Is "Hornby maneuver" possible in Japan?

[Jaco3011]

So, in October 2022, Hornby, a UK company making 00 scale models, has released a brand new line of products in TT (1:120) scale, a scale that has never before been used in the UK. (Note for nitpicks: so-called TT3 is 1:101.6). The new range of models has received mixed reactions, although the models themselves are absolutely fine, it's the company's release policy that stirred controversies. For more details I'll just post a link to a video by Sam's Trains: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3GtSMo-Bp4

 

 

But I wonder if this type of "revolution" is possible within Japanese market. Sorted by biggest to smallest scale

 

Sm is generally too extravagant. It's the biggest one in terms of size, with not many products readily available, except for road vehicles.

 

H0j (H0m as per NEM 010) is the second most probable on the list. The is already some market for this scale, although nearly all of the rolling stock offered are plush brass kits.

 

TT9 (NEM 010 calls it TTm, S-1.2 calls it TTn42) is probably the most probable one. There is very tiny group of TT9 modellers in Japan already, but this solution has certain advantages. N gauge track is widely available, it's a space saver compared to H0, and there is plenty of readily available products, albeit a huge part of it is meant for the European market, so not everything fits Japanese layouts.

 

Nm is, in my opinion, the most unlikely to happen. 1:150 on 9mm track is too deeply rooted, so, if anything was to happen, it would be Nj (1:150 on 6,5mm track) conversion kits.

 

Zm is on the verge of being too small for a human hand to manipulate flimsy parts. The biggest advantage is that all the Japanese Z is made to consistent 1:220, so only track, bogies and wheelsets have to be produced as new parts.

 

 

Yeah, I know, at this point it's just speculation.

 

[railsquid]

3 hours ago, Jaco3011 said:

Nm is, in my opinion, the most unlikely to happen. 1:150 on 9mm track is too deeply rooted, so, if anything was to happen, it would be Nj (1:150 on 6,5mm track) conversion kits.

 

FWIW these are available, e.g.: http://vivant.shop-pro.jp/ but it's a very niche market.

 

[cteno4]

You are talking about very niche markets, but the Japanese market is large. But given how just plain Z scale stalled out in japan I really doubt a new scales/gauges will be picked up by any of the larger manufacturers. Things like this are going to be in the very niche markets and thus niche manufacturers most likely. The vast majority of hobbyists want something that does not take a huge amount of work to come up with, so I would expect most of the manufacturers to stick by the current standards as it allows for a wide variety of stuff already out there, use of a huge history of products, and not a new generation of large part of the pieces.

 

TT of some sort has been around Europe for a long time so not a huge jump by Hornsby.

 

Also the vast majority of model train hobbyists don’t get super particular on perfection in scale and gauge, so the focus by the big producers will be on that market.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

It also seems like H0 13mm is starting to gain some traction in Japan. That would be 1/80 scale on 13mm gauge, so all of the currently available 1/80 scale H0 from Tomix and Kato for example would then "only" require re-gauging. I know IMON is doing some sporadic 13mm gauge (the Kiwa90 for example, but then again, that's a kit manufactured by World Kougei and sold under the IMON brand), and World Kougei is getting into it as well.

 

[Jaco3011]

18 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

FWIW these are available, e.g.: http://vivant.shop-pro.jp/ but it's a very niche market.

 

That's what I was referring to, but those aren't off-the-shelf conversion kits by original manufacturers.

 

17 hours ago, cteno4 said:

TT of some sort has been around Europe for a long time so not a huge jump by Hornsby.

UK and continental Europe are effectively separate markets, with only some rolling stock shared by both.

 

11 hours ago, Martijn Meerts said:

It also seems like H0 13mm is starting to gain some traction in Japan. That would be 1/80 scale on 13mm gauge, so all of the currently available 1/80 scale H0 from Tomix and Kato for example would then "only" require re-gauging. I know IMON is doing some sporadic 13mm gauge (the Kiwa90 for example, but then again, that's a kit manufactured by World Kougei and sold under the IMON brand), and World Kougei is getting into it as well.

 

I'm not sure if I've told you this already, but I have two requirements: 1) the scale is consistent 2) the narrow gauge is actually narrow. JM doesn't solve the first issue.

