When did N-gauge show up in Japan?

[martin67]

Hi everybody, konnichi-wa!

 

Generally, the German company Arnold is seen as the first maker of N-gauge electric trains, even though, there were earlier attempts of producing small scale (smaller than HO or TT) trains by Bing, Trix and Lone Star. Some of those were non motorized push-around models, some even without tracks, or track gauges only approximately N (Lone Star had 8mm track gauge). 

 

How about Japan? When did the first examples of "close-to-N" models show up? I think I've seen something like OOO-scale in the past (sort of a Shinkansen set) but have no idea about the year it was made.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

[railsquid]

 "Sony MicroTrain", 1963 or 1964.

 

https://tetsudo-ch.com/7456202.html

[bill937ca]

Kato dates to 1965.

 

"..in 1965 the JNR C50 steam locomotive and the Oha 31 passenger car were released as the first domestically produced full-scale N gauge products made of plastic by injection molding "

 

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/関水金属