What did you order or the post deliver? (HO and other scales)

[GDorsett]

How are the Tomix coaches? The only four I have are Katos and are really nice, but Tomix seems to have a lot more available in the way of Coaches than Kato does. Do they run well? Good moulded details? Separate details installed/included/available?

[Kamome]

5 hours ago, GDorsett said:

How are the Tomix coaches? The only four I have are Katos and are really nice, but Tomix seems to have a lot more available in the way of Coaches than Kato does. Do they run well? Good moulded details? Separate details installed/included/available?

I’m very impressed with them. They have a nice range of details to add and the air hoses are designed in such a way that, positioned correctly, don’t foul the, included, Kadee coupler magnetic arms. There aren’t many details to apply on these particular coaches other than small parts either side of the diaphragm and the red lights on the side of the coach.

 

 They run as smooth as Kato coaches.

 

My only niggle with these, which I believe are a slightly older tooling, is the interior is a solid cream piece of plastic. If I paid full price for these I would be slightly disappointed by this as Kato tend to use 2 colours of parts to separate seat and floor. Nothing some painting wouldn’t fix but for a coach costing ¥8000 new, it seems a bit of an oversight.

 

There are some very interesting details on the bogies and underfloor parts are also modeled nicely. The Tomix lighting units look much easier to fit and more reliable to make contact compared with the Kato that have a tendency to shift when body shells are put back on. 

 

I’ll certainly be looking out for other coaches from Tomix such as the 10系

[Martijn Meerts]

Ordered a set of these: https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10076850

 

It's not really a forest railway set, the prototype ran on even narrower gauge (610mm), but since I'm not going for prototypically correct, these things would actually look nice, even if only stored on a siding somewhere.

 

Of course I took too long pre-ordering some of the stuff I wanted, so much was already sold out. Then again, much of what I wanted was more of a 'nice to have' rather than something that would really fit a forest railway. Things like a really detailed snow plow, which would've been far too large for what I have in mind.

 

[Kamome]

A few small additions to the HO fleet. 

Kato Kiha 82 900

I’ve been intrigued about these Kiro 80s converted to cab cars so I grabbed one while there’s still a few around. Again gives me some Kiha 80 options, like the Hitachi service.

 

Also managed to find a Suhafu 12 and Ohafu 13 from Kato.

 

They seem quite an old tooling but they’re nice looking coaches. There seems to be a sizable gap between coaches. There’s an included drawbar coupler so I’ll have to see if that eliminates some of the gap.The Oha 12s seemed to have disappeared on arrival in most outlets. I hope I can find some somewhere. Kato really need to produce their HO offerings in larger production runs. There’s obviously a bigger market for HO than they first thought.

Edited June 27, 2019 by Kamome

[GDorsett]

I want to find a few more Oha 12/13s. Plenty of Fu coaches out there, but not many non-fu coaches.

The drawbar reduces the gap to nilch, although I suggest getting the modern versions over using the included ones in those older models, as the old one are permanent and cannot be taken apart easily.

Edited June 27, 2019 by GDorsett

[Martijn Meerts]

Just pre-ordered a World Kougei WaFu 22000 brake van kit in H0j scale. Will be a while before it arrives though, expected release after September 2019.

[Kamome]

8 hours ago, GDorsett said:

although I suggest getting the modern versions 

Are the modern versions an option part from Kato or do you have a recommendation?

[Kiha66]

I use the drawbar couplers on my oha35 coaches, they work great and I'd certainly recommend them.

[GDorsett]

10 hours ago, Kamome said:

Are the modern versions an option part from Kato or do you have a recommendation?

Yes, it's a modern part. I can get you the part number after work. They don't quite look as good as the old style that are permanent, but they come apart, whic is good for trains that you rearrange or break down often. A good thing for someone like me who only runs at shows once a month or so.

[GDorsett]

@Kamome
Kato part number Z35-5086. It's a set of ten parts for a total of five connections. I've been using them on my 12/13 series coaches.

[Kamome]

Thanks for the part number @GDorsett

 

I’ve added the drawbar to the 12 series coaches and it reduces the spacing beautifully. I must admit, I find they just lift out to uncouple them so I’m wondering whether the ones included are the new ones you mentioned.

[GDorsett]

Can you get a picture?

[Kamome]

5 hours ago, GDorsett said:

Can you get a picture?

 

[GDorsett]

Yeah, that's the newer style, then. One of my older ones (in a brown box instead of green) came with one that was a single solid piece and had couple detail in the middle. You said "older tooling" and I assumed it was that.

[serotta1972]

I broke one of my rules of not having duplicates across scales but couldn't pass this one up, it was too good of a deal on HJL and I do like these 110's a lot. 

 

[Kamome]

Well it seems a number of suppliers have had a restock of the Kato Oha 12 coaches.

 

I picked up 3 to get me started but will look at a few others, perhaps another Ohafu and some mail vans in the future.

 

I discovered a slight down side to the drawbar couplings on these. The spacing is fantastic, but if pushing into a siding, the diaphragms rub together. I can live with this for the moment but may look at replacing with some short shank Kadee couplers in the long term. The medium shank still give a slightly large gap between coaches.

[GDorsett]

What online shops still have them? I may nees to forfeight a different order in order to acquire some.

[Kamome]

Ami Ami still have some.

[Welshbloke]

And I'm back on Japanese HO again. Ordered a couple of Kato TaKi 43000s in blue, £28 each from Amazon Marketplace.

 

I'm thinking the end result might be something like DE10 plus three TaKis, and DD51 with three or four KoKis. The DE10 and two KoKis are resting in their boxes upstairs at the moment, so this plan is reasonably achievable and will produce two table-friendly freight trains.

[Welshbloke]

The first TaKi arrived:

 

 

Seven days isn't bad going! The second will be slightly longer as it was despatched a bit later. There are three number and left hand markings combinations listed in the instructions, if I want more I'll have to do some research and make up accurate ones using the individual digits on the sheet.

[Kiha66]

Does 1:1 scale count?

(Huge thanks to Jr for helping out with the purchase, what an amazing community this forum is)

[GDorsett]

That is still a scale!
(Also, jelly)

What did that set you back?

[Kiha66]

4 minutes ago, GDorsett said:

That is still a scale!
(Also, jelly)

What did that set you back?

 

That's the amazing thing, it only cost me $200 usd!  Apparently it might have a few paint chips, so in Japanese terms its basically ruined!  😁  

Now the hard part is finding a place for it to live when not at shows, the thing is about 70cm and apparently weighs quite a few kilos.

[GDorsett]

Can't be any worse than some of my stuff. Got a few heavy things, myself, but nothing like that. Would love to find one, probably for the Nihonkai since I have a full model of it in N.

[Kiha66]

Here's the seller I got it from, they seem to be listing most of their collection now actually!

https://buyee.jp/item/search/seller/club_sl?page=1