Hakuho
For my latest exhibition layout I have modelled a rarely seen era of Japanese railways in Z. The Showa era is notable for being the age where steam finally gave way to diesel and electric. Also unusual was my decision to set the layout in rural Japan in the Northern island on Hokkaido where vast forests and wilderness are a complete contrast to the intense, densely populated urban areas like Tokyo and Osaka.
Hokkaido was one of the last strongholds of steam with D51 2-8-2s and C62 4-6-4s still in charge of prestige trains including the famous overnight Sapporo sleeper trains.
The main scene is Hakuho station, a small wayside station where two single track main lines meet and diverge and the local forestry company dispatch their timber products south to the mainland. On the Southern approach the lines pass the local golf course and North of the station the outskirts of the town start to appear with very typical, traditional Japanese buildings. Above the station is a locally revered shrine set beside the twin waterfalls. For exhibition visitors the challenge is to find the (very tiny) deer, bears, horses, cows, cats and dogs hidden on the layout
The layout uses Peco streamline flexitrack with Marklin points set on 6mm MDF baseboard top. Unusually the core baseboard is extended on three sides by scenery boards to extend the foreground, these feature rice paddies and vineyards. This gives the layout an overall size of 5 foot by 3 foot. For the buildings I am mainly using the exquisite pre-cut card kits from Sankei and Advance, these really capture the essence of the building styles of Japan. Extensive use of Architree's conifers have been used to represent the Northern forests. The rear of the layout, that has the hidden sidings, has been sceniced to give 360 % viewing. This is 'SL railroad Park Hakuho' and represents a small rail museum which has a main line connection as a base of steam excursion trains
Locos and Rolling stock are from Tenshodo, Rokuhan, Platz and PRM loco.
Main motive power is a mix of C57 Pacifics, D51 Mikados, C62 Baltics and the diminutive C11 2-6-4T. Despite their small size all the locos have coreless motors, full valve gear, tungsten boiler weights and working lights. The first signs of modernisation is the appearance of a new KIHA 52 and KIHA 40 diesel railcars
Typical trains will be are the overnight expresses, daytime expresses, local mixed trains with a few wagons and the odd coach, The specialised express fish trains and general mixed freights. Much of the railway scene would look familiar to British modellers with four wheel goods wagons and brake vans and the use of British supplied lower quadrant semaphore signals.
I have found the JNR Diesels and Electrics from these manufacturers hard to resist so you will them on Modern Intermodal and block freight trains. Examples are DD51s, DE10s, EF 64s, EF81s and EF 66s with appropriate modern freight vehicles
9 окт 2024