[Kamome]

It’s a difficult question to answer. I think the TT:120 launch from Hornby was ok and some people bought into it. 00 gauge is extremely well established with N gauge becoming more popular than it once was. However, the price point of N scale is pretty much the same as 00 in the UK plus model to model, N scale can be wildly inconsistent with quality and reliability.  This allows other options to work their way in to the market. N scale is fiddly and there aren’t the options and parts easily available like Japanese N. While DCC and sound are now far more integrated than Japanese N, there aren’t always the same level of features. Factor in a similar cost across 00, TT:120 and N and a smaller scale than 00 that would run better than the N stuff, is an easier sell for the option. 

 

Japanese N is far better in every regard, quality, reliability, price point so a new range would have to introduce something you just don’t get here. Perhaps easy DCC is a way in but have many in Japan adopted DCC? Perhaps added detail, but would have to offer the same levels as HO in a smaller scale. Z has a small following but the range, availability and price won’t attract people away from the main stream and it really does nothing extra than N other than offer something smaller. 

 

There are always going to be niche markets available. 12mm is out there and for those who want more accurate models in brass, in more correct gauges, you can have it, providing you’re willing to put a large investment forward. Average salaries across Japan are not that high compared with the UK so if you’re asking ¥200,000 to ¥450,000 per loco in 12mm, don’t expect everyone to get involved. 

 

I think Japanese N is that happy medium. Models are a larger scale than British N, are generally feature rich, ok DCC isn’t often supported. 

 

I think where we’ll see growth will be in areas like Narrow gauge in 0 or HO scale. Ultimately this prototype allows Japanese modellers to envisage a home layout that doesn’t take up too much space. Look at how many options Tomytec have released, be they convertible static models,  on top of that you have the paper and brass kits plus now Kato have decided to produce set track for 9mm. There are even modelling meets purely for this area of railway modelling. 

 

It will be interesting to see how far Hornby take TT:120. All of their manufacturing has slowed, most of what is being released in 2024 is delayed stuff announced 12-24 months ago and even their 00 seems to consist mainly of the same stuff again with a new running number. Ok, Era 1 Locomotion too. I think the company as a whole needs a rethink as they’re currently marketing on nostalgia rather than innovating. Scalextric, Hornby and Airfix seem to be living in the past while their competitors are producing some astounding models and pushing the industry on. The one thing you can say is they’re dependable. All the Hornby steam engines my father has run well, when you compare to the likes of Bachmann and Dapol which can be hit and miss. 

 

[Welshbloke]

The head scratcher for me is still why Japan picked 1:80. If they'd gone for 1:76 they'd have been able to use OO items like containers, and the scale/gauge thing would be closer to accurate too (as opposed to British OO where the track is 2.something millimetres too narrow).

 

I can certainly see HOe and similar scales on 9mm gauge doing well. The prototypes generally fit the kawaii thing which has a big pull in Japanese culture, they'll go around fairly sharp curves and track is readily available if you're not fussed about underscale sleepers. Hopefully Kato will chat to Dundas Models about a deal to distribute their kits to the Japanese market, there are still a few items which haven't appeared RTR in there.

 

(Dundas used to be Parkside Dundas, but sold the standard gauge O, OO and N ranges to Peco. Leaving them as Dundas Models, selling narrow gauge kits).

[katoftw]

I wouldn't call Hornby re-introducing TT scale a revolution.  It's way to early to tell if it was a success or not. Gonna need a good 5-10 years to really judge it. And a revolution would be judged on its success.

 

OO/HO is expensive and very space consuming. For these reasons, their has been in a steady and slow decline in sales over the past 2 decades, as houses get smaller and cost of living goes up.  So it made sense to try a newer cheaper and less space consuming option scale.

 

In Japan, N scale is still killing it. It's the cheapest of all scales, and other that Z scale, the smallest.  But N scale has the best range of running models.

 

Be difficult to start a scale revolution in Japan.

Edited March 13 by katoftw

[Beaver]

1 minute ago, katoftw said:

OO/HO is expensive and very space consuming.

 

Depends on the country. For British outline OO is far and away the cheapest with lots of second hand available at bargain basement prices, so it makes more sense generally to try and squeeze OO into your house than attempt a British N project.

 

Mainland European outline has usually been pricy whatever the scale, including second hand.

