Just a question about price...

[disturbman]

It's even worse if you run MUs from one-car set to form a train. There is then two switches to every car to be turned off and on. That's what you get when you run consists of local DMUs like Kihas47 or such. ;)

[spacecadet]

With the exception of a few 16 car sets, there is only one (model motor) motorized car. How fast are you hoping for it to go? Most Japanese model trains can run much faster then their prototypes scale speed limit. Remember that these are scaled down models - a 150mph train modeled at 1:150 should now travel at 1mph.

 

Yeah one thing I've noticed about N scale is that people tend to run them at scale speeds of about 500mph.  Just as an experiment I tried to see how fast my Kato 0 series would go and I was afraid it was going to fall off my table before I even got it 2/3 of the way up in the throttle... it must have been breaking the sound barrier in scale speed.

 

I don't really understand why the motors are made this way.  Why not just dial them back a bit?  Wouldn't that also give them more torque at the low end for smoother running at slow speeds?  (Not to hijack the thread or anything...)

[Samurai_Chris]

I gotta be honest, as the starter pack track is only a meter or so long, before you can it get going, it hits the turn.. Thus making it seem slower than it is...

 

For me, I see the Shinkansen nearly every day, and in a strait speed in the confined track with built up sidewalls they run in. 300k is moving believe me!

 

We have one that runs right above one of our shopping centers. And for that split second that it passes over. It sounds like a sonic boom..

 

Very impressive...

[spacecadet]

I gotta be honest, as the starter pack track is only a meter or so long, before you can it get going, it hits the turn.. Thus making it seem slower than it is...

 

For me, I see the Shinkansen nearly every day, and in a strait speed in the confined track with built up sidewalls they run in. 300k is moving believe me!

 

They are obviously very fast, but some people run them in n-scale at warp 10.  This is a real 700 series at top speed:  

 

It can seem faster if you're right up close to it, or slower if you're further away.  So n-scale trains should seem relatively slow at scale speed, because your POV if you're sitting 3 or 4 feet away is really like you're 450-600 feet away from a real train - as if you're watching from a helicopter.

 

Poor quality but check this out:  

 

Those trains have gotta be pushing mach 2.

 

To be fair, this isn't limited to N... this is HO, and this train's running at probably 600mph in scale speed:  

 

(compare that to the real 700 series video - the POV is similar)

 

I will say that it was harder to find those videos than it was to find people running at more realistic speeds... so it's not like everybody gets it wrong, most people seem to get it right.  But it does seem like the motors they put in these things are way too fast... I have to keep my 0 series (the only N-scale train I own so far) down to like 1/3 throttle on my Kato power pack to keep it realistic.  Or maybe it's the power pack, I dunno.

 

Anyway, I'm kinda surprised if you can't get your train fast enough to be a realistic top speed.

[Samurai_Chris]

Thanks mate.. Well, as I am new, I just assumed they went faster. But I am now starting to see your way of thinking.. Also as I said above. You cant make too much out of a 1m track, so I guess once I get a bit more into it, I will learn more about it, and have fun along the way...

 

Chris

[spacecadet]

Thanks mate.. Well, as I am new, I just assumed they went faster. But I am now starting to see your way of thinking.. Also as I said above. You cant make too much out of a 1m track, so I guess once I get a bit more into it, I will learn more about it, and have fun along the way...

 

Yeah I'm kind of in the same boat right now, my next purchase is gonna be more track but getting sort of back on topic, none of this stuff is very cheap for me and I just blew about $450 on train stuff... (though track isn't too bad since I've been turned on to the fact that I can buy it locally, literally just down the street from where I live).

 

These seem to be some realistic speeds on small ovals, though:

 

[Mudkip Orange]

Yeah, it's too expensive.

 

You know what? Everything's too expensive. Last month I bought some gym mats. A foam pad with some vinyl around it. Well, Target and Wal-Mart were selling the flimsiest crap for $25 a piece. Academy had some decent mats for $35, so I bought two.

 

Seventy dollars. For gym mats.

 

Sometimes I hit Denny's for lunch. A Philly is 9 bucks. A coke is 2. I tip over 15% 'cuz I like my waitresses. That's 13 dollars... for lunch. At Denny's. The taco truck by my pad now charges $2 for some Pastor and Cilantro on a corn tortilla. A full meal will easily run you ten.

