Saturday, January 10, 2009

Meet Gonou

Time to get started on the new layout then. After posting here yesterday I went down to my Local Menards and bought a 3' x 2' cork faced notice board. I've been curious about this as a baseboard material ever since seeing my friend Colin Peake's layout Shifting Sands, and became even more curious about its uses with the appearance of T gauge. So the use of this material has always been at the back of my mind.
After I got the board home I started playing around with the positioning of track on it trying to come up with something. During this process I was guided by the inspirational photos of the Gonou line on the west coast of Japan that I discovered on the internet. As I placed the sections of track on the board I was also looking at the pictures seeing how things could go together and this is what I have come up with (note that this at the moment is at least version 2 of the plan and its not inconceivable that things could change slightly as things progress). I like the arrangement of the elements to form a cohesive whole. The numbers on the sketch correspond to photo's on the website that inspire the scene rather than copy it.A seaside scene will allow me to show off some of the Eishindo range of boats. The rail bridge over the river mouth is a feature I'm very interesting in modelling. The station platform and building from Hitsu will find a home here as will many of the trees. In the bottom left corner you will notice a lighthouse. I would really like to get this to work. Its can't be too difficult to rig up some kind of flashing LED arrangement in the top of the tower.
There we go then. Gonou, son of Hitsu starts here. Keep checking in for progress reports.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ian,

It's really neat to see someone doing prototype inspired modeling in T. It shows that even at this early point in its development it can be more than just a novelty.

Bob

Ian Holmes said...

Thanks Bob:
I don't know any other way.