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Old 09-08-2012, 04:44 PM
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Tokyo Train Station - minified

This is the last of the three models that I am going to post builds of as a way of honoring and including my father, who was working on them before his health deterioriated. He enjoyed architectural models that he reduced to the scale of Micromodels. The first was the Bibao Guggenheim, the second St Basil's cathedral, and now the Classic Tokyo Train Station published by Shubunsha at 1/500 scale

This is not one I would have found myself. It is a large format book, entirely in Japanese, of a grand Edwardian pile of brick built in 1914. I think he got it during a sabbatical in Japan. Dad had already made copies, and was thinking hard about it. Learning Japanese was one of his many hobbies, and I think he was puzzling his way through the kanji instructions.

There is a lot to think about too. The model is unusual in several respects. For one, there is a base that is is integral to the model. Instead of just sticking the model to a hard cardboard slab, one constructs a platform, supported internally by an egg crate framework that is like a ship model, that the model is organically attached to, likea fukll hull ship to its underwater part. I will venture a guess that this is part of the tatebanko tradition - My friend Tony Cole builds his tatebanko with similar decorated platforms.

Second, the building is firmly attached to the horizontal base by tabs on he building that glue to the base, tabs on the building that fit into slots on the base, and tabs on the base that fold up and glue into the building. This is serious paper engineering. Puzzling out just what goes where takes a lot of study of the several pages of drawings.

An finally it looks like at least one of the main halls is built with a removable side and a full interior.

The trains themselves are almost an after thought. Seems odd to have two huge halls arranged along the tracks and then just a few tracklines - Maybe the trains at one end left for the South and at the other end left for the North.

I am going to reduce it 50%, and thus build it at 1/1000 scale. Not sure what that would be in model train scales.
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Tokyo Train Station - minified-img_1423.jpg  
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Rob Tauxe, Atlanta, GA
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