Ordering trains online - thoughts?

[BeardedBeauty]

Hey all. I'm kinda new to modeling Japanese railroads, and I was wondering what the dos and don'ts were for buying trains overseas. I model HO scale, and I'm wondering specifically about eBay, but I'm curious about other sites you guys might feel safe on too.

 

Where do you guys feel secure enough to go buy these cool trains? is there a specific seller I should pay attention to?

 

Any information would help. Lately I've been looking at the Kato EF510 on eBay and I feel that I should have one.

 

Thanks guys

 

John

Edited April 6, 2016 by BeardedBeauty

[katoftw]

See shops and suppliers section of this forums.  Online ordering is done by all on this forum.

[BeardedBeauty]

That's a great place to start! thanks for pointing it to me. I'll check it out.

 

John

[Densha]

Hi John,

 

Welcome to JNS!

 

As katoftw already pointed out, basically everyone on this forum orders online from Japanese shops. I personally mainly make use of the services of loco1hobby and Modeltrainplus. Just send them an email if you're looking for a certain model and they'll help you out with it. Then there's also Hobby Search that has an enormous online database, but with rather high prices nowadays. What I often do is look up models on Hobby Search and then order them from loco1hobby or Modeltrainplus.

[toc36]

HO is comparatively limited in Japan.  The vast majority of new products are N scale.

 

80% of my orders are through modeltrainsplus.com.  Narichi-san will hunt for specific requests.

 

I have also used http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/rail/

 

No problems at all.  However, postage = speed

[cteno4]

John,

 

Welcome to the forum! You will find a number of HO Modelers here doing Japanese trains.

 

HO is a much smaller market than N scale in Japan, so you won't find the wide selection you do in N scale. Also not as much of it on ebay. Generally ist cheaper to buy directly from Japan than thru ebay as most of the Japanese sellers on ebay are at retail or more and you can get 10-20% off with shops in Japan. A small bit of used stuff is at times on ebay to watch for. Plazajapan is probably the biggest ebay Japanese train seller on ebay, very trusted source, but may not be very discounted on price. There are a smattering of others and I've never had a problem with any Japanese sellers on ebay in the last 15+ years.

 

As kato mentioned the supplier forum has lots of discussions on sellers in Japan. Modeltrainplus.net and loco1hobby.com are places that are the usual sources for many. They have excellent service! HobbySearch ( www.1999.co.jp/eng/rail) is also a common source as a large hobby shop and probably has the most robust catalog of models out there to look at what's been done. There are others as well, but some may not have as much English on their sites or spoken so can be more of a challenge

 

Yahoo.jp auctions are a big sale place, but the site is in Japanese so a little more daunting to search and you need to work with a service in Japan to bid and get stuff shipped to you from Japan. This incurs a service charge around a third of the auction costs usually.

 

Also look at the thread for what did I receive In the mail or just order HO thread as it has a lot of chatter about where and how folks got stuff and folks maybe to ask more specific questions of.

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/3439-what-did-you-order-or-the-post-deliver-ho-and-other-scales/

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[BeardedBeauty]

Awesome. Thanks guys! and I know HO is less of a market, but I will stay true to it. I refuse to move to N scale. No particular reason, I just like it better.

I've looked at HobbySearch, but I feel like everything in true HO 1:87 is out of stock. But it's good to know that the ebay sellers are generally trustable.

I'll take a look at those other sites and see what I can find. you guys are the best.

 

John

[Das Steinkopf]

Awesome. Thanks guys! and I know HO is less of a market, but I will stay true to it. I refuse to move to N scale. No particular reason, I just like it better.

I've looked at HobbySearch, but I feel like everything in true HO 1:87 is out of stock. But it's good to know that the ebay sellers are generally trustable.

I'll take a look at those other sites and see what I can find. you guys are the best.

