Kato/Lemke ICE4

[chadbag]

5 minutes ago, Suica said:

Haha! That price. What a joke.

It's the exact same model that has been available on the Bahnshop for over a year, just with a trade fair sticker slapped on. https://bahnshop.de/ice-4-triebkopf.html

It has nothing to do with the upcoming Kato model.

 

Haha is right!

 

ETA: Looking at the sticker on the box -- Lemke probably gave these away at the trade fair as a teaser for their upcoming model. "Das Team Lemke dankt für Ihren Besuch."  (Team Lemke thanks you for your visit.)  With their booth info from the trade fair.  

 

My bad for associating this with the upcoming model.   The seller's bad for trying to scalp this on unsuspecting buyers.

 

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by chadbag

[Martijn Meerts]

I still think it’s an ugly train, especially the nose is just weird. Then again, many of the new Shinkansen have weird noses as well :)

[cteno4]

Yeah now design is driven by pure air flow, not a designer guessing and also making it pleasing to the eye.

 

Mercedes did this a while back to create the most efficient airflow over a small micro van. They found the optimal from modeling box fish efficiency in water at slow speeds matched small van in air at up to 60mph. The concept car looked pretty ugly, like a boxfish with wheels, but got great efficiency! Never did see anything roll out at all like it later as the uber efficient was a hard to sell to the eye for a Mercedes! Same thing with the Prius, driven by airflow, but they later sacrificed a couple mpg to put some puckers and flares into them for sheer looks to make them look sporty! 

 

jeff

[Densha]

Many modern European trains actually look very similar because of new collision norms that were introduced a few years ago. That still doesn't mean you can't design a proper looking train around those limitations though, because for example Stadler proved you absolutely can. I just consider the ICE4 an ugly beast, although it's still up to the eye of the individual whether you agree with that or not.

Edited March 15, 2018 by Densha

[chadbag]

19 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Yeah now design is driven by pure air flow, not a designer guessing and also making it pleasing to the eye.

 

Mercedes did this a while back to create the most efficient airflow over a small micro van. They found the optimal from modeling box fish efficiency in water at slow speeds matched small van in air at up to 60mph. The concept car looked pretty ugly, like a boxfish with wheels, but got great efficiency! Never did see anything roll out at all like it later as the uber efficient was a hard to sell to the eye for a Mercedes! Same thing with the Prius, driven by airflow, but they later sacrificed a couple mpg to put some puckers and flares into them for sheer looks to make them look sporty! 

 

Well, they failed.  The new Prius is one of the most ugly things on the road...

 

The new ICE4 is not bad looking for a modern railroad trainset.   Most German exterior design (looking at cars) is somewhat understated (not all, but most) and somewhat conservative, which is why general design features on German cars, for example, look less outdated when old than do the latest flashy designs on Japanese cars.  German cars often get criticized for being too stuffy or not flashy (modern) enough, but they are also more timeless designs.  I think the trains may be the same.  A little understated or conservative in design, so they always look about the same.   Just  my opinion.

[cteno4]

Yeah at some point you just have to let it be what it is and thus direction of the newest Shinkansens. Efficiency and noise reduction rule and have to rule more and more as speed goes up. Most all the design is now engineering practicalities making a box go as fast as possible with the least noise.

 

On the Prius i would much rather have it optimized for the performance and screw trying to patch things onto it to make it look fast or sporty. Just add fine scale design to work with what it is and not try to make it something it isn’t... It’s a car, and with the Prius purpose is to get it there with as little fuel as necessary. Let it do that job.

 

jeff

[kvp]

One big difference between the high speed shinkansen designs and european high speed design is that the japanese trains have noses that are engineered for lowest tunnel boom sound using normal tunnel portals and narrow nunnels, while the european design depends on specially engineered tunnel portals with internal pressure equalization ducts, so most moderately rounded trains could go through them without creating too much noise. This makes european high speed trains look less streamlined and they also have a higher usable floor area in front cars. This probably turned out to be overall cheaper with much less tunnels on the german and french high speed network than in Japan. The european high speed routes also often rely on tall (train roof high) noise shielding walls in urban environments.

 

ps: The general european high speed nose design has changed suprisingly little since the first prewar high speed multiple units. Most of them are blunt nose ones with varying degrees of windshield slope and slightly boxier or slightly rounded designs. Under subsonic speeds and no tunnel restrictions to care about, this is the most efficient and also cheapest form.

[Densha]

The ICE branding might make you think otherwise, but remember that the ICE4 is not really intended for very high speed services. The maximum speed of the ICE4 is 230 km/h and 250 km/h for respectively the 7-car and 12-car formations. At that speed the shape of the nose doesn't matter that much.

