Spot the Newbie

[Staffy]

Ive just unpacked my first shinsanken set - and my first n gauge set - the Kato N500 Nozomi

 

Ive been sat here for 10 minutes and Im stumped.  How the hell do you couple the cars? *the shame*

[Bernard]

Staffy - Welcome to the forum!

To couple the Kato cars together it's quite easy. First put all the cars on the track then push each one together until you hear a small "click". To uncouple the cars, just hold one car down and lift off the other car from the track and it should slide off the coupler.

[cteno4]

oooohhhh that first time shinkansen click! priceless! no shame, its a fun time for you!

 

Have fun Staffy!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

ps put your cc in a locked place for a while so you dont get too excited and run over to the computer...

[Staffy]

Thank you. Was petrified of breaking something but took a leap of faith, closed my eyes and did it, and it worked.  Bit of a shock coming down from OO - N scale feels so fragile in comparison - was expecting them to couple onto each other like OO - didnt want to force it and break it!

 

Stand by for more newbie questions in coming weeks. I quite fancy installing interior lights - but if I cant even couple the damn things together might leave that a while...

 

These things do look amazing.  Just wish I had the space to do it justice.

[Bernard]

Staffy - keep asking questions, the guys here really know a lot about Japanese trains and are willing to help.

The 500 Nozomi looks great with interior lights but there is a trick taking it apart. Most trains you only have to take he top shell off the chassis. With the 500 (or any other Bullet trains) there are 3 pieces, the top shell, chassis and a bottom part of the shell. Once you get your Kato light kit, it easy to install the lights.

Here is a photo of the 500 apart:

[Martijn Meerts]

The N-scale trains tend to be quite a bit more sturdy than they look actually, with some exceptions here and there ;)

 

It's interesting though, I'm a lot more careful with my 0-scale stuff than with my N-scale. The 0-scale is more fragile because of all the little details there are added on separately. In N-scale, many of the detail bits are molded into the shell. (Obviously, the 0-scale is a lot more expensive, which might account for parts of the extra care ;))

[qwertyaardvark]

On the bright side, your first N-scale set wasn't the Kato Eurostar~ ^^;; Never mind the fear of putting it together, I nearly had a heart attack taking it apart! 

 

Experienced with only HO and O gauge previously (yay nearly indestructible Lionel trains), N scale did seem fragile at first, but the uneasy feelings will pass and you'll know how to casually handle the trains in no time :)

 

Have fun with your new set! 

[Staffy]

Thanks for all the welcomes 

 

Second question. Kato uncouplers and uncoupling for locomotives and wagons.  Is there an uncoupling track piece that works to uncouple locos from wagons using the out of the box couplers? Because I can only find magnetised track pieces and I dont think the standard couplers are magnetised?

[KenS]

Welcome to the forum.

 

Kato makes a variety of different couplers, but their locomotives and freight cars typically come with Rapido (aka Arnold) couplers rather than one of their own that have prototype appearance.  I'm not an expert on the couplers, but as you note they do make a magnetic uncoupler Unitrack segment (20-032, 64mm rather than 62mm) for use with magnetic couplers. I'm not aware of any equivalent by them for Rapido.