 

I went to Ikea to buy another particleboard desk for $49. It was discontinued. But they had this new line, it was smaller and had less legroom and it was $65. I walked out, then I walked 3/8ths of a mile to my rental car.

 

Rental cars are about the only thing that isn't too expensive these days. Last weekend I got a Fusion with an ecoboosted V6 for $45 with tax and liability. Left rubber all over the northside. And tollways. $1.50 on the Hardy and you can railfan 150-car UP freights at a cool 80mph. Add in a screw CD for another $10 and you're gangsta.

[Mudkip Orange]

These seem to be some realistic speeds on small ovals, though:

 

All the JR carriages are 20m, in that vid you'd got about 3 carriages in 2 seconds = 30m/s = 110km/h. For most commuter lines that's about the maximum.

 

I try to aim for 70/80km/hr in normal operation, because I run small layouts. Do that on a long straightaway though and you get a jummamit video:

 

 

Now THAT'S realism. I also bet there's no way you watched all 9 minutes of that. No way.

[spacecadet]

Now THAT'S realism. I also bet there's no way you watched all 9 minutes of that. No way.

 

I did!  And I applaud you for actually doing the math, which I'd never have thought to actually figure out.  But model trains always look so much more real and less like toys when they're running at the right speed, so I did watch the whole video.

[quinntopia]

Yeah one thing I've noticed about N scale is that people tend to run them at scale speeds of about 500mph.  Just as an experiment I tried to see how fast my Kato 0 series would go and I was afraid it was going to fall off my table before I even got it 2/3 of the way up in the throttle... it must have been breaking the sound barrier in scale speed.

 

I don't really understand why the motors are made this way.  Why not just dial them back a bit?  Wouldn't that also give them more torque at the low end for smoother running at slow speeds?  (Not to hijack the thread or anything...)

 

Its funny you mention that...Minitrix for the past several years has been gearing down the motors in just about all of their locos (not sure if its the same with Fleischmann), and the frustration from folks who LIKE the unrealistic high speed is pretty amazing on some of the European forums. 

[grumbeast]

That's a good point about people liking the speed.  When I used to run north America stuff here, my bend-track group used to get criticized at shows for running too slow!  (we made a point of running long grain trains at realistic speeds.. We thought it was cool a train taking forever to make it around the layout)

 

On smaller layouts, lower speeds are much more important as it makes the run seem much longer

 

Graham

[Guest ___]

With the exception of a few 16 car sets, there is only one (model motor) motorized car. How fast are you hoping for it to go? Most Japanese model trains can run much faster then their prototypes scale speed limit. Remember that these are scaled down models - a 150mph train modeled at 1:150 should now travel at 1mph.

 

Yeah one thing I've noticed about N scale is that people tend to run them at scale speeds of about 500mph.  Just as an experiment I tried to see how fast my Kato 0 series would go and I was afraid it was going to fall off my table before I even got it 2/3 of the way up in the throttle... it must have been breaking the sound barrier in scale speed.

 

I don't really understand why the motors are made this way.  Why not just dial them back a bit?  Wouldn't that also give them more torque at the low end for smoother running at slow speeds?  (Not to hijack the thread or anything...)

 

I'm so anal about scale speed, that I have a model speed app that I use to try and keep the club trains at proper speed.

[westfalen]

Sometimes I hit Denny's for lunch. A Philly is 9 bucks. A coke is 2. I tip over 15% 'cuz I like my waitresses. That's 13 dollars... for lunch. At Denny's. The taco truck by my pad now charges $2 for some Pastor and Cilantro on a corn tortilla. A full meal will easily run you ten

Japanese food is cheaper as well as trains, US$13 currently gets 1,112.28 yen and in my recent 3 1/2 weeks in Japan most meals cost about half that.

[Samurai_Chris]

Sometimes I hit Denny's for lunch. A Philly is 9 bucks. A coke is 2. I tip over 15% 'cuz I like my waitresses. That's 13 dollars... for lunch. At Denny's. The taco truck by my pad now charges $2 for some Pastor and Cilantro on a corn tortilla. A full meal will easily run you ten

Japanese food is cheaper as well as trains, US$13 currently gets 1,112.28 yen and in my recent 3 1/2 weeks in Japan most meals cost about half that.

 

Mate, I grew up out at Willowbank near the RAAF Base, and I haven't been home to Australia for about 5 years. But I remember going back and couldn't believe how much a bottle of Diet Coke out of the machine cost me. Then we went to buy a salad roll, and nearly fell over when told the price...

