Lets see your Koki

[Tony Galiani]

They are very light.  In my limited experience, they run well as long as the track is good and you do not try to run them through tight radius turnouts.  Or tight radius curves for that matter.  I have a Minitix track set with some tight curved turnouts and they will not run through them.

They are fine on my Kato Unitrack temporary set up with No. 4 turnouts and R216 curves.

Ciao,

Tony

[Kingmeow]

I've tried them on 9-3/4 with no problems on my home layout but I'm meticulous in track laying.  However, I'll be running them on T-Trak where in the inner radius is 11" and the outer is 12"+.  In train shows where we mostly do combined (module) layouts, you never know what you're going to get as different people have different skill sets.

 

BTW, I had zero problems running my full 16 car N700S on the outer/red line of T-Trak, even at high speed.  This was a 32' x 32' combined layout in Altoona back in September.  Pretty breath taking to watch and drew a lot of attention.  Phones were out videoing!  😎

[cteno4]

We have run kokis in sets up to like 14 or so on our club Ttrak. For the most part all went well running them as is without weights added. Once in a while a car will decouple and probably from rapidos and module joints that peak or valley or just have a track bump. Sometimes flipping a car that decouples solves it and if one car keeps causing issues we just pull that car. We use to run long kokis on our old setup on the fly layouts that at times had some tight turns and non fixed track just popped together and never any issues.

 

i would give it a go on the show setup as is and see how it works for you before adding weights. Empty cars are very light but we have run a fair amount on our layouts with some empty or one 12’ container without noticeable issue. You could probably add some weight to and empty koki with some tungsten powder in areas in the underside of the framework and even create some pockets to glue in powder.

 

If you do weigh them you might think of just cutting a rectangle of thick corrugated cardboard the size of the opening to shove in the containers and then glue the weights into/onto the bottom of the blocks. Alternatively you could cut some foam rubber of EPS foam blocks instead of the cardboard. You could make a little jig to hold the cardboard and weight off the table just the right height and pop container over it to set it the same each time. Or glue a couple of rectangles onto the back side of the cardboard to rest against the inside top of the container and keep it seated just right. You could make a little jig to hold the cardboard and weight off the table just the right height and pop container over it to set it the same each time. Or glue a couple of rectangles onto the back side of the cardboard to rest against the inside top of the container to hold the bottom piece with the weight at jsut the right spot. You can also glue these in place with a couple of drops of PVA glue and if needed to remove just use a knife tip to pop the PVA off the plastic cleanly. You could get fancy and 3d print something for this.

 

This will get you out of hard gluing anything to the container and make a simple way to get the weights as low as possible to keep a low center of gravity on the cars to help with curve pulling stresses. Also helps any visual wobble when cars hit any track junction bumps. Also helps with any canted curve track.

 

Simple, washer and a hunk of corrugated cardboard.
 

I fiddled with this many years ago with all of thisto put magnets in tops and bottoms of containers so we could stack them quickly at shows in the container yard. I had it using a small piece of metal and a magnet each so you could align by had as magnet to magnet you had to get it dead on perfect alignment. It was a bit more fiddly as had to be more precisely and I dropped it for sometime later. This is where a 3d printed bit would probably be worth the trouble to align all the containers just right.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Kingmeow]

16 hours ago, cteno4 said:

If you do weigh them you might think of just cutting a rectangle of thick corrugated cardboard the size of the opening to shove in the containers and then glue the weights into/onto the bottom of the blocks. Alternatively you could cut some foam rubber of EPS foam blocks instead of the cardboard. You could make a little jig to hold the cardboard and weight off the table just the right height and pop container over it to set it the same each time. Or glue a couple of rectangles onto the back side of the cardboard to rest against the inside top of the container and keep it seated just right. You could make a little jig to hold the cardboard and weight off the table just the right height and pop container over it to set it the same each time. Or glue a couple of rectangles onto the back side of the cardboard to rest against the inside top of the container to hold the bottom piece with the weight at jsut the right spot. You can also glue these in place with a couple of drops of PVA glue and if needed to remove just use a knife tip to pop the PVA off the plastic cleanly. You could get fancy and 3d print something for this.

