JRM's Layout

JRM as a group first began with talk of doing a small show layout to show the fantastic variety and beautiy of Japanese model trains as well as demonstrate to the public the simplicty and versatiltiy of the Kato Unitrak system for doing fast and varied layouts. Our first layouts were all done in the style of many japanese layouts of Build-on-the-Fly, with little or no perminement scenery, but this layout required quite a bit of labor to transport and set up so we have recently developed a sectional layout for more rapid and easy transport and delivery.

	JRM's build-on-the-fly v1.0 Layout

The Original Build-on-the-Fly (v1.0) Layout
The Japan Rail Modelers formed in 2004 with the idea creating a build-on-the-fly temporary layout to display japanese trains at trains shows in the Washington DC area. The concept was to show how many japan will build temporary layouts using sectional track with simple, perceived scenery. The layout was created using spare track and buildings from members and built on a series of 2'x4' modules that were bolted together to form a 22' x 4' layout. Scenery was mainly done with construction paper and more of a perceived scenery concept. Later more detailed scenery was created with the use of cut out sections of formica to create flat scenery bases for two dimensional scenery sections that would fit between the tracks and have structures placed on top of them.

A full description of the original Build-on-the-Fly layout can be found here.

JRM's new Sectional v2.0 Layout

New Sectional (v2.0) Layout
After about four and a half years of building the JRM layout at shows, the club slowly tired of the 3-4 hours of set up time that was required of 3-5 members at each show. We also were having to keep track of a couple thousand pieces needed to create the layout. Also it took about three dozen storage/transport boxes to store and transport the layout so it really required a full mini van to easily transport the whole layout to a show. So in order to create a layout that would be fast and easy for 2 or 3 members to assemble in an hour and easier to transport and store the club decided to move to a sectional layout that would have track and scenery fastened down and just snap together. We began the project in the summer of 2009 and had the layout debut with temporary scenery for the B&O Railroad Museum show in January of 2010. We hope this new layout will allow the club members to gradually upgrade the scenery on the modules as time goes on and allow us to show at more shows as well as at shorter length venues and different cultural events.

A full description of the new Sectional layout can be found here.