamer line. However, they use either the same or another similarly black one for another site seeing train that I have and I didn't get the DE10 for it when it was available. I think they're both in the same livery and so I will be able to use this one with my specialty train. The other is a flat car with "Yamato" delivery service containers. I have a bunch of these already but this is a newer version with the newer Yamato containers. I didn't recognize it so I got one just in case.
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KATO makes a pocket line of generic small trains. With each one being in the $23 - $26 range (after tax free purchase and additional 5% discount -- explained below) at the current exchange rate, I figured a small yard electric and a generic tram wouldn't hurt to have available to drive around the layout.
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I have one KATO tram at home already I got a close out deal on a year or so ago. I believe t is a Hiroshima people mover one that I already have. I found these two trams to join it (and the Tomytec one I got earlier this week). The white fancy livery one is a Hiroshima tram and the red on is a generic "myTRAM" which KATO makes without any livery in a few colors at a cheaper price. It is the same body shape as the Hiroshima ones.
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I've posted about my Rhätische Bahn (RhB) Swiss narrow gage stuff before. This store had the "Gepäckwagen" (Baggage Car) for the RhB so I picked that up.
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I don't do a lot of US prototypes but I do own 4 Union Pacific modern diesel electrics (SD70ACe and ES44C or something -- that is from memory) and my complete set of rolling stock is 5 sets of the 3 car KATO Gunderson Maxi IV 53' well cars and containers, and a few other well and flat cars from other brands. I've been wanting some Gunderson Maxi I 40' sets but everywhere I've looked they've been sold out in the US. They had them here. They display them in a glass case and you tell the guy you want one and he goes and checks if they are in stock and gets you one. These two shown below are both TTX (I see TTX on UP all the time so figured it was safe) and I didn't care which one (two different KATO sets with different road numbers). I showed the guy at the store and said (in my best simple English), pointing to the two sets they showed (the two different numbers) and said I wanted one of those, and I didn't care which one. He comes back with both. I thanked him and said I would take one of them. He handed me both. I said I really only wanted one. He handed be both. So I said, "I guess I am buying both" and thanked him... Language barriers can be a pain sometimes LOL.
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Last time we were in Japan we went on the "Hiei" "tourist" train on the Eizan railway in Kyoto. That is a small private railway that runs two lines (single line that splits) on the outskirts of Kyoto up into the hills to a temple area and some other area. We rode this last time and I found one of the Tomytec static models in N-scale that is upgradeable. So I got that,
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Of course I added to my container collection. Except for the yellow "Post" one and the "Coop" labeled one (those two are Rhätische Bahn Swiss containers and I already have the KATO flatcar set with containers, but a couple to have on the layout in the yard would be good), they are all Japan containers. Even the pink "ONE" is an ISO 40' container but made to fit to the Japanese KoKi flat cars -- Tomix and KATO use a different system for Japanese containers than is used in the US for model railroad containers on N scale.
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Here are the parts to upgrade the static models (the Nankai, the Hiei, and the blue tram I showed earlier this week). These are the motor units, steel wheels, and where appropriate the folding pantographs to replace the static extended ones.
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Lastly I found some stickers like you see on Shinkansen or other trains. I figured I could use these to decorate my future train room.
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(I ran into a "post too long" message when trying to post this so I will put the tax free commentary in a separate post)
