Tomix and Kato rolling Stock Compatability

[Abushoni]

Hello All,

 

Newbie alert. I saw this subject was debated in the forum in the past, but I have seen some YouTube movies of late where Tomix and Kato cargo cars were attached to each other and ran by a Kato N-Gauge locomotive without changing any couplers. 

 

So, has anything changed ? can I just use them together or do I still need to change the couplers ? I use Kato tracks. 

 

Thank you in advance,

 

Abushoni

[MeTheSwede]

Arnold couplers (rapido) are standard in Japanese N-scale. Any products that the manufacturer think you may want to couple to some other product comes with arnold couplers. Thus you should be able to mix freight cars from different manufacturers without any problem.

 

Where couplers will differ is for contemporary passenger trains. Here manufacturers have developed different coupler solutions to minimise gaps between train cars. It's assumed customers don't want to hook up a Shinkansen consist with a Yamanote Line commuter train or a container car, so there should be no problem.

 

The general rule is that with Japanese N-scale you don't have to worry about couplers unless you chose yourself to want to replace them due to personal preferences.

[Kamome]

In theory, there should be no issues coupling things together with the same type of couplers. 

 

From my experience, I had some issue many years ago as dimensions of supplied Tomix and Kato Arnold couplers, were not quite the same along with the coupler heights not necessarily matching.  This may have been rectified now but the Tomix locos I purchased had longer Arnold couplers with a larger opening and I would get some issues with coupler droop and things coming uncoupled relatively easily. To my eye, the supplied Kato ones looked far more similar to those on British N scale but also tended to stand more proud, but this is only in relation to the limited rolling stock I had at the time.

 

As a general rule I change out couplers as the Tomix ones especially looked way too long and ugly.

 

If you have smooth well-layed level track, you may never have issue coupling one manufacturer to the other. Certainly the most recent Tomix wagons I purchased had more appropriately sized couplers, although I changed them out as all my other stock had short knuckles. 

In my case, whilst coupler replacement is 80% aesthetic, I would say that now I rarely get coupler issues at the expense of being unable to couple/uncouple easily for things like shunting/switching.

 

 

[Takahama Trainwatcher]

My Kato and Tomix freight cars couple to each other with no issues. I too have Kato track. One compatibility issue I do have is Micro Ace freight cars over Kato points; the wheel flanges are too large and cause derailments. I can't replace the axles with Kato axles due to insufficient clearance for one of the axles (intruded by part of the coupler). I am waiting to see Tomix axles in stock to see how they go as a replacement.

[Abushoni]

Thank you all for the insightful advice.

 

Going to update the Amazon.co.jp cart 😏

 

btw, in different forums in other subject matter there are always good bye catch phrases like "Clear Skies" in astronomy for example.

 

Is there one for model train lovers ? 

 

Thank you again and no derails...

 

Abushoni

[disturbman]

🙂

Forums provide uninterrupted conversations. I personally have always found it strange that some people feel the need to sign their posts with their names/nickname as well as add a goodbye phrase as if they were writing a letter. The name is always shown above or next to the body of the message. Which makes signing, in my opinion, redundant. As for the goodbye phrases, who uses them in a flow of an uninterrupted conversation?

I still haven't figured out why some people do and others don't. I always assumed it was partially cultural, I have never seen this on French speaking forums, but it's common on German and English speaking forums, and possibly partially generational. With people that grew up with electronic communication feeling less the need to be as formal/definitive. Though I also have to admit that frequency of usage plays an influence. I have more a tendency to add these when texting people I do not text often and/or for daily life reasons.

For forums, I usually follow what seems to be the forum's norm. I could imagine a "See you at the next stop" or "Safe travels" as possible goodbye catch phrases.

Edited October 4 by disturbman

[cteno4]

We have had the whole spectrum on the forum over its history and no rule on it ever.
 

It’s something from both age and culture. It’s from letter writing. I find forums tend to be closer to a stream of letters going around than a conversation as they are broken up by time and who comes and goes in the topic as well as multiple sub topics cropping up in many. You are probably too young to have experienced letter writing as a real regular mode of keeping in touch and I find sometimes adding a hello xyz to try to be welcoming and more personable when first starting with someone. I later use the @usedname if there are many sub conversations going on, but it tends to be a bit direct, so for first time a bit rough. 
 

Putting a signature to it again is more of a personal statement from letter writing as userids can be very unpersonal and some like to me more personal in their communications. Some forums and email list require you end with your name so that it helps reduce the anonymity that can lead to harsh statements from some. While I see the good of it, it feels a bit too much to go extreme and require it or forbid it and let folks choose for themselves.
 

Modern online communications have become more and more impersonal and at times very dividing. Thinking of who you are speaking to and signing your name helps make folks more aware and less likely to drop bombs on others unthinkingly. Forbidding folks to use them if they please just pushes it to a bad place in my opinion. I see no reason to create any rules around this and let folks use or not use greetings and/or sign offs. Seems odd to want to forbid something that is a politeness.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

2 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Seems odd to want to forbid something that is a politeness.

That does seem odd. Who suggested that?

[cteno4]

sorry I should have said object to and not forbid.
 

