My Tomica World - Introductions

[UPDATE - Username has since been changed; Thanks to Super for helping with that, and to DalaGStanator for pointing the potential issue, which I otherwise would have never spotted out in the first place; I've always liked how helpful people are on here, and this only further shows that - You guys are awesome, thanks for your help!  ]



Hey guys; I'm new here, although i've been lurking for advice over the last few weeks prior to making an account, so consider this an introduction lol 

Well, with the current situation as-is, I've not been going out much, and while working on the railways for a time [unfortunately no longer] recently, I decided to construct a new model railway layout, to help pass the time.

In short, for as long as I can remember I have had 2 key model rail systems, my Hornby 00 scale system, and the Tomy Plarail system [in it's many guises], amongst others - I've been into trains since a young age, thanks to Thomas and Freinds, which was where Plarail entered for me.

As a hobby model collector now, as well as being interested in Japanese culture [I would love to travel there some day], it seemed to be a logical step to expand into making a Japanese themed model layout; The issue I had was that I had a lack of funds, and I was not hot on the idea of dropping £300+ on Kato trains, and possibly more on scenery to achieve my layout .

Fortunately, my prayers were answered by a chance encounter back in 2014; I discovered my old copy of Thomas and the Magic Railroad on VHS, and decided to give it a watch for the nostalgia; Anyone who has/had this tape knows where this is going now, but the first trailer on the tape was for none other than Tomica World [This one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWM7c9IlZRI ]; that was the eureka moment when I realised all my old Thomas track could be augmented with Japanese trains, making my Japanese layout a bit closer to realisation!

That said, until this year, I had little in the way of funds to properly expand the layout exactly as I wanted it to be - That's all changed, and as I type, I have 2 consignments of Plarail and Tomica gear underway to my address here in sunny London, including the biggest expansion to my fleet ever; To note, I began this year with 3 Japanese trains, presently I now have almost the complete Tomica World train lineup as of the 2000 catalogue [not including the Thomas gear], as well as a couple of Plarail imports; some 15 trains, and this is to be expanded with another 25 or so currently in the safe hands of FedEx.  The other consignment [EMS] includes stations and other accessories to expand the layout .

Here's a picture, although please note this is still incomplete; the raised outer loop is going to be a Shinkansen line built with the Plarail Shinkansen style tracks [in with the EMS consignment], the ground-level tracks are unfinished, I'm planning on a longer section of the Tomica World road and the scenery is incomplete, but it's coming together.



One more thing to note is that I've since added a lot more buildings [Tomica Hypercity type], and plan on 3D printing further buildings in the new year when I have a new 3D printer - I've been working on a CAD template for a basic Hypercity standard building model, with the idea being I'll use that to create all sorts of buildings. I've got a tower-block model in the pipeline as the first test print. Fortunately, the only thing I need for those that I can't easily print is the pavement sections, but those seem to be readily avaliable as new-old stock on Ebay UK  .

Anyway; that's my layout introduced, now for me   .

I'm a MA student, currently preparing to study an MA degree in Creative Writing at the University of Westminster in London, and aside from my interest in railways, I have a passion for film, Japanese culture, anime, manga, travel, electronics, model-making, writing, home-brewing, video games and cosplay, among other things. For those of you who are curious, Futaba Sakura, my account's namesake and profile picture is my favourite character from the video game Persona 5, who is my current cosplay project, to debut as soon as the next London Comic-Con takes place.

As implied earlier, I've been connected to Plarail from a young age, starting with the very tail-end of the Tomica World line's Thomas selection, graduating to the Thomas Motor Road & Rail line; I never upgraded to Trackmaster as it never appealed to me as much as the TOMY gear. When Tomica Hypercity first dropped in the UK around 2010/11 I collected several of the trains and the Mega Station set [blissfully unaware they were repackaged Plarail units and actually real-world JR models], and then when I became interested in Japan a few years later, I got back into Plarail all over again with the few Japanese bits I had, leading us to now, and the genesis of this new, dedicated layout with more Japanese gear than ever before.

For those of you who are interested, I'll be posting updates about the layout in this thread here on Blue Plastic Tracks [if that's allowed?] but also to my personal blog, 'Making Tracks' [not a dedicated Plarail blog, but a project suggested by my uni] which can be found at https://makingtracks.weebly.com/  .

Well, with that, I'll finish up, and hopefully I'll see more of you around here on Blue Plastic Tracks - This site is amazing by the way, truly a fantastic resource for all of us in the Plarail/Tomica World community, especially with all the information on obscure and unusual TOMY and Plarail products; Sometimes I'll just sit on here for hours reading up on all the awesome and obscure stuff   .

Anyway, that's all for now.
Later!