Figured I would share a few photos of the model railroad I am working on, based on Taiwan. Not based on any specific line or area. Just (mainly) Taiwanese buildings and Taiwan Rail trains. A few buildings like the station I have had to use Japanese because there aren’t any Taiwan ones available.
Still got a long way to go to complete it. So far I have done most of the lower level station (detailing and finishing the final tunnel to go) and started on the top level Taiwanese town.
Going to have a temple and a large train yard there too. Maybe a goods/container yard as well.
I have five trains running on it. EMU600, EMU800 and DR1000 passenger lines. Then a blue R100 diesel goods train and a C12 stream train to run on it.
cheers. I am pleased with how it is going, but I went to an exhibit in Zhishan of model railroads the other week that put mine to shame lol. Unbelievable amounts of detail on them.
The Taiwanese style buildings–there is a seller on Shopee who 3D prints and makes them. So I get them from him.
The other buildings like the Family Mart and the station are brand name. i think both are Tomix.
The main difficulty I have is finding 1/150 scale Taiwanese cars and vehicles. When I started it, I envisioned having say, those little blue vans driving around or a Taiwanese police car or post office van. But I cant find them this size. So I have had to just use generic vehicles.
Part of modeling is you may have to figure out how to paint or shape sceneries. You could probably paint the 3d printed shells into whatever.
I recommend a few betel nut juice and random idiots parking their cars illegally or a truck on rail crossings, to add to the realism.
A 3d printer is actually a powerful tool for this, as you can print custom plastic shells that can go over generic models. Before 3d printing, you know when such rapid prototyping machines became common, our choice would have been make models out of modeling clay, make a silicon mold out of it, and then resin cast it.
Familymart looks too clean. Needs illegally parked scooters piled at the entrance.
Some people are at another level when it comes to these sorts of hobbies. I like messing around with tech doohickeys, microcontrollers and sensors and whatnot, and comparing what other people could do in terms of presenting finished projects to the nightmare of clumsily soldered wiring assaulting chunks of perfboard on my table was a lesson in humility.
Good luck with the project and I hope you keep documenting your progress here!
We’re just missing the random height of individual arcades in order to make it impossible for wheelchair users to get in, oh and the arcade should be piled wall to wall with scooters.
bad drivers on scooters plan to be added once they arrive, wouldnt feel like Taiwan without them. Dirtying things up a bit is something I am going to experiment with–dont wanna do it on the actual buildings yet in case I balls it up.
But the station too is far too clean for a Taiwan station. Needs a nice dirty roof. It all looks a bit too clean and unweathered.
Don’t forget random arcade heights with every shop…
Road can stay clean. Taiwanese roads look much better than roads I’ve seen in the states. Roads are resurfaced quite often here as money for that exists.
Actually I feel like I would love to collaborate on a project like this with you… I don’t have the space or money to do anything like this (I’m afraid even a 20 ping apartment won’t cut it, I don’t even have half that space), but I would love to do something like this.
I’d appreciate any suggestions and advice as it goes forward. It does take up a lot of space–the railway is about 8 foot long. Even the original starter set I began with was about 5 foot long.
I mean at some point you’re going to need to figure out a way to make custom set pieces, paint them, and the like. It’s going to be labor intensive. Buying pre made parts is not what modeling is about at all. Like 3d print say a gogoro looking scooter, or scooters of make abd model commonly seen in Taiwan, then resin cast them so you can make multiples of them quickly. 3d printer is time consuming.
The chemical shops by Taipei main station has the supplies for this. You would make silicone molds, then you can resin cast them.
You can do this for blue trucks and other Taiwan specific objects. As for buildings just a single plastic gongyu model is enough. You would paint them to suit. Almost all gongyu in Taiwan looks the same except for what businesses which occupies the lower floor. Random height can be achieved with balsa blocks or abs plastic sheets.
But you’ll have to make a few random higher class residential tower, maybe a few that dot the landscape.
Don’t forget bars and illegal rooftop additions, as well as illegal extensions.
Another thing I’m noticing, building is neatly laid out, in a proper grid. This is the exception, not the rule in Taiwan. So need random gongyu, laid out in haphazard fashion, random height of anywhere between 3 to 5 floors, with an extra floor added as illegal rooftop additions. Also some arcade area should be completely walled off, because that’s the Taiwan way. There are also proper sidewalk, this doesn’t exist in Taiwan outside of curated areas.
Don’t forget random junction and utility boxes that block the sidewalk. You’re also missing a rat nest of utility wires overhead. But don’t overdo it, it’s not India. Remember electrical wires (these will be in 3 wire configurations at the very top) will often look the best, but the wire below will look like birds nest.
I would model it after a real location, with some artistic license if you want it to look convincing.
Your model looks more like Japan.
For inspiration, take a look at the rail line between taoyuan and zhongli. You’re also missing overhead wires and pantograph, trains in Taiwan run on those. But for practical reasons this may make things harder.
The town bit, is a bit limited in space. Only doing a small town and then using probably a backboard with a city scene to give the impression it is larger.
It will pretty much be the main street near the railroad/road two streets branching off and then a few buildings towards the rear with a backboard to give the impression it is a larger town.
Gonna add a park too behind the first row of buildings.
I definitely need to get some street details, like utility boxes and stuff. Same as traffic lights. The small details I often overlook–like an illegal rooftop extension, that wouldn’t have occured to me lol. But should be easy enough to make.
I found a seller on shopee who has 3D printed Taiwan vehicles, unpainted. But I used to make Airfix models, so that isn’t an issue. So I can scatter a bunch of those in amongst the generic cars I already have.
He has the blue vans, some Taiwan buses, those yellow school minibus things that whiz around etc.
Overheard wires for the track are gonna be added at the end. At the moment, I may change the track layout in different parts.
One of the reasons I decided against basing it on a real location is so I could do pretty much what I like and add what I like to it. Plus I don’t have to worry about which Taiwan trains I get since some only run on certain lines. I can just get whichever looks cool (and isn’t stupidly priced–I did want the Hello Kitty EMU800 train, but it’s $44,000 NT!!!)
Taiwan trains are quite hard to get. There is only a couple of companies who make them and they only make limited numbers.
I think at some point, since people still struggle to even put Taiwan on a map these days, is that you may need to get generic train model and modify the shell to fit… it sucks but it’s probably necessary. Meaning the market for Taiwan specific model trains are quite limited and therefore expensive.
I’d love to have a locomotive where it has the money cat thing and the paw goes faster as the train goes…
have managed to get three passenger trains, and a solitary steam & diesel. So a decent amount to run. Just takes a bit of shopping around on Shopee and Facebook groups.
I would like a shunter, so will likely buy a similar one and just recolor it Taiwan Orange. Since as far as I can tell, none of Taiwan’s shunters have had models made.