It felt like you were objecting to it and the guideline should be to not do it or it was maybe culturally (forum wise) inappropriate to use them.

 

I just think it’s something that should be left up to the individual users to decide and not something to be discouraged at all. We are a very polite forum for the most part and I think it’s part due to the little things that make this more of a personable community.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

No, I was explaining why I personally always found it a tad odd. The rest is your own imagination/projections. I don't discourage their use. Nor intended to ban them here or have rules around them. As I already mentioned, and since I'm a polite person, my personal guideline is to simply follow the practice of the forum I participate in.

I am/was genuinely intrigued by these difference in usage and how they might have come to be.

[cteno4]

I apologize, I took your comment finding it strange to be adverse to the ideas. I’ve had many say to me in the last 5 years or so I should not address or sign posts, so just lumped this in with that pressure.

 

Here is my experience/observations on this. I'm an old fart and my childhood, long distance calls were expensive and something done only once in a while and in very short calls usually. There was no electronic communication (outside of phone, fax, and telegrams). Letter and postcard writing was the main ways of communication with anyone who was not very local to you. Personal letters were just that, personal so you addressed the recipient personally and signed it with a proper ending and your name. To keep up you couldn’t just write a few sentences you needed to write a few pages to catchup on life and relationship as it may take up to a week for the letter to get to someone. You also had to write with detail and not abbreviated as it was just your words going to them for the communication and this was the way to help transmit the subtle monkey language we have when dealing with each other one on one. It’s funny now these days of zoom (I started doing video conferencing in the early 90s with Kaiser, so have done it for over 3 decades now) that I find many now turn off the video feed and most that don’t have something else thing going on while they on the zoom and wasting the full bandwidth of communication and interaction.
 

I happened to be a very early email person in college when I was able to get an arpanet addy (cteno4 was borne at that time as the administrator I had to work thru insisted on anonymous userids that had no names or words and also had to have a number for some arcane reasoning and I’m dyslexic so I could remember cteno4 for the critter ctenophore, one of my favs) so watched as folks moved to email thru graduate school when university networks expanded in the 80s then aol and other early more public online systems erupted (I was an early adopter trying to get clients to use these new systems for working on projects). Early on most folks wrote emails like old fashion letters as most folks using the systems at that time were a bit older, not youngsters. As things grew you could see email conversation moving to briefer and less personalized communication. Then both texting and social media started arising that tended to strip communication down to very basic statements and remove most all of the personalization. 
 

I’ve just found it ironic that as we have had such an explosion of electronic communication over the last few decades and it’s gotten cheaper and more prevalent, but the quality and quantity (in mass not numbers) of the communication for the most part has gone down. I find friends (even old farts) slowly stop communicating outside of social media blips. I find it so sad when I ask some friends how’s it going and they reply read my fb feed. My wide range of friends always say wow you keep up with a lot of people like it’s some talent, but it’s just effort to spend the time to communicate in ways that are deeper and more meaningful than usual social media these days. One of the reason I spend the time working on JNS is that it has a community that usually stops and takes the time to communicate well with each other even when the vast majority of us have never met other than the forum. It feels more human.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Abushoni]

Well, if I knew my question will awake the titans of this forum I may have thought twice...(-:

 

I am always at awe, that people take the time to answer and help others in such a welcoming and serious way. For me personally at least, I tend to take it, well, personally, and feel it is right to finish with some goodbye. But I will clearly abide by the rules of the forum or the non-written culture. 

 

Stay on track,  

 

Abushoni

[cteno4]

Abushoni,

 

no worries at all, sorry this blew up in your topic, but odd side discussions crop up now and then. We have always been loose on a lot of things with the forum and most of the rules are focused on keeping things nice and media use.

 

cheers (I like the expression not for the drinking aspect so much but for the simple idea of shared good times which we strive for JNS to be),

 

jeff

[Abushoni]

Hello,

 

For those who already passed that bridge, can I use Tomix "pure" trains (locomotive + carriage) running on Kato tracks with Kato's power packs ?

 

Thank you,

 

Abushoni

[Kamome]

Quick Answer -  Absolutely YES

 

No issues using Kato trains on Tomix track or Tomix trains on Kato track. All follow the 9mm n gauge standards for track as well as produce pieces to connect both companies set-track together . You may occasionally get anomalies as @Takahama Trainwatcher mentioned with some stock. There's not always rhyme or reason to it, sometimes perhaps the wheel flanges are too big if they're an older design with pizza-cutter wheels. Perhaps on occasion something will pick a point, or a coupling will bind. That's just the challenges and enjoyment of model railways.  I've had issues from time to time with Kato trains on Kato track and Tomix trains on Tomix track dependant on which a rental layout has chosen to use. Generally if you have well laid track and aren't asking your trains to diverge to a siding after some complex S bends too much, you should have minimal issues.

 

Kato SX power packs seem to run everything fine in my experience but it'll come down to the motor unit. Anything made in the last 20 years or so should be fine. I run Kato, Tomix. Microace, Dapol, Bachmann (Graham Farish) on these controllers without problems. As long as your chosen controller is suitable for N scale, you should get very few problems, if any.  The higher powered controllers like the Hyper DX you may get issues on smaller locos with small motors.