gmat of JNSForum has a job that requires him to travel all over Tokyo (lucky git!); he also has an eye for great trackside detail photography. He recently passed by Akihabara Station, and took some amazing detail shots for me. And he’s got plans to take more. Thank [...]
|
|
||
|
The New Year’s Festival has Already Begun Up from the inky depths of the basement comes Shōgatsu, my family’s Christmas New Year’s layout! In the intervening months, we’ve collected a couple of TomyTec buildings. I’ve also managed to assemble and decal the various little festival stalls we bought last year. Finally, we’ve added a new train [...] クモハE230? ホキ800? オロネフ24? Japanese rail cars are classified using a katakana coding system. The following two links will help you crack that code: Wikipedia’s guide to the katakana and Plaza Japan’s excellent guide to rail [...] David Smith recently posted an article demonstrating several prototype research methods available on the Internet. Many of us know about Google Maps, and the Street View feature.  Bird's eye view of Akihabara Station I had no idea about Microsoft’s Live Maps Bird’s Eye View feature, however: Satellite imagery taken at an oblique angle (rather than straight down) that can reveal a lot of interesting architectural detail. The Prototype When Japan began electrifying railways, they opted for DC, being basically the only option at the time. But as technology advanced, more recent electrification projects used AC. So, what this means is that railroads in and around Tokyo and Kyoto, being older, are DC; newly electrified lines in northern Honshu and Hokkaido, and in Kyushu [...] Just in, after a long wait for it to make it back into production: A Tomix DE10 (seen here pulling HOKI 800 empties down the Ikea Line). This is easily my favorite diesel locomotive, perhaps ever. Although new, this model has a reputation for being a noisy, uneven runner—and sadly mine lives up to this reputation. [...] Well, it’s my first bullet train, the double-decker high speed commuter E4 Multi Amenity Express. I don’t know why increasing the number of levels increases the number of amenities, but that’s how it’s marketed. So be it. I can’t tell if it looks more like an airplane or a fish. The Prototype While just about everyone calls this [...] Here is the most recent addition to my freight stable: A Kato EF66 in JNR colors (seen here pulling HOKI 800 ballast cars down the Ikea Line). It cuts quite a striking silhouette, doesn’t it? I bought this one used on eBay, and it’s a good runner, although the lighting board burned out after only a [...] I just recently purchased Kato’s EF65-1000 in JR Freight (early) colors. Isn’t it cute? It’s a great runner, and an interesting prototype. Finding information on the prototype on the Internet, especially if you can only read about a dozen kanji, is surprisingly hard, however, and I welcome suggestions for addenda in the comments. The Prototype The first EF65 [...] |
||
|
Copyright © 2010 Akihabara Station - All Rights Reserved |
||