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Entry 5Komatsu Line
Name: Komatsu Line. The prototype for this layout is an electrified 1067mm gauge branch line of the Hokuriku Railway, located in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan. Originally built as an independent electric interurban, it was merged into the Hokuriku Railway in 1945, and closed in 1984. Scale & Gauge: 1:80th scale, 16.5mm gauge -HOj. Ruling grade: none Minimum radius: 15", on the Komatsu Ltd. factory siding. Size: 2' x 8', as per the contest criteria. This design is a slight modification of the centre section of my own layout, currently being built. My version measures 8' by 18". The very compact prototype station and yard at Komatsu is ideal for this contest, as it scales down to a little over 8 feet long in HO scale. So the compression required is minimal, and doesn't affect either the operations or appearance to any degree. In spite of its small size, Komatsu was a busy location, and has considerable operating potential. It has a good mix of freight, passenger and parcels/LCL traffic. Passenger services are run by electric interurban cars. Single cars are used in off-peak traffic, with coupled sets or three-car trains in the morning and afternoon peaks, which coincide with shift changes at the town's major industry, the Komatsu Iron Works tractor factory. A three-car set also runs the school train, of which there are two each way per day. The first down - outbound - service each day is a single car hauling a ventilated four-wheel boxcar loaded with fish for the market at Ugawa-Yusenji, the other end of the line. The boxcar is loaded in the dock platform road. On days of heavy loading, the boxcar is replaced by a box-motor running MU with the passenger car in the leading position. When this combination is used, the cars divide at Ugawa-Yusenji, and the box motor returns as a separate working, after the passenger car. As the morning peak starts, the extra cars stabled in the yard at Komatsu are coupled to the cars already in service to form two-car trains. One car remains to form the three-car school train. Once this has returned, the AM peak is over, and the cars are uncoupled and stabled, or go to the car shed and are serviced. The freight service has some variety. Unlike US practice, freight trains in Japan run to the timetable. So the pace of freight operations is not governed by the neead to work clear of passenger trains. The KR runs its own locos and freight cars, plus there is interchange with the JNR. This is mainly covered hoppers for rice traffic and cement, and outward loads from the tractor factory. The JNR interchange track is not wired, so their trains are diesel-hauled... (Describe i/c operations...) The KR freight trains run... (Describe KR operations...) The box motor is also timetabled, it makes three round trips a day - morning, lunch and early evening - as well as the early morning fish run if required. If you were to build this layout in N scale, you could just about source everything - trains and structures - as RTR models from the major Japanese makers such as Kato, Tomix, MicroAce, Greenmax and Modemo. While none of the KR interurbans are available as RTR models, there are many cars which are very similar, that could easily be repainted as close stand-ins. All of the typical JNR locos and freight cars are available in N. The only major scratchbuilding task would be the tractor factory, which is nothing more than a simple low-relief structure. In HO, the layout would require a bit more work. The structures would need to be scratchbuilt, but again the JNR stck is available from Kato, Tomix and Endo. The HR interurban cars could be modified from the Modemo Enoden models. An alternative would be to use the beautiful tomix Meitetsu MoHa510 models, which are amongst the nicest interurban models I've ever seen. While they're not similar to the KR cars, they're very distinctively Japanese, and would not look at all out of place. The storage road at the front of the layout holds a Russell snowplough, which were quite common in Japan. This would make a nice kitbash using the Walthers model as a starting point. |
