Endo 500系 HO plastic model announcement 2024

[Need for High Speed]

Unexpected surprises lurk around every corner. Endo has announced the 500 series in HO as a plastic model.

 

The photo is a bit blurry but the translated poster says (based on google translate)
"The Endo Shinkansen [plastic] series which was well received with the previous model, Doctor Yellow, will finally feature the 500 series shinkansen which is about to be retired. The V-set 8 car train is easy to handle even in HO scale and will present the single arm pantograph that was changed when the 16 car sets were retired, including the removal site of the previous pantograph stand, and the reconfigured seating arrangements. Please look forward to it. Expected Summer 2025. Price TBA."

Very good of Endo I'm looking forward to more Shinkansen in HO, I hope these models sell well as I'll have mine on pre order as soon as I can and I hope Endo will continue to expand their HO shinkansen offerings in the future. I just wish they would make these DCC ready because Dr Yellow was a pain to convert to DCC. Since they are making the molds anyway I hope Endo will do the Eva and HelloKitty liveries in HO at a later date.

 

Was hoping Endo would do a N700S or a 700 series shinkansen but a full 16 car consist is something they aren't not too enthusiastic about since they make the assumption most people will not fit all 16 cars on their layouts. But hey I'll still take a 500 series V-set over that. But If Endo keeps selling out of there plastic shinkansen models maybe they will go for a 16 car shinkansen in the future as a test of the market. Hopefully they have learned from Dr Yellow and have improved on the functionality of the 500 series models.

 

I also wish Tenshodo would do a rerun of the Nozomi 500 series as their value on Auctions has substantially shot through the roof in the last 5 years or so which is giving me a head ache and a hell of a time the more auctions I lose the frustrated I get because the people on Yahoo are nuts. 400+ dollars for a 20+ year old plastic 2 car set is completely Insane. My other wish is for Kato to make the E6 in HO to go with their previous E5 shinkansen sets.

[Cedric Sin]

That's exciting to hear, my local seller has pre-order opened but the final price is not available yet. I hope they have DCC socket available but since doctor yellow don't have it I won't have much expectation on that.