MicroAce A1592/A1593 200系 question

[roadstar_na6]

Good Evening,

 

just a short question regarding the aforementioned MicroAce A1592/A1593 200系 Shinkansen I‘ve been recently keeping an eye out for. The model has yellow/brown vents in the lower section on the sides of some cars and I‘d really like to know if this was ever present in that form on an actual train or just something MA messed up.

 

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

Regards,

Jan

[disturbman]

I have found them visible in a few pictures, but these are rare and the vents are placed in a not so often photographed place. 

K47, the revival livery consist had them: https://tetsudo-shimbun.com/article/topic/entry-112.html and http://skp.my.coocan.jp/tec0last/200.html.

 

Nippon Sharyo website also feature a picture of a consist featuring those yellow/brown vents: https://www.n-sharyo.co.jp/business/tetsudo/images/jre200.jpg.

I also found a picture of a H formation featuring them, but I cannot link the picture.

From what I saw, these are not present on all consists. I haven't been able to find the pattern behind their presence or not.

[200系]

It's a bit of both actually?

 

The vents you mention were certainly present, they are (iirc) outlet vents for among others the air conditioning system, however, they were painted green in real life.

I've looked through multiple photos to confirm this, and for 99% of the time they seemed to have retained their green color. Only from certain angles do they look black (because of the light), or when the body mount structure (the lower part) was particularly dirty, in which case they could  take on a brown hue. However, they were never gold coloured in real life, that I can say with 99.99% certainty. On the pictures I have of formation F8 (the formation which the MicroAce model represents) they are always green.

 

In relation to the MicroAce model, if you want a solid model of one of the "shark-nosed" F formations (F5, F8 and F40), the latest Tomix release, 98702, might be a better model to keep an eye on. Even though the MicroAce model is still very good, the latest Tomix model is (in my opinion) simply the best representation of these formations, bar none, and it should be slightly easier to pick up.

Just adding my 2 yen.

 

4 minutes ago, disturbman said:

From what I saw, these are not present on all consists. I haven't been able to find the pattern behind their presence or not.

 

There are some small differences between the 200 series 0 sub-type cars, and the 1000/1500 and 2000 sub-type cars in this regard, but all 200 series formations did have those vents.

The 0 sub-type had vents on both sides of the car, with 2 on the sea side for all cars, and 1 on the mountain side for the 222 and 226 type cars (they were probably related to the rectifiers, present only in even cars). The mountainside port seems to have been removed with the introduction of the 1000 sub-type cars, in 1983. This change was retroactively applied to all 200 series cars, though I'm not exactly sure when this happened precisely, all the older pictures I have of the E formations, modified F formations (F41/42 F51~F58, or F66) were either taken during the early/mid JR East era, or were taken from the seaside so it's difficult to verify exactly when this change occurred. The 200 sub-type cars, even though they were modified 0 sub-type 225 and 226 type cars, seem to have received this change during their reconstruction as well.

 

As such it's not too surprising that the vents may be visible in one photo while missing on another, as they should be only visible on pictures taken when facing the sea side of the formation.

 

[disturbman]

Thanks for your insight, @200系.

 

I meant: "the brown vents are not present on all consists". The prototypicality of this specific color was hard to confirm as (correct) side pictures are as rare as the golden goose. The pictures available online are always taken at an angle and of low resolution.

The brownish taint could in effect be a light effect/grime; it is very similar to the ballast color. The effect can been seen in this picture (http://www.uraken.net/rail/alltrain/tec/200.jpg), where the vents on the first car seems greener than the brown hue seen on the vents of the second car. The whole trains looks relatively dirty.

That said, I have trouble visualizing how this optical effect is occurring on some of the pictures I have found. It does not seem intuitively natural.

[jappomania]

http://kakeyama.image.coocan.jp/tec.htm

 

not brown/golden like MA, but I think it was green only for a couple of hours after service start .... (I bought both and I prefer the MA effect, but Tomix is really good .... and 15 years youngest)

 

 

[disturbman]

Thanks, Massimo. These were perfect.