Bandai B-Train Shorty

[EF57]

Is it pointless to hope for a shorty Shikishima as well as the Hello Kitty 500?  I mean the 500 Eva sold like hotcakes, these would as well.  Looks like Nickhp's pessimism a few pages back is indeed justified.  I retract my boosterism.

[defor]

Is there any magic to making these motors run better?

I've picked up a few Type 1 and Type 5's for my shelf layout's freight operations, and they run a bit .. jerky... at times or just straight up noisy.

it seems that if i reinsert the motor assemblies into he body shells repeatedly, sometimes i can get the jerkyness to go away, but I cant seem to identify any specific root cause.

should I be adding some kind of grease, or will his make things worse?

[cteno4]

Adding very small amounts of a heavy oil to the truck gears may help. If you hear higher pitch whining that can be motor bearings and a tiny amount of a light bearing oil can help. Apply lubricants a tiny bit at a time with a small drop on a toothpick the. Run for a while and repeat if necessary. The bad thing with lubricants is to soak things as that can muck things up and collects schmutz like mad.

 

ive had varying growling with the Kato pockets in the past that a little lubing and tinkering with fit and such have gotten rid of mostly. I have a few Bandai mechs but not run them much at all to have much info on them other than they seem to pull much better.

 

jeff

[Beaver]

Just two pictures of my collection.

 

The E230 and E233 are 4 car rakes too but cramming everything into the picture would not look nice.

 

 

[chinbeard]

Anyone have news of any future releases ? 

[bill937ca]

Bandai B-Trains has a Facebook presence.

 

https://www.facebook.com/Btrainshorty/?eid=ARDK5aJPJLf2yhYGSi2KwlgnFhN_QZT-V0wm01XPJfkF_DJaqiqRJ3XnIpRFNBg0gG-Nzydi9duvgtIW

[chinbeard]

Found an Odakyu 70000 GSE on Bandai's page, is this for October 2018 ? Havn't seen it listed for pre order anywhere.

https://bandai-hobby.net/train/btr/lineup/201810oem.html#newitem181001

 

Edited October 13, 2018 by chinbeard
link

[bill937ca]

Its a Business Limited Product, i.e not for general sale.  Probably only available from Odakyu outlets around the Day of the Railway.  That is a normal business practice in Japan.

 

The closest thing to this is in the west is a private run for a hobby shop.

Edited October 13, 2018 by bill937ca

[bill937ca]

https://bandai-hobby.net/train/btr/lineup/201810oem.html

 

Odakyu Electric Railway's new model Romance car '70000 form GSE' debuted in March 2018 commercialized as soon as possible! Currently, the actual car is operated in two organizations. 4 car sets of the first car (No. 1 car [No. 7 car]), intermediate car (No. 2 car [No. 6 car], No. 3 car [No. 5 car], No. 4 car), with side stickers, direction curtains and other stickers! 

Odakyu Electric Railway Original Product 
(C) 2018 odakyu electric railway Co., Ltd.
 

This product is the original product of the selling origin "Odakyu Electric Railway" . 
It is sold at the Odakyu Goods Shop "TRAINS" (Shinjuku Store · Izumi Tamagawa Store · Online Shop [Rakuten Market]). 
As a purchase privilege, we offer one "iron card" per item. 
(There are limitations on the number of sheets, so please note that it will end as soon as it is gone.)

 

 

Hakone mountain climbing train 2000 type San Moritz reprinted paint.

 

This product is the original product of the selling origin "Hakone Tozan Railroad" . 

◎ We will sell at the event venue below.

<The 25th Railway Festival>

◆ Period: Saturday, October 6 - Sunday, September 30, entrance free 
◆ Location: Hibiya Park · Around the Great Fountain Square

"YOKOHAMA Train Festival 2018"

◆ Period: October 14 (Sun), 2018 
◆ Location: Yokohama Porta Special Site 
　　　(Yokohama Eastern Exit East Underground Shopping Area Porta Central Plaza)

"Odakyu Family Railway Exhibition 2018"

◆ Period: October 20 (Sat) and 21 (Sun) in 2018 
◆ Place: Special venue in 
　　　Ebina Ebina Base (1-31 Megumi-cho, Ebino City)

 

 

Edited October 13, 2018 by bill937ca

[chinbeard]

Many thanx to you Bill !

