Mori Hiroshi's Interesting Japanese website

[Ed Hume]

Guys,

Looks like Mori Hiroshi is a successful book author and live steam railroad enthusiast. Every month he has been posting live steam railroad photos with web pages in English and Japanese. At his steamup in May this year there are photos of Kozo Hiraoka along with other very well known Japanese Live Steam modelers.

The May steamup - scroll down about 1/2 way -

www.ne.jp/asahi/beat/non/loco/locoL1/index2.html

His monthly English reports-

www.ne.jp/asahi/beat/non/loco/loco0e.html

If you use google to find one of his Japanese pages, then google will translate the Japanese as you browse.

By the way, I have also posted my locomotive building photos on Flickr where they can be accessed without a login and seen in high resolution. If you go to

www.flickr.com/photos/edhume3/sets

You will see the photos I have grouped into sets.

Regards,
Ed

[Harlock]

A real "backyard railroad gone amok" Very distinctly Japanese aesthetics. I feel like I'm in a Sanrio / Hello Kitty store when looking at the big candy colored rolling stock It's remniscent of "Superdeformed" characters (midget versions of normal Anime characters)...everything is short and squat. The kids must love it.

Looks like they are having a lot of fun out there.

The guy's English is pretty darned good. He carries over the honorary -san directly by naming everyone Mr. so and so.

It's amazing to see how he went to town with the layout, looking at the maps changing over just a few years. I see that one of the reasons for all the rolling stock to be super short is that he has some intensely tight curves, like on the deck. The brick-arch bridge and the stone road crossing are also very impressive.

I think another favorite quote is "Turntable - It is manufactured by using cheap stand for TV." And it really is that small. I see he also has some real JR Rail leftovers.

He should get animator Hayao Miyazaki over for a visit, he'd probably dig it.

This could be a good Live Steam & ODRR article at some point.

--Mike

[patyoung]

Thank you Ed for the links.

I like the whimsy look and feel of the photos. Really invites you
to look closer. I'm inspired to try to get the same feelings for
the cars I hope to build in the future.

Pat Young