OneMile Wa10000

[Pashina12]

Considering how important they are to the early-postwar JNR, I'm quite surprised that neither Tomix nor Kato have made a model of the Wa10000 or Wa12000 class boxcars; until last week, I knew of only a metal kit by Morita. But then on HS's Bargain Sale I discovered this ten-pack of Wa10000s from One Mile, and given their importance to the 50s/60s, I grabbed a box, for 4000 yen:

 

 

Inside, you have ten separate boxes; ten different running numbers:

 

 

Now, although the package does say Wa10000 class, some of the cars are numbered as Wa12000 class - which is fine, since the differences between the two types are primarily in the underframe construction - the Wa12000s were Wa10000s rebuilt with two-link suspension to allow higher-speed running. Five of the ten are simple black general use cars, and the other five are works cars with the white stripe, lettered for various JNR factories.

 

It's not quite at the level of the latest Tomix or Kato issues, but the cars are quite nice, comparable to the Popondetta reissues of Kawai models:

 

 

 

The coupler is rather odd, and I'm not sure how functional they are; there's very little side-to-side movement. To be fair, they *were* sold as "display models". The underframe isn't overly special, but it looks like it'll be a fairly simple job to replace the couplers with working ones (MicroTrains in my case):

 

 

Also, since the wheelsets are plastic, I'll be replacing those with metal wheelsets.

 

All in all, I'm satisfied - this was a good buy. Even if I do nothing with the five works cars (since I can't realistically use those in Aizu Line trains), it'd still work out to getting five decent-looking boxcars for 800 yen per - certainly not a bad deal. And I can always repaint/renumber them if I want. So if you're wanting 50s/60s freight cars and don't mind doing a little bit of work to replace couplers and wheelsets, these are definitely worth grabbing.

[Kiha66]

Actually kato has made plenty of wa12000s.  I have a few, they are very nice cars. 
https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10315913

[Pashina12]

...how did I miss that?