 

[EF57]

So other than the (all too rare) new releases, are any b train shorties actually being produced nowadays?  Are all the old (and partly, for good reason, still generally popular) models offered for sale just leftovers from earlier production runs, or are they still being re-run to satisfy the low-level continuous demand?  In short: is the b train factory basically shut down?

[nickhp]

Someone else wonders what I did a long time ago.

So, can anyone translate the information below?  It might shed some light on the matter.

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

[Welshbloke]

Google Translate gives the following:

 

We will inform you about the series B Train Shorty "series We are deleting the corresponding page from the homepage so we can end the reception for custom made service. Although there is no schedule for the end of the series at the present moment, please do not hesitate to wait for the update of Bandai hobby site regarding future event exhibition information etc. In addition, we will tell our requested development request to our development staff. Please continue to patronize Bandai products as well as please do not hesitate to ask us if you have any comments you have noticed.

 

[bill937ca]

The B-Train web site is still there.

 

https://bandai-hobby.net/train/index.html

[Andrew G]

Greetings from the Land of Auz. I'm beginning to play around with some B Train Shorty in the form of a modular T-TRAK type system with an Australian theme...

The station building is a quick photocopy on to cardboard version of an old out of production Australian card kit. It will be replaced with a styrene scratch built version later on. A shorter tree will also go on it.

[Andrew G]

Hello Folks, I'm looking around for some of the B Train Shorty set shown below. They are out of production and apparently were a limited run. They are very close to an Australian prototype that was designed by Hitachi and built locally. See: 

and:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitachi_(Australian_train)

I'm not wanting to pay collector's prices and they are not high on the priorities, but they would be nice to have.

Cheers Andrew G of St Arnaud, Victoria, Australia.

[Andrew G]

Inspiration now that I have been contacted by some able to sell me an unmade Greenmax version of the 7200 series

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/b/train/b205.html

[NYCentral_88]

Hello!  Please excuse my late entry into the conversation and recent introduction to the matter of B-Train Shorty railroading.  I feel I've caught a bit of a history lesson in reading this thread and I am very thankful for everybody's shared experiences.  I'm hoping that in the future I will have something useful to add to the conversation.

I'm, generally speaking, a North American railroad modeler, however I am fascinated by these tiny passenger trains!  They are a solutio nto a long-standing problem.  My current layout is a spatial challenge with rather tight curves.  Running standard passenger trains is prohibited due to the constraints that would have the usual 85-foot cars slamming into rock walls and derailing.  Tragedy on a small scale.  Enter the Bandai B-trains!  Their shortened length is solving my lack of modern passenger models! 

Here in the Northeast US, Japanese designed commuter rail equipment is becoming the norm and many of the regions electrified rail services use equipment that has a startling resemblance Bandai's offerings.  In particular, the Hokuso Railway 7500 series bears a good resemblance!  I have just purchased 6 two-car sets of this particular model and am in the middle of assembly using Bandai's Chassis 3 motorization kits and the "T" running frames.  It is going well so far.

That said, I have a question regarding the included weights for the motorized units.  Specifically, I cannot figure out how the weights are to be attached to the interior of the vehicles.  I do not read Japanese and find the instructions mystifying.  Most of the assembly process has been delightfully intuitive, however these weights have me baffled.  How have you been mounting the weights so that they don't rattle around within the units?  

[nickhp]

I have never used the supplied weights, they are not really enough.  I use revell pine car weights, the semi-round kind, and fit 4 pieces per power chassis (either a 4 weight  or 2x2 weight pieces).  I do not bother "installing" the weights, I leave them loose, that way they can be taken out and used in other cars when required.

