Kato catalog

[Rick Rubino]

I would like to build a Kato N scale layout either stand alone  for use at home or T Trak so I could do both home and events with my club. my question is where can I find an online catalog of their products so I can plan. I have seen a few print catalogs for sale but $50 and up and mostly out of stock. any help would be appreciated. I am in the US so there are not a lot of shops our dealers that handle Kato.  thanks for any help.  Rick

[Rick Rubino]

forgot to mention the prototype will be Japanese railways.  

 

[bill937ca]

Hobby Search has a deep online store that you can search while gathering  info.  You search for a general item and select Kato as the manufacturer to find what you want.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/rail/

 

For ordering itself there is a wealth of online stores you can order from including Ami Ami, Plaza Japan., RG Rokko, Mandarake and Model Train Plus.

 

There also is the Katomodels.com web site which has English function (although not for the top scrolling images).

 

http://www.katomodels.com/

Edited March 22, 2021 by bill937ca

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, Rick Rubino said:

I would like to build a Kato N scale layout either stand alone  for use at home or T Trak so I could do both home and events with my club. my question is where can I find an online catalog of their products so I can plan. I have seen a few print catalogs for sale but $50 and up and mostly out of stock. any help would be appreciated. I am in the US so there are not a lot of shops our dealers that handle Kato.  thanks for any help.  Rick

 

You may already be aware, but Kato or Tomix catalogs don't  always represent products that are currently available on the market. Production runs are short. Unitrack is pretty much always in production, but rolling stock and scenery items can be difficult to find when out of production. There's a suppliers subforum here that lists most of the sources that people use to search for and buy Japanese model products. Japanese auctions are also a good source for out-of-production items. 

[disturbman]

3 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

Japanese auctions are also a good source for out-of-production items. 

It's, but the prices are much higher at the moment than they used to be. You will have to use a proxy service like buyee or Zenmarket. I don't think we have a recommended list of proxy services.

[roadstar_na6]

The best way to find out about all availbale track items would be to just download a track planning software that supports Unitrack or Fine Track.

 

OT: good call by @disturbmanregarding a proxy-service thread, might be worth starting a thread just to collect available ones with specific information in a template to be filled out by users (fees, additional services, shipping methods etc.). I also don't think we have a general online-shop list like that either?

[disturbman]

20 minutes ago, roadstar_na6 said:

OT: good call by @disturbmanregarding a proxy-service thread, might be worth starting a thread just to collect available ones with specific information in a template to be filled out by users (fees, additional services, shipping methods etc.). I also don't think we have a general online-shop list like that either?

We have a general online-shop list: 

We could add the lists of proxy-service there or in:

 I haven't read that first post since 2009, and I'm not sure I want to, but that first post probably need to be fully reworked or the thread to be killed and restarted anew.

[cteno4]

Yes these older threads that are combinations like this do need some management if we are going to try to keep them current. We should talk on how to maintain content like this.

 

@Rick Rubino as Bill mentioned catalogs are good drool books but not a good indication of what you can lay your hands on at a reasonable price or ease. There are yahoo auctions jp where most anything can be found, but that could be at a very high price (plus the auction proxy fees).

 

hobby search is sort of a default online catalog for a lot of the stuff in Japanese n scale. They rarely remove out of production stuff so even very old stuff is there. What is available usually gives it a good chance of being found at other shops as well. Process usually for me is check hobby search site for something as it’s sort of an encyclopedia, then I can see if available it’s probaby around. If not then I check other sites using more info (ie product number or Jan codes or better title than I started wirh). If not available anywhere then it would be off to yahoo auctions jp (which I almost never do, but that’s me, others do a lot of jp auctions).

 

primary retail that have good English customer support and service Are listed here and exh company has its own topic for sub discussion of it https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/11589-list-of-japanese-model-train-online-retailers/

 

 

the main ones are hobby search (encyclopedic website and large shop), model train plus (small shop but very personal service and will look at ordering, amiami (bigger shop, good prices, not super personal), rail gallery Rokko (excellent prices, good stock and more tha on English site if you ask), plazajapan on ebay (good selection and service with ebay backing but bit more expensive due to ebay fees, but used a lot in the us by casual buyers more nervous about ordering overseas).

 

right now during covid shipping options are very limited to expensive services like DHL and FedEx or slow surface (ship) mail that can be expensive as well. Hopefully as international passenger flights pick up the more reasonable priced shipping options will come back.

 

love to hear your plans for your home/club Ttrak stuff. We have a Ttrak forum, please start a thread there on your project!

 

where are you located in the US?

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Rick Rubino]

Jeff I am in the Rochester NY area. there is a t Trak club but US prototype. I am mostly interested in track an catenary poles and buildings so I can plan something out. the trains themselves look a lot easier to find.  

[cteno4]

Hobby search is probably your best option to see what’s available.
 

Kato has a few different catenary poles for Unitrak for different kinds of lines.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/search?typ1_c=104&cat=&state=&sold=0&sortid=0&searchkey=Kato+catenary

 

Some of these you can actually find at times in the us or on us ebay sellers. Modeltrainstuff.com is the main us retailer that will have a lot of Kato stuff in stock that is a bit more Japanese oriented. Tomix did do a distribution deal with walther’s a few years back but Walthers was wholesaling at like japanese retail prices so us prices were a bit absurd (especially when Sal shipping from japan was as cheap or cheaper than us priority mail w.in the us).

 

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/search?search_query_adv=Kato+catenary

 

For buildings the biggest variety is in the tomytec plastic pop togeather structures (all prepainted and weathered) and sankei lasercut structures (nicely lasercut from precolored laserboard with no singeing, pretty easy to assemble with some white glue). Greenmax also makes a number of building kits, most need to be painted, a few come in precolored plastics. Tomix and Kato have a number of prebuilt structures and have some of the largest structures, although the Kato can be a little harder to find at times and expensive to ship. There are some newer CNC and laser cut taller buildings by a company called Outland models (https://outlandmodels.com). These have no acetate windows or internal floors and are either unpainted or just surface painted (so you can get some odd unpainted edges. They pop together with a pin and hole system and are very inexpensive for the size and can be modified for more internal and external details. There are a smattering of other buildings out there but the above is the main core of stuff readily available.

 

once you find the building you want look around at the main us online shops some have a few of the Kato and Tomix (although less these days it seems) or ebay, may find cheaper than DHL right now from japan. DHL and FedEx go by volume mainly not weight so prebuilt, more bulky buildings can be more expensive to ship right now. Also there is Amazon.co.jp. You can do the basics by truning the prefs to English and you can create an account and use a regular credit card easily. They do dhl shipping and starts at a lower price than other Japanese sources (they are the 800lb gorilla) and can be cheaper for shipping on multiple items. Some of the items won’t ship outside japan just have to check. Searching can also be odd at times but if you have the Jan code it always brings things up. They carry a smattering of sankei, kato, tomix, and tomytec buildings.

 

great you have a local Ttrak club, you may end up getting some converts as Ttrak was made for Japanese scenes with lots of details in a small area and even different scenes on modules next to each other is totally prototypical in japan! 
 

cheers

 

jeff