 

I agree that Japanese HO is expensive, general rule seems to be the price of a given model in 1:80 is at least double that of the 1:150 equivalent.

[Welshbloke]

My recent experience of Japanese HO is that prices are comparable to British OO, but quality is far higher. Kato coaches cost about the same as Bachmann or Hornby after the last few price hikes, but have close coupling that just works, built in tail lights, etc.

 

 

[Jaco3011]

On 3/11/2024 at 1:30 AM, Kamome said:

There are always going to be niche markets available. 12mm is out there and for those who want more accurate models in brass, in more correct gauges, you can have it, providing you’re willing to put a large investment forward. Average salaries across Japan are not that high compared with the UK so if you’re asking ¥200,000 to ¥450,000 per loco in 12mm, don’t expect everyone to get involved.

 

I expect to print something affordable soon. If only single manufacturer tried to hop on the bandwagon. ホキ800 / 936形 and DD12 / 912形 are examples of rolling stock used on both 1067mm and Shinkansen network, so 1/87 is be the optimum.

[cteno4]

Manufacturers need to see a potential market to think about jumping in. The smaller the market, the higher the production cost and retail price and thus that diminishes the already small potential market. Basic economics. Something has to show them there is a potential market big enough to take the risk. Small companies don’t have the reserves for testing a market or having a product not sell. Asking a small company to blindly dive in hope a market appears is not good business, it’s complete gambling in a bad way (ie not knowing the odds on the hand you are playing).

 

jeff

[Kamome]

7 hours ago, Jaco3011 said:

If only single manufacturer tried to hop on the bandwagon

ROI (return on investment)is the main concern. Why Japan has chosen 1/80 as opposed to 1/87 I don't know. I'm sure someone on this forum knows why the scale was chosen, but like most things in Japan, I would assume adopted from pre-existing technology. As Japan is slightly unique in using different track gauges for mainstream traffic, they have obviously found a happy medium to create scale-ish models to run on existing 16mm track. The main manufacturers have already invested large amounts of cash into tooling their track, train and scenery items so a new product would unlikely attract a swathe of new customers, but perhaps only make some modellers change scales. (zero ROI - you sell more of something, but less of another) 

 

There are some benefits to creating a new scale, you can undo the scale choice mistakes that were made in the early stages of model railway history but it is difficult to compete with the huge ranges from multiple well-established manufacturers. Starting again you can create trains, track and scenery with appropriate scaling as Hornby have been doing with TT:120. It's still too early to tell whether Hornby's risk will pay off. If it does, you may see other manufacturers trying something in the future. They'll probably be watching the progress closely. As an idea only, it makes a lot of sense, and the models look to the same detail level as 00, all are DCC compatible and you can fit more into a smaller space without the same dexterity challenges you face with N.  It's really only the speed at which Hornby can put new products into the range to grow the interest and justification to choose TT:120 over the wealth of options in the mainstream alternatives. Time will tell, but as a company that again seems to be facing financial challenges, they may not have enough cash flow to keep the project alive.

 

In Japan, Imon found a niche market so that you can have 1/87 scale trains on 12mm track alongside 1/87 scale shinkansen on 16mm track. No one else has deemed in commercially viable to enter this market as model prices are at the upper end of the hobby. Shinkansen are made in 1/87 and regular trains are generally made in 1/80 across all other manufacturers in brass and plastic to run on 16mm. I would also argue that culturally, Japan doesn't change things very often. This can be true across many areas of Japanese life. Not to say that is wrong, but any reform ideas are usually a very long drawn out process.

 

With 3D printing becoming cheaper and more accessible who knows what competition will appear. One idea might be to produce something like 1/118 or 1/120 scale trains that run on 9mm track, but then you'd have to consider what to do about shinkansen that would need something like 12mm track.

 

[Jaco3011]

16 hours ago, Kamome said:

1/87 scale trains on 12mm [...] as model prices are at the upper end of the hobby.

https://www.imon.co.jp/models/goods468.MBR/oyubari

vs
https://www.imon.co.jp/models/goods426.mbr/oyubari

 

Correlation is not causation. One of these sets is 1/87, one is 1/80. Both sets have the same cars, the same manufacturer, the same material/technology and the same price. These models aren't expensive due to scale being niche or due to being hard to produce in this specific scale, these models are expensive, because they are top-end brass models.