 

I also remember the nights staggering home after a night out in the wee hours of the morning weighed down by all the change in my pocket.. I forgot just how heavy Australian money is compared to Japanese coins...

 

Chris

[The_Ghan]

Yeah, it's too expensive.

 

You know what? Everything's too expensive. Last month I bought some gym mats. A foam pad with some vinyl around it. Well, Target and Wal-Mart were selling the flimsiest crap for $25 a piece. Academy had some decent mats for $35, so I bought two.

 

Seventy dollars. For gym mats.

 

Sometimes I hit Denny's for lunch. A Philly is 9 bucks. A coke is 2. I tip over 15% 'cuz I like my waitresses. That's 13 dollars... for lunch. At Denny's. The taco truck by my pad now charges $2 for some Pastor and Cilantro on a corn tortilla. A full meal will easily run you ten.

 

I went to Ikea to buy another particleboard desk for $49. It was discontinued. But they had this new line, it was smaller and had less legroom and it was $65. I walked out, then I walked 3/8ths of a mile to my rental car.

 

Rental cars are about the only thing that isn't too expensive these days. Last weekend I got a Fusion with an ecoboosted V6 for $45 with tax and liability. Left rubber all over the northside. And tollways. $1.50 on the Hardy and you can railfan 150-car UP freights at a cool 80mph. Add in a screw CD for another $10 and you're gangsta.

 

Stop renting cars and walk ... skip Dennys and eat a salad ... you'll save heaps of money and won't need those gym mats ... you'll have more to spend on your trains ... just a thought ... :glasses1:

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[westfalen]

Sometimes I hit Denny's for lunch. A Philly is 9 bucks. A coke is 2. I tip over 15% 'cuz I like my waitresses. That's 13 dollars... for lunch. At Denny's. The taco truck by my pad now charges $2 for some Pastor and Cilantro on a corn tortilla. A full meal will easily run you ten

Japanese food is cheaper as well as trains, US$13 currently gets 1,112.28 yen and in my recent 3 1/2 weeks in Japan most meals cost about half that.

 

Mate, I grew up out at Willowbank near the RAAF Base, and I haven't been home to Australia for about 5 years. But I remember going back and couldn't believe how much a bottle of Diet Coke out of the machine cost me. Then we went to buy a salad roll, and nearly fell over when told the price...

 

I also remember the nights staggering home after a night out in the wee hours of the morning weighed down by all the change in my pocket.. I forgot just how heavy Australian money is compared to Japanese coins...

 

Chris

A lot of things in Japan seem to cost the same as they did when I first visited the country in 1990, for example sending a postcard home still costs 70yen, I've lost count of how many times Australia Post has raised prices in 20 years.

 

A bottle of coke out of a machine in Brisbane is currently $3.20, Japan 150 yen or $1.85 if my currency converter is correct. We were complaining about some of the machines in hotels that charged 180yen.

[Kamiyacho]

A lot of things in Japan seem to cost the same as they did when I first visited the country in 1990

 

I've noticed the same thing.  Recently I bought some Tsugawa items at a hobby shop in Tokyo and discovered them to be almost the same Yen price as I paid in the late 1980's.  I guess that's what happens when a bubble deflates.

[CaptOblivious]

Japan is currently fighting run-away deflation. We as consumers usually welcome deflation, as it means lowered prices for identical goods (or in Japan's case, since the yen has been continually growing stronger, largely steady prices), but in macroeconomic terms, it's generally seen as bad, because it means the economy is shrinking—wealth is being lost, rather than created. Unchecked, this leads to a negative feedback cycle (the theory goes), with lost jobs, decreased manufacturing and production, etc., a slow burn into depression.

 

In the meantime, that just means that the price of trains is increasing much slower than it would have otherwise. Yay for us!

[to2leo]

Funny thing is the price for Kato USA and Hobbytrain/Lemke is going up and up.  Though Kato USA has price increase slower than other leading USA brands.

[bikkuri bahn]

A lot of things in Japan seem to cost the same as they did when I first visited the country in 1990, for example sending a postcard home still costs 70yen, I've lost count of how many times Australia Post has raised prices in 20 years.

 

A bottle of coke out of a machine in Brisbane is currently $3.20, Japan 150 yen or $1.85 if my currency converter is correct. We were complaining about some of the machines in hotels that charged 180yen.

