Tomix RailStar 700 - Melted Bogie

[ATShinkansen]

Hello,

 

For the first time, I had a derailment that resulted in one of the bogies on the end car for the above train to get hot enough to melt.  I’ve found the part number for the replacement couplers, but I can’t figure out the part number for the replacement bogies.  Does anyone by chance know what the part number is?

[katoftw]

Should have a parts list on the back of the instruction sheet. If you don't have the sheet. I can pull mine out later. Or I am thinking Kato.

Edited June 28, 2023 by katoftw

[disturbman]

There is a list, but that part might not be on it. Tomix sales a relatively small amount of assy parts. If the bogies are not available, the solution is to ship the set back to the shop you ordered it from so they can forward it to Tomix for repairs. The other is to find a donor/replacement car or the parts on Yahoo Japan Auctions; some people disassemble sets and sale the parts there for that specific purpose. That might be the cheapest and easiest of both solutions.

[jappomania]

exactly, like @disturbman told, it's much more easy to find a donor (junk or dismantled set) instead to hope in a Tomix Techstation "miracle", for foreign people spare parts are a nightmare anyway, just Kato is reliable

you talk about coupler and bogies, so I assume you have the last release with U-shape couplers (98769 that's the third time), in the previous version bogies and hook/ring coupler are a single mold (98751/92276+77) or energized but different from the last (92822), so the first attempt you can do is asking to MTP or Rokko if they can verify the spare parts availablility, otherwise serch on Yahoo but be sure you buy single cars from the last release and not from the previous, some parts are unchanged but some other are retooled

(eg. pantograph cover and side fences are the same, but are unavailable as spares so one of my old release still remain with yellowed parts until I find a donor without defect  at reasonable price)

 

I'm not 100% sure, but probably the boogies of 500 series are still the same so you can buy one Museum item for repair your train (for the old release that's true, the spare items code for 500 and 700-7000 bogies is the same, unlike 500 series, 700 -7000 has been not yet released like Museum car 😌)

 

Ciao!

Massimo

 

[katoftw]

This makes sense above avout the 500 vs 700-7000 series shinkansens. The WDT205 bogies were used by both prototypes.

 

If you got a 500 at home. Compare the two. If you don't. I have both I can pull out later in the week.

[ATShinkansen]

My set is Item #92822.  I have a Kato 500 (my 700-7000 is my only Tomix Shinkansen); the tooling is obviously different, but they are otherwise the same bogie.

 

There is a parts list on the instruction sheet.  Fortunately, I can read the sheet enough to identify the various parts listed.  Plenty of replacement parts listed for the couplers (couplers, springs, etc.), but the bogies themselves are not listed.  With how easy they are to remove and replace, I would think Tomix would have those available to some degree.  That just seems like poor customer support to me.

 

As I cap my Shinkansen at five cars (six for mini-Shinkansen), in the meantime I’ve just simply swapped the bogie with one from a car in the set I’m not using.  Thankfully, nothing else was damaged, not even the decoder.  This was the second Japanese train I ever purchased, so I’ve had it for quite some time.

 

What exactly causes bogies to melt like this?  If there’s a short circuit, usually the command station will immediately trip.  What happened was that I had the Shinkansen running at restricted speed, and wasn’t paying attention, and a freight train caught up to it and rear-ended it.  I think it had been pushing it for some time, but I quickly shut the power off when I saw smoke coming from the rear of Car 8(5).

Edited June 28, 2023 by ATShinkansen

[ATShinkansen]

So far, the Museum Car 500 Series seems to be my only option.  I don’t see anything else for parts or even loose cars.

[cteno4]

Ouch, bummer. Yes lurking yahoo.jp auctions for a donor may be your best bet.
 

It is hard to stock spare parts for all the trains out there, and spare parts are the worst to keep inventoried, stocked, accessed, ordered, etc and never that sure if they will ever sell for many of them. To do this they would really need to include part of the spare part cost in the train as I expect they never break even on spare part costs. growing up my best friend’s parents owned a large local car garage and we would do the inventory of spare parts a few times a year (pre computer) to keep things straight for taxes and stock levels. His dad would say they lost a lot of money inventorying, ordering, organizing, etc the spare parts, but it was worth it to have them on hand and repair fast a customer then happy and they made it up in the labor charges where they made all their money.
 

They tend to keep the most broken parts in stock like couplers, motors, drive shafts, etc. melting a bogie is not a common event. I have to say I have a ton of trains and ran them hard on the club layout a lot and at home and have only had a small handful of needs for spare parts and those mostly drive shafts (usually available or you can Frankenstein them pretty easily), few couplers, and a couple of motors. So they would have lost a ton of money on me stocking a wide range of spare parts.

 

do you have a fast breaker in your dcc system, that’s one of the problems pushing dcc amps, it doesn’t take long with a short for a meltdown.

 

we had a few on the club layout over the last 15+ years with the club on dc (1 amp max) and we put in 250ma buss fuses and later self resetting heat breakers that ended meltdowns.

 

best of luck!

 

jeff

[ATShinkansen]

3 hours ago, cteno4 said:

do you have a fast breaker in your dcc system, that’s one of the problems pushing dcc amps, it doesn’t take long with a short for a meltdown.

 

we had a few on the club layout over the last 15+ years with the club on dc (1 amp max) and we put in 250ma buss fuses and later self resetting heat breakers that ended meltdowns.

I have a Digitrax DCS51 with Kato cables forming the entire power bus under the layout.  I don’t have any other components as far as power feed.