 

In case of injection molding, the tooling (mold) is very expensive to design and manufacture (around 100k Euro for a basic mold), but the cost of one production cycle is extremely low. That's why mass-produced models are cheap - production cost per item has been reduced to minimum, and high cost of starting production is split between thousands of items of the same type.

 

3D printing isn't as cheap per item as injection molding, but there is no item-specific tooling. That's why it's good for prototyping and small scale manufacturing.

 

@Kamome no idea where did you get 1/118 from, but "two-in-one" scales are a no-go for me, and 1/118 would make TT scale unusable (see containers). Tillig already makes 12mm gauge TT track with concrete sleepers, but I haven't seen slab track track in TT yet.

 

@Modellbahn JP do you happen to know why there is 1/150 and 1/80 instead of 1/160 and 1/87?

[cteno4]

3 hours ago, Jaco3011 said:

do you happen to know why there is 1/150 and 1/80 instead of 1/160 and 1/87?

1/150 was specifically chosen to make n gauge track look a bit smaller for cape gauge and why shinkansens are 1/160 on N gauge for standard gauge track. works as 1/160 shinkansens and the rest of the 1/150 trains are not on the same tracks usually and thus not right next to each other. Shinkansens also tend to be big looking as well so cover up the difference some visually. The legend is many Japanese steamers work out more like 1/140 to help enhance their size on n gauge track as cape gauge.
 

I’ve always assumed they did a similar thing in HO, but never specifically heard that called out.

 

Yes the high end mostly hand made brass producers can put out a small number of models in non standard scales for very small niche markets to those that can afford them. Difference in them making brass 1/80 or 1/87 is just resizing the etching. Probably some work for any detail castings to be redone, but I expect they may cheat on some of those.
 

But that’s not a Hornby type roll out. For that they need injection moulding and as you note it is a big upfront cost and larger production runs to make profitable, thus a certain sized market to sell enough to pay off the ROI.

 

The good thing about the Japanese model train market is its huge, the biggest in the world by far. That means a niche could get some numbers. The bad news with that huge market is once a standard is entrenched it’s really hard to get users and manufacturers to change on that big of a scale, so it forces any change to come from a niche market and probably a niche manufacturer that proves popular and growing market, and even then it will need to get huge before the major manufacturers would probably shift to a different or dual standards.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

9 hours ago, Jaco3011 said:

no idea where did you get 1/118 from

Just a rough example if you reduce full scale 1067mm gauge track trains to a scale to run on existing 9mm track.

 

9 hours ago, Jaco3011 said:

Correlation is not causation.

This is true. However, the top end brass product is where you're likely to be getting the customers who want something more tailored, away from the established mainstream.  Smaller companies like Musashino produce models in 1/80 16.5mm, 1/80 13mm, 1/87 12mm and 1/45 24mm to those who are happy to pay for the privilege. They could have totally omitted the 1/80 16.5mm customer due to scale inaccuracy but I'd imagine that market greatly supports development for their other ventures.

 

The manufacturers that have more financial power to bring out mainstream product like Kato, Tomix, Microace, Tenshodo already produce 2 different scales, 3 if you want to split hairs between 1/150 and 1/160. And to some, plastic HO is priced in an area more than they are willing to pay for model trains.  In the case of Imon, they manufacture to a niche market with 1/87, 12mm and no brainer, they saw a gap to produce 1/80, 16.5mm items which a larger pool of their customers model, to sell product in their model shops alongside Endo and KTM who produce (non shinkansen) stock in 1/80 16.5mm too.

 

 There are other options out there.　You can buy 13mm track and wheel conversion kits to run your 1/80 plastic trains on something more appropriate if scale accuracy is the most important factor. 00 is still the most popular gauge in the UK, people are well aware of the scale inconsistency between the 1/76 trains and 16.5mm track but most can overlook that for the want to run trains and take enjoyment from it.  There are smaller groups who want to model accuracy but this is generally product from cottage industry businesses or scratch building, not mainstream manufacturers.

 

But really, if the majority of the market for Japanese model trains is in Japan, why do they need to conform to standards of 1/160 and 1/87 at all.

And what percentage of the captive domestic market, that forms the large majority of your customer base, are asking for something else more in-keeping with overseas standards of gauge or scale?