David Posted August 30, 2010 Share Posted August 30, 2010 I know a few people have bought one of these recently, either the Kato (various JR East) version or the Tomix (Coca-Cola) version. I don't know the history of the Tomix tooling, but I think it's obvious from the truck mounted Rapido couplers that the Kato tooling is not brand new. What is the performance like on the Kato/Tomix tooling? Are the motors smooth running or do they have a rabbit start (no slow speed)? Do the headlights only come on at full speed? Any thoughts for DCC? I've recently been able to take apart the Kato Hankyu 6300 (a really old tooling) and found that while it suffers from both of the above problems due to its age, it actually looks like it could be greatly improved by DCC (motor is easily isolated with some possible spots to put a decoder, and the headlights (lamps) are in their own large, fully detachable assembly which could be replaced with LEDs). Link to comment
Claude_Dreyfus Posted August 30, 2010 Share Posted August 30, 2010 I have both the Tomix and Kato versions of this unit. Certainly for the Kato sets it was clear these are not new models in terms of design. As you mentioned, they still make use of Rapido couplings for the internal connections and the mouldings aren't as sharp as some of the more recent offerings. We ran two of the Kato Nagano liveried sets the other day, and I found them to be perfectly responsive and smooth motors...they both performed well at slow speed. The headlights were also fairly responsive...you don't need to be running full speed to be able to see them; but they do take a little while to get to full brightness...soemthing which isn't a problem with DCC. Speaking of which, I don't use DCC, so cannot comment on their compatibility. I suppose the big give-away for the Kato set is the price...a three-car unit for £60.00? That could only be an older-generation model, but interesting it is quite a bit better, and cheeper, than some of the new UK offerings we get... The Tomix Coca-Cola set is, to me, a slightly better model in terms of body moulding and performance. It still has the Rapido internal couplings, but the drive is extremely smooth and quiet. I think the Tomix 115 has been around for some time...they did a four-car blue and cream 'Chuo' livered set I am very keen to get hold of, but this looks to have been sold out for quite some time Link to comment
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