 

John

One thing of note is that Japanese HO is 1:80 scale and not 1:87 as it is in the rest of the world, the reasons being a probably similar to why the British adopted OO Gauge 1:76 scale instead of 1:87 HO, besides Kato and Tomix there are a number of other companies that supply HO models including Tenshodo and World Kogei. Overall Japanese HO models are quite expensive and are in the same price range as Fleischmann or Marklin, is mainly due to them being more for a niche market, the limited space available to most Japanese modellers has driven the demand and widescale popularity for N Gauge models far more that it has for HO. Edited April 7, 2016 by Das Steinkopf

[BeardedBeauty]

One thing of note is that Japanese HO is 1:80 scale and not 1:87 as it is in the rest of the world, the reasons being a probably similar to why the British adopted OO Gauge 1:76 scale instead of 1:87 HO, besides Kato and Tomix there are a number of other companies that supply HO models including Tenshodo and World Kogei. Overall Japanese HO models are quite expensive and are in the same price range as Fleischmann or Marklin, is mainly due to them being more for a niche market, the limited space available to most Japanese modellers has driven the demand and widescale popularity for N Gauge models far more that it has for HO.

 

Right, and I get that. there's a 1:80th and a 1:87th. I'm not sure I understand why there are separate scales, but I get 1:87th when they have it.

[kvp]

Japanese N scale has 1:160 for standard gauge shinkansen trains and 1:150 for cape gauge trains so the trains will at least somewhat match the track. In H0, this is 1:87 for shinkansen and 1:80 for cape gauge. True cape gauge 1:87 scale trains run on TT tracks. Some manufacturers did release 1:87 cape gauge trains with standard gauge wheels, but they are out of scale with themselves and everything else and are getting really rare.

[Guest keio6000]

While the good vendors mentioned here will certainly help, if you're really serious about Japanese HO and have the deep pockets required, your best bet is to visit the HO gauge section of Yahoo Auctions Japan

 

http://list4.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/HO%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8-%E9%89%84%E9%81%93%E6%A8%A1%E5%9E%8B-%E3%81%8A%E3%82%82%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83-%E3%82%B2%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0/2084259580-category.html

 

At the very least you can get a sense of what is out there and back away slowly if needed, but also there may be bargains to be had (I don't know since I don't do HO).  I do know that recently some absolutely lovel Keio 5000 models came out as HO kits in Japan and they're so nice when completed that it makes me wish I did HO.

 

To give you some idea, here is a W7 Shinkansen in HO:

 

http://page21.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/j388152450

 

As i write this is is going for a very reasonable US $1000 or so.  I dont know what the market price for this is, but for Japanese HO in general speaking very generally you can expect to pay between $100 - $1000 per car, though releases by Kato and Tomix can be lower than that.  Here is a lovely KiHa 82 set for example which as of this writing is reasonably priced:

 

http://page15.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/t470296025

[marknewton]

The thing to remember is that 1/87th scale Japanese model trains run on 12mm gauge track, whereas 1/80th scale trains run on 16.5mm gauge track, which is what you're used to using as an HO scale modeller.

 

With the best will in the world I disagree strongly with the claims that Japanese 1/80th scale models are very expensive or require deep pockets. I have a large collection of 1/80th scale trains from all the Japanese manufacturers, and I'm neither rich nor a spendthrift. Perhaps they seem pricey in comparison to N gauge models, but try comparing the prices with those of current HO scale US outline/prototype models instead. And consider that the quality of these models is equal to or even better than what's on the market for US modellers, and I think you will agree that they're not overly expensive for what you get.

 

Over the years I've bought models from Yahoo Japan auctions, Rakuten, Plaza Japan, HobbySearch and forum member Keitaro at loco1hobby, as well as the odd model from eBay and the sadly defunct HW Japan. I've had excellent service from all these suppliers, particularly Keitaro, never had anything arrive damaged, and never had anything go missing - ever. I'd be very surprised if you were to have any difficulty buying models online from Japan.

 

Anyway, rant over, I hope you get into 1/80th scale and get as much enjoyment out of it as I have. Have a look at my Flickr pages linked in my signature and you'll get some idea of what's available in Japanese HO.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

Edited April 7, 2016 by marknewton

[BeardedBeauty]

very informative, fellas. I probably won't get into 1/80th, I like my trains to stay the same scale. But this has been very helpful, especially about the online buying part. I do not have deep pockets, like, at all, so I'll probably stick to Kato models for the most part. but that W7 is awesome, and if I had that kind of money to throw at a bullet train, I totally would.

I recently got an old HO Katsumi Shinkansen 0 four car starter set - it runs great for about a minute before there's a current overload, so it obviously needs some TLC and new motors. but I'm curious, if this is even possible, is there a way I could find these old KTM trains somewhere online? I'm kind of looking for more cars to expand my set.

 

But thanks for the info, all. you've been some great help.

 

John