 

This will get you out of hard gluing anything to the container and make a simple way to get the weights as low as possible to keep a low center of gravity on the cars to help with curve pulling stresses. Also helps any visual wobble when cars hit any track junction bumps. Also helps with any canted curve track.

 

Simple, washer and a hunk of corrugated cardboard.

 

Excellent ideas Jeff!  I like the foam/carboard method as you just insert/pull them out as needed and no need to "ruin" the insides with PVA glue and what not.  I will try the foam first as you don't need to be as precise as with cardboard.  With cardboard I think you will need to have some pull tabs if it's wedged in there tight.  With foam, you just need a pick of some sort, even a pocket knife, to catch it and pull it out.

[cteno4]

@Kingmeow Brain dump on searching back more in dusty neuron paths…

 

Cutting the foam is the hard part, EPS is easy to cut up with a table saw precisely, but messy. But cutting small blocks on a regular 10” table saw can be challenging and dangerous. I have a baby 3.25” that’s better for this sized stuff, but again I hate the mess with EPS! Cutting EPS by hand is not easy and almost impossible to get very square. Using a hot knife is not a good option as it will leave melted edges that are no longer deformable (or easily cutable) to go over any little bumps and ridges on the interior of containers. In my fiddling with the magnets I found the EPS blocks a bit hard to get in and out of the containers and different manufacturers have different interior tabs and such and were hard to adjust while messing with them. There is no real give so you have to trim to pretty close to make it work well. I whacked up one piece out of denser foam rubber and it’s easy to fit, but it’s hard to cut accurately and I realized for the magnet stuff to easy to get out of alignment.

 

Corrugated cardboard actually worked out the easiest and most versatile and way easier to cut up precisely. it gives quite a bit for squishing in and went over ridges and such on the interior of the container. I remember one style of container had a vertical ridge on the interior of the container and it was easy to cut cut a slit into the edge of the cardboard and it formed easily around the ridge.
 

For depth placement the jig worked pretty well, it was just a rectangle of chipboard (about 2mm thick) a bit smaller than the inside of the container and a hole in the middle where the magnet could poke thru that was glued onto my rectangle. Put my magnet rectangle on top of the jig on the bench and push the container down on top of it. Seemed to work well, but I did not end up doing a large batch of them so don’t know the large scale reproducibility. My main concern was making sure the magnet was flush with the bottom edge of the container and that the cardboard was up high enough around the edges so that container clips on kokis would engage (so I could pop the  on kokis as well as in the yard). I do remember fiddling with depth on my first attempts manually by just prying the cardboard some with a xacto knife tip and I don’t remember it being a task at all and I was going for more alignment accuracy than you need for just weights. You can also just drill a holes in each corner to stick sharp tweezer tips into pry a bit if needed. My next round of testing was going to be to make a few dozen to compare magnet to magnet and magnet to steel and compare container alignment and ease of use but never got there.

 

For the weights it really doesn’t need to cardboard to be completely perfectly level in the container so I think t seconds with an xacto can get it close enough easily. Then a drop of PVA in each corner to hold in place well. All you need to do is sink the cardboard up into the container enough so that it does not interfere with the koki tab areas. If you use a washer as a weight it may be thick enough to automatically sink the cardboard deep enough.

 

Dont worry about PVA glue messing up your container. It only mechanically bonds to the styrene/abs plastic and just pops loose with a little tweak with a knife tip. Any stray bits easily popped off with knife tip or at works just stick a was of soaked paper towel inside the container for 5 minutes and any PVA will all wipe off. Other option is E6000 glue. It’s basically a thicker rubber cement. It grips well to just about anything but has a slightly flexible joints. But again its a physical, not chemical bond to the surfaces and can be peeled off of styrene/abs.