[cteno4]

Might look at a dcc circuit breaker system to avoid meltdowns. They trip with a short circuit fast. Dcc pumps more amps and voltage (thus more power) than dc so meltdowns are faster.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Wolf]

7 hours ago, cteno4 said:

do you have a fast breaker in your dcc system, that’s one of the problems pushing dcc amps, it doesn’t take long with a short for a meltdown.

Oh my god I had so many melted trains when I joined the local train club. Their layout had no breaker either, and no one ever considered it as the old guys run their 1967 Fleischmann stuff that is made out of unoptanium and wont melt even if plugged into a wall outlet ... XD Clearly must been my inferior japanese stock.

Gladly I could convince ppl, firstly they by now acknowledge how great japanese manufacturers are, and secondly just shortly after me another member joined that had all the new HobbyTrain, Brawa and Fleischmann stuff that, oh surprise, also melted.

Sorry for OT, just felt that topic so badly.

Cheers

[disturbman]

8 hours ago, ATShinkansen said:

With how easy they are to remove and replace, I would think Tomix would have those available to some degree.  That just seems like poor customer support to me.

They release the parts that are the most likely to be broken by users. I would warrant that, since Japanese modellers are not into DCC, bogie melting is not a common issue in Japan. The customer service is that one can send their trains for repairs, that's how things are done in Japan. Of the main N scale manufacturers, only Kato offer a large amount of spare parts, and these are only produced in small numbers and also become unavailable.

Spare parts and donor car hunting is part of this hobby 🙂

[Wolf]

2 minutes ago, disturbman said:

Spare parts and donor car hunting is part of this hobby 🙂

Actually a Topic specific reply:

For Tomix, my most favorite "donor" Target were the "First Car Museum" Series. So if you can get a FM-022 (700 Series Nozomi) you probably are the closest to a spare part for your 700 RailStar you can get.

No expert if the RailStar has modified boogies tho, you want to check there.

[jappomania]

@Wolf the 700-0 museum is not a so good choice, in the "real life" the JR West set 700-3000 and 700-7000 mounting the bogies derived from 500 series with some improvement but Tomix use the same mold for all these trains, unfotunatelly not with the same couplers so merging spare parts from new and old release is not so immediate

 

@ATShinkansen if you post a photo of burned parts maybe is better for identify what you need, but probably you can solve whit a single middle car from a dismantled set

considering that the cars position is fixed, eventually you just need to switch the couplers at one end of cars in sequence (eg.4 and 5)

that's true if you find a car from the last set with U-shape because is much easy to find

if you already found the hook+ring energized couplers and you need only the bogie, the 500 series museum (and probably 800?) is better, but I'm not sure about color matching, I exclude a different mold because Tomix when possible recycle all the parts already available, but a different ABS color pellet is not so expensive...

 

if you have patience I verify with mine, the last release is "under my fingers" but the oldest I don't remember where are....

about DCC I can't help you, my knowledge is near to 0 I stay way from it because a total conversion of my roster is tooooo expensive

[ATShinkansen]

20 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Might look at a dcc circuit breaker system to avoid meltdowns. They trip with a short circuit fast. Dcc pumps more amps and voltage (thus more power) than dc so meltdowns are faster.

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

I’ll need a 101 on this front.  Since I use Digitrax, I’m guessing I would I need the PM74 Power Manager?  I already have the track set up in electrically isolated blocks, but the wiring is all tied together underneath.

 

(I think this subject of breakers is relevant to the topic, because it’s a preventative measure to keep this incident from happening again!)

 

 

 

 

Here’s the bogie.  The coupler used to be a separate part!  Also, I don’t know why it’s backwards on the bogie, I thought I paid closer attention last time I reassembled it!

 

The color looks identical to the Kato 500’s bogies, or at least close enough.  If I put it at the end of a cab car, it’ll most likely get concealed by the nose skirting.  It looks like the First Car Museum 500 is the way to go, so I’ll look into ordering one next week, along with the couplers.

[cteno4]

There are a number of short protection systems out there that work with various dcc systems. Basically the are looking for a fast drop in usual resistance and increase in amp flow to just shut down the power to the tracks. I’m not a deep dcc guy, just dabbled a bit. I’m sure @inobu and other dcc experts here can give you a bit of 411 on the systems and practices usually used out there and play well with digitrax.

 

maybe good to just start a new topic in dcc forum asking about dcc short circuit protection equipment and practices. I don’t see a topic on it currently and it would be good to have that discussion visible by itself and we can link to it from this topic then.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[ATShinkansen]

19 hours ago, cteno4 said:

maybe good to just start a new topic in dcc forum asking about dcc short circuit protection equipment and practices. I don’t see a topic on it currently and it would be good to have that discussion visible by itself and we can link to it from this topic then.

Will do!

 

Good news: I was able to separate the coupler from the bogie.  I tested it out on another car, and it’s still useable!  So I just need the replacement bogie.

[ATShinkansen]

Donor car arrived today, and the bogie was a 100% perfect replacement, so my RailStar 700 is completely restored!

 

The sideframes on the melted bogie don’t look too bad, so I’ll see if I can’t rebuild it for the display car.

[Wolf]

6 hours ago, ATShinkansen said:

Donor car arrived today, and the bogie was a 100% perfect replacement, so my RailStar 700 is completely restored!

 

What did you end up using as donor btw?

[ATShinkansen]

I used a Tomix “First Car Museum” 500 Series.

[katoftw]

Good to see positive outcome. Got some spare parts now also.