I met him once at one of the early Summer steamups in CA. He was very friendly gentleman and happy to show off his zephyr—I called it the “enraged bee” because of its characteristic buzz as it ran. It was a lot to fun to watch. RIP Wada San.

Sam

 

He and I sat on the floor of the guest accommodation at Susono and VERY carefully unwrapped the prototype Burlington Zephyr cars, each one more beautiful than the next. He was VERY proud of the mail car, with its operating dump and grab arms - all in Gauge 1. We were like a pair of kids on Christmas day... we had already run one of his real diesel locos - like all his models, he wasn't happy unless it was running totally flat out and VERY difficult to catch!

Good memories, eh, Zubi?

 

This week end at a steamup at my friend Olivier a group of Spanish gauge one steam fans came with a Wada GP9 which worked very well in a howling Mistral wind. He was very gifted indeed.

 

I met Mr. Wada at a model railroad event at Tokyo Big Sight about 20 years ago when he was driving a hand-built Heisler locomotive.
Even in his old age, he continued to build locomotives with a passion.

At that time, in addition to Mr. Wada, there were other excellent craftsmen such as Mr. Teruo Inoue and Mr. Ryuichi Sato.
Mr. Sato has made an important mark on the Japanese model railroad industry, building HO scale steam locomotives in the 1970s.
www.model-engineer.co.uk/sites/7/documents/me-3553-1.pdf

 

Kihansha San, Thank you for mentioning Wada San and other gentlemen. Yes, there were many very talented railway modellers in Japan. What was somewhat unique about Wada San was that he was also known outside Japan, especially in the US. The only other Japanese railway modeller of comparable fame who I also met is Hiroaka Kozo. He is somewhat younger and still active - he recently released yet another of his amazing books on building live steam models using kitchen tools;-)... This time a K-27! Many extremely talented Japanese modellers were and remain only known and remembered in Japan, enough to mention Nobutaro Hara - who may still may get some international recognition now that he has his museum in central Yokohama and so many tourists started coming to Japan. Still, Wada San was a very special friend of mine, it was always a lot of fun to meet him, Zubi

 

Yes, Zubi, those Japanese master builders were quite impressive builders. I saw some interesting videos on some one who was building a C62 4-6-4 in O scale on youtube. Unfortuantly icouldn't open the one that you posted in your precedent post.

 

Simon, I do not know why the link did not open for you, it opens for me. You can just do google search for the string "Wada Works Live Steam" and the site should come up as the top result, Google Search

 

link does not work for me either...

perhaps you need to be logged into the site for the link to work..., Zubi, log out of the site and try your link

 

Greg, I tried this. Logged out and tested the links - no problem at all they still work for me. I do not understand what is going on. In any case google search should work independently of the MLS site. Zubi

 

Thank you Zubi, I found it on you tube following your instruction. Its not O gauge but gauge one and a very impressive run with a heavy rake of ten japanese metal coaches in tow, plus the B unit where I presume the boiler is. I wish I had met Wada San, he was a talented man. Although I was graced with knowing his European counterpart Werner Jeggli, who made many steamturbine run models. I was the one who helped him get the drawings for his giant Pennsylvania RR S2 turbine.

Happy steaming!
Simon

 

I also saw his article about the Pennsylvania RR S2 turbine. It looks great!

modelengineeringwebsite.com/Pennsylvania_turbine_loco_1.html
modelengineeringwebsite.com/Pennsylvania_turbine_loco_2.html

 

Kihansha San,

I was wondering if perhaps you know the whereabouts of this locomotive Wada-San refurbished some 30 years ago?

 

Apologies for the late reply.

If it was Mr.Wada's property, I'm sure it's in the care of his family.

Also,back in the 1990s, Mr.Wada apparently built several model locomotives for Mr.Hara, a well-known model collector, and they are now housed at the Hara Model Railway Museum in Yokohama, so you might find them there.

www.hara-mrm.com/