 

If you want the height of the cardboard weight piece perfect then it’s easy to glue a couple little rectangles of cardboard on top of it to rest on the inside top of the container to keep it just right. Probably no glue needed if decent tight fit of the bottom rectangle.

 

I just realized this is a perfect justification for a laser cutter! Super easy to make a little kit of these all cut out perfectly! I’ll add it to my justification list.

 

it also just dawned on me that adding the magnets also added weight, so it was a twofer.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Kingmeow]

I wasn't planning on EPS even though you suggested it.  For the reason you said, plain messiness with tiny bits of foam all over the place.  I was going to use high density foam.  I have a bunch of them of various sizes that came with electronics equipment.  They cut like EPS, very easily too with an X-Actor hobby razor saw.  No loose bits.

 

And because it is foam based you can squeeze it a little like a regular sponge.  I imagine if you cut each cube slightly over sized, there will be enough give/expansion once fitted to hold itself inside the container.  The high density allows you to cut holes, etc. so you can embed the weight(s) in and hold it with a drop of PVA glue.

 

BTW, I've made my own hot-wire foam cutter.  If the temperature is spot on you should not get hard melted edges.  If you are, your temperature is too hot.  All my cut edges are not hard and shows no burns, as if it was a factory edge.

[bc6]

Today I completed a set of Yamato containers on Koki. I'm very happy about this. 😁

[chadbag]

5 hours ago, bc6 said:

Today I completed a set of Yamato containers on Koki. I'm very happy about this. 😁

 

That's a lot of Yamato containers.   I have a bunch from a few series but not that many.

 

I have maunly KATO and Tomix.  I have a few others including some Platz and Hogarakadou.  The problem with the other is they're much more expensive.  So I usually just buy a pack or three and then load up on all the new TOMIX ones or KATO ones I don't have yet or need dupes of.

 

[Kingmeow]

Has anyone converted their Kokis to knuckle couplers?  Do the Tomix play nice with Kato and vice versa (using their respective brand conversion)?

 

Originally I was going to just leave the rapidos alone.  A good way to not having others play with my Kokis at train shows - 🤣🤣🤣.  But the more I look at them, the more they look "not right".  And since the conversion kits are so inexpensive (compared to Micro-Trains where you mostly change our the trucks), it's tempting.  I'm envisioning, as I go on this addiction journey, I will end up with a mix between Tomixes and Katos.

[bc6]

11 hours ago, chadbag said:

 

That's a lot of Yamato containers.   I have a bunch from a few series but not that many.

 

I have maunly KATO and Tomix.  I have a few others including some Platz and Hogarakadou.  The problem with the other is they're much more expensive.  So I usually just buy a pack or three and then load up on all the new TOMIX ones or KATO ones I don't have yet or need dupes of.

 

My 12 Yamato Koki's are lightweight work compared to others I've seen.

 

I have a few TOMIX and a lot of Hogarakadou but no Popondetta containers. Yeah they are expensive so whatever I can save on Koki I spend on containers. I try not to get duplicates but if I want a unit train oh well. 

[chadbag]

1 hour ago, bc6 said:

My 12 Yamato Koki's are lightweight work compared to others I've seen.

 

I have a few TOMIX and a lot of Hogarakadou but no Popondetta containers. Yeah they are expensive so whatever I can save on Koki I spend on containers. I try not to get duplicates but if I want a unit train oh well. 

the good thing is that except for a few specialty trains most trains runs. Mix of all sorts of containers on them — even in Japan.  I’ve a ton if photos I’ve taken of passing through freight yards or when freight trains pass through a station or once a freight train stopped in a station I was at.  So having a few of a lot of different ones still works for “real trains”.
 

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Yamato containers in real life (except on the backs of trucks driving around Tokyo).   Do they run in mixed container trains or are they like Sagawa that run their own.  The only ones besides  Sagawa I’ve seen pics of are specialty trains for Nissan or Toyota that go to the factories.  
 

unfortunately our next trip to Japan will be low on the purchases of train materials.  But I’ll pick up a few containers as a consolation. 

