By way of background, I am an HO scale model railroader, and my main interest is (more-or-less) modern North American diesel freight trains. My wife is originally from Japan, and we currently live in Bahrain. Most of my model railroad stuff is packed up in storage in the US, but I did bring a small section of my layout and some rolling stock to play around with.
One night in late Feb 2017, my wife was at the computer in the living room and I stopped by to tell her good night on my way to bed. She mentioned the upcoming "International Day" at our kids' school in late March, and wondered if I had any good ideas for an exhibit for Japan. I was too tired to think at that point, so I told her I couldn't think of anything right then. She went on to say that last year, the Japanese table was kind of lame, and that the neighboring Italy table was getting all the attention because the people running it went all out and were giving away all kinds of amazing Italian food samples, etc. It seems like there was a little bit of international rivalry going on there 😁 She said none of the other Japanese moms seemed very enthused about doing anything interesting for International Day this year. I gave a sigh of sympathy and went off to bed.
After a few minutes as I was laying in bed, she came rushing into the bedroom and asked, "Do you have any Japanese trains?!!" I was kind of stunned at first but could see her thought process. I tried to explain that I did have one model made in Japan (a Kato SD70MAC), but it was a model of a US locomotive. Then my wife, who is usually super frugal, made an outrageous suggestion: could I buy a Japanese Shinkansen train model to use as a display for International Day?
(Editorial note: Shinkansen is the Japanese name for the high speed passenger "bullet trains" in Japan. Read more about them by clicking this link.)
I was initially encouraged, but didn't want to take the bait. I explained that all the Shinkansen models I knew of were N scale, and I'd have to buy the train as a set, plus the track to run it on. In total it would probably cost a few hundred dollars. Her response: "Well,... that's OK! Let's do it!"
After I agreed, she left the room and I laid there in bed with a bit of excitement and a flurry of thoughts racing through my head. I suddenly realized I was on the hook to build a small N-scale layout in a little
over a month. And by the way, I was a few days away from leaving for a
week-long business trip to the US. But I was determined, if I'm going to
do this thing, I want to do it right!
The next morning, I double-checked with her to confirm that she was still serious and that I wasn't dreaming the night before 😁 No, it was all for real... so, GAME ON!!!