 

Regards,

 

Nick

[Welshbloke]

Depends on the chassis. The 4w one comes with two small brick-like weights which fit into slots in the loco body, placing them directly above the motor. The bogie chassis come with a flat weight and two roughly L shaped ones. The flat one fits inside the subframe of some Shinkansen (my 500 Series has the slots for them) and the "L"s work well fixed into the end of vehicles with blutack or similar. There is a bit of trial and error, and you may find yourself popping the ends and/or sides and roof off to work out where they'll be most secure.

 

Motorising them with Kato chassis is a bit more complicated. I've used one of the 4w mechanisms so far and have another on order, as there seems to be no prospect of another batch of black 4w mechanisms from Bandai. I substituted small nuts held in with blutack for the ballast weights, which brings them to roughly the same weight as the Bandai-fitted units with the supplied weights. If you want to use these then you do need to make a couple of minor alterations for the Bandai body to fit, I'll take some photos when the next one arrives but it essentially involves removing the little bits of plastic blocking the slots for the subframe end clips and also snipping/carving the corners of the chassis so the skirts below the Bandai cabs fit. You can't see either mod once it's finished.

 

My two DD51s on the other hand would probably be banned. Every available space between body panels and subframe is crammed with slivers of old roofing lead! Absolutely fine as long as you wash your hands afterwards and don't ingest it, but seems to cause panic in some circles.

 

If you have a phone or tablet try the Google Translate app for Japanese instructions. It scans text with the camera and allows you to pick which areas to translate.

[Andrew G]

I've stripped the paint off some Shorties using Isopropyl Alcohol and repainted them with spray can paint. They are on their way to be 'foggy night' shorty versions of suburban railcars that used to ply the rails of Adelaide, South Australia. The rooves will need a lot of work or have other ones donated from another Bandai kit . See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australian_Railways_Redhen_railcar

 

Edited January 11, 2019 by Andrew G

[NYCentral_88]

Thank you, nickhp and welshbloke, I spent hours fiddling around with the Bandai provided weights and my own selection of spare weights from old Atlas rolling stock and have come up with a good arrangement that works.  So far, so good!  And I will give the Google Translate app a go!

[Welshbloke]

Got some of my fleet out for a run. This is a pair of four car Kintetsu sets which run very happily as an eight car with twin motors:

 

 

One interesting find is that the moulded Shibata couplers (on the outer ends of each set) do work. You have to lift the two vehicles off the track and twist them in opposite directions to uncouple, but they lock together solidly and show no signs of derailing even on 117mm radius. Do wonder if using the body mounted couplers instead of the Rapidos would improve running in general, by stabilising the bodies a bit. The kits came with those and rigid drawbars, but I assumed both were only for static or cosmetic use. It was a pleasant surprise to find that I could run the two sets in multiple without sacrificing the cab front skirts.

 

Unfortunately dismantling them to fit the alternate spacers with coupler mounts would bring a high risk of snapping some of the internal clips, so I won't risk it here.

[Welshbloke]

The Kato chassis for my ED79 turned up, so here are a couple of photos to hopefully illustrate the pitfalls:

 

 

Unclip the couplers. The little plastic lump nearest the chassis needs to be left out, as it blocks the body clips. That should enable you to get the basic shell minus ends fitted. To fit the cab ends you'll need to attack the ends of the chassis. Start by cutting away the outrigger which gives the end of the chassis its tapered profile, and about 3mm of the running plate at each side. In this case I also had to file a bevel on the top of the end and attack the back of the cab skirt, as the two parts jammed against each other and stopped the cabs pressing fully home. Refit the couplers and their pockets without that little lump of plastic.

[Nornicle]

Hello I need help 🙂 

 

1. With the yamanote line I had to cut some clear parts away for the motor to fit, however how do I get the bogeys on?!

 

2. How do I even get the motor onto the Eva 500? There doesn’t seem to be any natural way of getting it to clip in?

 

thankd for your help!