[Cat]

Me and my Shorties still mourn the lack of 12' Black Cat containers, grr.

[bc6]

Lol @ Cat, I'm sure I didn't buy them all.

[Cat]

2 hours ago, bc6 said:

Lol @ Cat, I'm sure I didn't buy them all.

You found 12-footers?!?  I've only ever seen the larger ones.

[cteno4]

Yeah, I’ve never seen model 12’ black cats. Not sure if I’ve seen prototype ones.

 

jeff

[bc6]

@Cat  Can I see some pics of your Yamato containers? 

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by bc6

[disturbman]

18 hours ago, Kingmeow said:

Has anyone converted their Kokis to knuckle couplers?  Do the Tomix play nice with Kato and vice versa (using their respective brand conversion)?

You mean changing your Tomix Kokis to Tomix knuckles and your Kato to Kato knuckles? In that case, no they don't play nice. The non-Rapido couplers of the various brands are not compatible together. But you can switch all your rolling stock to a single type of knuckles, be it Tomix, Kato, Greenmax or something else. In my experience, the pocket mounted Tomix couplers are worthless and you are better off using Kato or GM.

The caveat being that you will need a Re-color adapter to install Kato couplers on your Tomix locomotives, in case you want to switch your entire fleet of freight cars to Kato or GM couplers.

[Kingmeow]

5 hours ago, disturbman said:

You mean changing your Tomix Kokis to Tomix knuckles and your Kato to Kato knuckles? In that case, no they don't play nice. The non-Rapido couplers of the various brands are not compatible together. But you can switch all your rolling stock to a single type of knuckles, be it Tomix, Kato, Greenmax or something else. In my experience, the pocket mounted Tomix couplers are worthless and you are better off using Kato or GM.

The caveat being that you will need a Re-color adapter to install Kato couplers on your Tomix locomotives, in case you want to switch your entire fleet of freight cars to Kato or GM couplers.

 

Great info!  Thanks for heading off disappointment!  🙂  I don't plan to have any Tomix locomotives (other than a Shinkansen set here or there) as they are not as DCC friendly as the Kato stuff and I run all DCC.

 

So just to clarify, if I were to stick with Kato knuckle conversion, I should do that to my Tomix Kokis also?  In other words, Kato 11-702 knuckle conversion will fit in Tomix rapido based rolling stock?

[disturbman]

Yes. Except for very rare seldom cars/sets, these would fit about every coupler pocket.

[Cat]

12 hours ago, bc6 said:

@Cat  Can I see some pics of your Yamato containers? 

 

Currently, I only have stock 30' ones that I plan to dice and splice down to 12' to carry on a small truck and Shorty Koki.

[Cat]

14 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Yeah, I’ve never seen model 12’ black cats. Not sure if I’ve seen prototype ones.

 

jeff

They have that size available, whether or not in Black Cat livery is uncertain:
https://www.global-yamato.com/business/service/railway/
 
I've seen a variety of small trucks that are hard to tell if it's a panel van or container on a flatbed, like this Nov 2011 photo:
https://www.google.com/maps/@36.360399,140.4243928,3a,75y,147.68h,96.76t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sfBC177S7tLBI_kU-69dxvQ!2e0!5s20111101T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-6.761344050652468%26panoid%3DfBC177S7tLBI_kU-69dxvQ%26yaw%3D147.683146530549!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
 
Of course in Shorty world, all things are ripe to be shortified, including containers if need be!

[cteno4]

Yeah I just don’t remember seeing any of the nice black cat livery on 12’ containers, but that does not mean they don’t exist! Why I was wondering out loud if someone had seen them.

 

those are box vans. No forklift Sid slots on the underside and have exterior cooler units on them sticking out.

 

yes shortieizing it total justification for some 12’ ones! Work on a set of decals to do your own and it will Murphy you someone rolling one out for sale!

 

jeff