[Gryphr]

As Densha said, the ICE 4 is intended to replace mostly locomotive hauled Intercity services (and the ICE 1 and later on 2 sets on non-high speed lines) for which the 250 km/h top speed (230 km/h for the 7 car units) is enough. It's original working title was ICx though they changed it to ICE 4, probably for marketing/prestige purposes.

The same actually happened too with the ICE-T in the late 90's (originally called IC-T (Intercity-Triebwagen / Intercity multiple unit) which was supposed to speed up Intercity connections on more curvy lines (and branch lines) using it's tilting technology.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Gryphr

[kvp]

32 minutes ago, Gryphr said:

As Densha said, the ICE 4 is intended to replace mostly locomotive hauled Intercity services

The performance and top speed is around the same as the newest japanese E7/W7 sets. Considering most of the german high speed routes are improved conventional lines, this seems to be acceptable. The original idea for the ICx series was reconfigurability, so the trains could be consisted easily and would recognise the consists and configure themselves on startup, but it looks like the actual trains are more or less fixed sets. In theory the top speed is limited by the ratio of of power cars to trailers, which DBAG wanted to keep as low as possible for cost and maintenance reasons.

[chadbag]

 

Current release date is August 2019 btw.

 

http://www.lemkecollection.de/de/Uebersicht/Spur-N/ICE-4-BR412-DB-Ep.VI-7tlg.-Grundgarnitur

 

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by chadbag

[gavino200]

6 hours ago, chadbag said:

 

Current release date is August 2019 btw.

 

http://www.lemkecollection.de/de/Uebersicht/Spur-N/ICE-4-BR412-DB-Ep.VI-7tlg.-Grundgarnitur

 

 

Yup, saw that. Not impressed 🙁

[chadbag]

I know what has been holding it up.  They did not have their ETCS safety systems certification 😉

 

 

[chadbag]

May/June?

 

 

 

[Suica]

Japan = May

Europe = June

Also, the European release is roughly 30% more expensive.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Suica

[Gryphr]

Given the usual Discounts of the JP retailers it'll be a lot cheaper to order from Japan instead of buying in Germany. Really looking forward to this one ^.
I think Kato should regularly enter the German/European model market, someone making high quality models of modern prototypes (especially MUs) at affordable prices would be hitting right in a pretty big gap in the market. :D

[chadbag]

Yeah, hopefully we can order it from Japan...

 

I have it on "reservation" at Lippe but would much rather source it from Japan.

[gavino200]

10 hours ago, chadbag said:

Yeah, hopefully we can order it from Japan...

 

I have it on "reservation" at Lippe but would much rather source it from Japan.

 

I'm in exactly the same boat. It looks like cancelling a reservation at Lippe is no big deal. I just cancelled my reservation for the Trix ICE. I really don't need more than one ICE.

[gavino200]

14 hours ago, chadbag said:

Yeah, hopefully we can order it from Japan...

 

I have it on "reservation" at Lippe but would much rather source it from Japan.

 

You can pre-order now from MTP. I just ordered mine. 

[toc36]

Don't know if this is pertinent ............

 

http://www.katousa.com/Zcart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=157&products_id=1989&zenid=d621d2e9c83f87267b5eada636c925f0

 

http://www.katousa.com/Zcart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=157&products_id=1990&zenid=d621d2e9c83f87267b5eada636c925f0

[serotta1972]

It's nice Kato USA is offering it but it's at MSRP.

[cteno4]

Usually a few of the big Kato dealers like mb Kleins (modeltrainplusstuff.com) will get some of these imports from Kato japan that katousa does and offer them with a small discount (unusually not as much as katousa stuff). On the Japanese stuff at Kleins it’s usually about 10-15% more than japanese street price once you factor in shipping ems vs priority and close if you ship Sal. If you want to support your lhs and encourage katousa to being more stuff over from Kato japan buy putting an order in thru your lhs. Kleins has gone up and down on bringing stuff in stock over the years, it doesn’t fly off the shelves for them. Katousa has also gone in and out with supporting non katousa sfuff in the past and pissed a lot of folks off when they didn’t support things katousa brough over from Kato japan.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[chadbag]

 

 

[Suica]

Kato ICE 4 website is live

https://www.kato-ice4.com/home-english

I find two things interesting:

・Comes packaged in a specialized bookcase designed to fit the longer length cars.

・The Japanese version will come in standard KATO Green Bookcase packaging and Japanese instructions. 　

    The European and export version will be packaged in special bi-lingual English and German packaging.

 

The German language version of the website specifies this further in that the EU Version's packaging will be 'ICE themed'. 

While this is nice, I still won't pay 200€ more just for that. 

 

[Yavianice]

8 hours ago, Suica said:

The German language version of the website specifies this further in that the EU Version's packaging will be 'ICE themed'. 

While this is nice, I still won't pay 200€ more just for that. 

 

Don’t forget customs and that the European version also has a DB IC bus included, at least when preordered 😁