 

Which is why those surveys stating Tokyo as the most expensive city in the world are so ridiculous.  Yes, it is expensive for the executive expat crowd with extravagant expense accounts, but for normal people, it can be well..., downright normal.  Most people have enough sense to buy their cup of coffee not at the hotel lobby lounge (for 800 yen) but rather for 190 yen at the Doutor Coffee shop just around the corner.

[westfalen]

A lot of things in Japan seem to cost the same as they did when I first visited the country in 1990, for example sending a postcard home still costs 70yen, I've lost count of how many times Australia Post has raised prices in 20 years.

 

A bottle of coke out of a machine in Brisbane is currently $3.20, Japan 150 yen or $1.85 if my currency converter is correct. We were complaining about some of the machines in hotels that charged 180yen.

 

Which is why those surveys stating Tokyo as the most expensive city in the world are so ridiculous.  Yes, it is expensive for the executive expat crowd with extravagant expense accounts, but for normal people, it can be well..., downright normal.  Most people have enough sense to buy their cup of coffee not at the hotel lobby lounge (for 800 yen) but rather for 190 yen at the Doutor Coffee shop just around the corner.

I've spent the last two days back at work trying to explain this to people but they don't believe me, next time I'm bringing back receipts.

[bigford]

Funny thing is the price for Kato USA and Hobbytrain/Lemke is going up and up.  Though Kato USA has price increase slower than other leading USA brands.

 

i seen this machine in N and was i WANT IT  then i saw the price

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/v/vspfiles/photos/HTN-23503-2.jpg

 

$150.00 U.S. after reading the reviews i passed. i mean is that really

one fifty  worth of train?

[David]

 

i seen this machine in N and was i WANT IT  then i saw the price

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/v/vspfiles/photos/HTN-23503-2.jpg

 

$150.00 U.S. after reading the reviews i passed. i mean is that really

one fifty  worth of train?

 

It's a European market train (and there is serious doubt that Kato had anything at all to do with it).

 

All European market trains are over priced by a large margin (even more so when imported), and enough of them are of terrible quality to be a concern - unlike most NA or Japanese trains this difference in quality has no effect on the price.

[cteno4]

kato produced it for lemke/hobby train, but its not quite the usual kato detailing style. these type tampers are used in japan. hs is carrying it

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10089478

 

i did a review of it over on the jrm site

 

http://www.japanrailmodelers.org/pages/reviews/lemketamper.html

 

also more info here on jns

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,1008.0.html

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,2810.0.html

 

i picked mine up on pre-order for around $120. not cheap, but cheaper than kato distribution of it in japan!!! odd items like this usually are not done in large runs, do things differently (ie cant use most of the usual guts from trains already in production), and in smaller numbers so the cost goes up. only alternative for this kind of mow equipment is to scratchbuild if you are up to it.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[spacecadet]

Which is why those surveys stating Tokyo as the most expensive city in the world are so ridiculous.  Yes, it is expensive for the executive expat crowd with extravagant expense accounts, but for normal people, it can be well..., downright normal.  Most people have enough sense to buy their cup of coffee not at the hotel lobby lounge (for 800 yen) but rather for 190 yen at the Doutor Coffee shop just around the corner.

 

Well, "expensive" is relative.  People think New York is expensive too, if they're from Des Moines.  I don't think Tokyo is any more expensive than New York (as someone who doesn't live there), but if I was used to paying 75 cents for coffee instead of $2.50, I'd probably feel otherwise.

 

Also, there are apparently a lot of things that tourists never see... car inspections, for example, which can be thousands of dollars every few years.  One reason why so many cars in Japan are so new compared to ours... it's not worth keeping an older car there.  You can be better off financially just getting a new one every three years.  This is probably something even a lot of expats don't see; none of the people I know who have moved there from the US own cars.

 

Insurance of all kinds is also supposedly really expensive.

 

Also unlike here, they've never really had an appreciation market for real estate.  So a lot of stuff that (until recently) you'd sort of balance out here with your rising home value would be compounded there because their houses typically depreciate over time, not the opposite.  That's always made me worried about our own market, because maybe it's *never* going to come back... maybe that's the natural way of things.  But you always have to be saving up for a new house there if you want to move, whereas here you could count on selling your old house and getting money for a new house that way.  That can make a place really expensive to live.