Introduction
I've been living in Japan for the past 28 years, either on active duty with the Navy or working as a civilian on base. Plastic modeling has always been a hobby of mine, but I didn't get deeply involved until a few years ago, after retiring from the Navy. FineScale Modeler has published a few photos of my models in the Reader's Gallery section. Go to Plastic Models in the Photo Gallery, if you want to see pictures. One of my favorite hobby shops has a large model railroad section, and the trains gradually pulled my attention away from the airplanes, motorcycles, and cars that I usually model. One day in January 2003, I went to the hobby shop and bought Kato's A, B, and C track sets. Of course, I wasn't satisfied with only those, and, the next day, I went to buy more track. Since there is no suitable place for a permanent layout in my apartment, I decided to make a large layout that I could set up in my living room, which is fairly large by Japanese standards, and hang on the wall when not in use.
Construction
The layout has to be extremely lightweight, since I have to wheel it around the apartment and lift it and place it on brackets I screwed into the wall. Casters are mounted on one side of each table to make it easier to move around. So far, the only things I've knocked off while moving the layout around is the top ropeway building a couple of times and some trees, but the trees always grow back. During construc-tion, I often had to hang the layout on the wall before all the scenery was dry; but, aside from the glue that dribbled down on the floor, it was mainly no problem. The elevated track around the station in the city is removable. I found out the hard way that, if I leave the heavy bridge sections in place while the layout is on the wall, their weight pulls the bridge supports out of vertical alignment. The mountains were built using mostly Styrofoam, newspaper wads, chicken wire in some places, and pieces of a bed sheet soaked in white glue. I used Mold-a-Scene (previously called Sculpt-a-Mold) plaster to form some the the landscape contours.
Scenery
This diorama represents Japan as it might have appeared a half-century ago. I enjoy fishing, camping, skiing, riding motorcycles, and other outdoor activities, so I included some scenes depicting those activities. The ropeway carries vacationers to the top of the mountain for sightseeing and hiking in the summer and for skiing in the winter. The building next to the lake, where the families are swimming, is a Japanese inn. The rock face under the ropeway cables is a commercial product which I cut up into a few pieces and rearranged, while the rest of the rock faces are Mold-a-Scene plaster smeared onto Styrofoam or pieces of cork. Most of the structures are kits (Greenmax, Kato, and Tomix), but the ropeway buildings, the small barn on the farm, and the roadway bridges are scratchbuilt. Most of the buildings are lighted with 3-volt microlights powered by AA batteries, and I planted some Tomix street lights and park lights. Most of the lights can be turned on and off independently, so I can change the mood of the layout at night. I made most of the deciduous trees from a dead bush (a lucky find). The evergreens are commercial products, and the mountains are covered with Woodland Scenics or Kato clump foliage. I used Woodland Scenics Water Effects for the moving water and Envirotex for the lake and park pond. Woodland Scenics has another water product--E-Z Water--plastic beads that have to be heated and then poured onto the layout. I failed to think of the effect hot plastic would have on painted Styrofoam. Meltdown! Duh! Anyway, it was easily repaired. I also tried Woodland Scenics Realistic Water, but it drooped when the layout was hung on the wall. All of the vehicles in DDW, except for the buses, are replicas of American or European vehicles. My theory is that, after WWII, there were more vehicles of foreign manufacture on the road than Japanese-made vehicles. Actually, I just couldn't find any old Japanese cars or trucks.
Operations
The trains that run in DDW are almost all in passenger service, although, every now and then, one will deliver coal and diesel fuel to the yard for the locomotives. They all have to be short because of the steep climb through the mountains and because the stations are small. Sometimes, Emperor Hirohito comes to DDW in his own personal train, which is a little longer. Express passenger trains come from Tokyo (hidden staging under the mountains on the right side of the layout, which also incorporates a reverse loop) via the main line. They then complete one circuit of the layout and enter the town to stop at the station. The diesels can run in either direction and don't need to be turned. However, the steam locomotives have to disengage and proceed to the yard to be turned and serviced. Locals run from the town station to the resort station on a regular basis, since the express trains coming from and returning to Tokyo are too long to stop there. I haven't written a timetable for operations in DDW, and I probably won't. I can only run one train at a time, and I like to run trains where and when I want to. There is a major logic fault in the track plan in that the main line crosses itself near the city after it comes out of the mountains, and the siding along the main line is also used to turn the locomotives in preparation for the return to Tokyo. So, one area of the layout, the Twilight Zone, exists in two places at the same time. It's not perfect, but I can live with it.
