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

[shadowtiger25]

8 hours ago, Kamome said:

Just received my Tomix JNR Spec ED78 to team up with my EF71. Not many left in stock anywhere but managed to find one on Yodobashi.com. It came today and unpacked to find some minor damage. Yey and Boo in equal measure!!

 

Ive contacted Yodobashi.com so hopefully they’ll give me a satisfactory solution. I’m sure it could be glued but it’s a bit of a downer on the new addition.

Ideal would be a replacement piece but we’ll see what they say.

 

Mine broke in the same spot while moving. If you find the part number I would like to get one as well

[Kiha66]

On 4/8/2020 at 2:40 PM, GDorsett said:

I'm going to put these here because the prototype was built by Japan and I'm going to be running it on a Japanese themed layout.

 

New toy fresh from Taiwan; a diesel locomotive for the Alishan forest railway!

Built by the tiny Ane Model company, I am impressed with everything I see here. The packaging is extremely nice, lots of soft, dense foam and no plastic.

Details are good all the way around.

 

Wow this looks amazing, where did you get it from?  I am very tempted....

[GDorsett]

2 hours ago, Welshbloke said:

Given the price of Tomix 1:80 locos the least they can do is send you a replacement part. I love these little four axle electrics but there's no way I can justify one!

 

I can't really validate them either, which is why my fleet of American and Japanese trains have a grand total of one switcher...
And it doesn't work well right now for unknown reasons...

maybe I overworked that poor little DE10...

[GDorsett]

2 minutes ago, Kiha66 said:

 

Wow this looks amazing, where did you get it from?  I am very tempted....

 

I got mine off of their EBay page, of which  they had one left last time I looked. You can also get them off of their website. Gimme a bit and I'll DM you links to both.

 

Just remember that they are HOe/HOn30/OO9 scale/gauge and that they run on N gauge 9mm tracks, not HO gauge 16.5 mm tracks. If you have other HOe trains, then by all means go for it, but if not, then more display piece, I suppose.

Still an excellent model.

Edited April 24, 2020 by GDorsett

[Welshbloke]

51 minutes ago, GDorsett said:

 

I can't really validate them either, which is why my fleet of American and Japanese trains have a grand total of one switcher...
And it doesn't work well right now for unknown reasons...

maybe I overworked that poor little DE10...

My DE10 is happy as long as I don't ask it to go long hood first on R370s for some reason. The three axle bogie derails its lead wheelset, if I run with the two axle one leading there's no problem. My EF510 stopped making odd singing noises on curves after a good run at a decent speed. My DD51 isn't quite so happy though, I suspect oil contamination as it occasionally stutters which usually seems to be a symptom of a flashover on the commutator. It improves after a good high speed run to fling the gunk out, but then it's back to growling around which the oil was supposed to fix...

 

If Tenshodo manage to get the KuMoRu pair out this year that will probably be my only other 1:80 acquisition of 2020, the Kato Hokutosei basic set is paid for but stuck at Hobbysearch at the moment. I was tempted by a dummy KuMoYa to go with my powered one, but what with shipping disruption and a lousy exhange rate it probably won't happen. I find myself buying silly cheap Hornby OO and fixing it at the moment, their 80s and 90s models are plentiful on ebay and easy to overhaul.

[Kamome]

2 hours ago, shadowtiger25 said:

Mine broke in the same spot while moving. If you find the part number I would like to get one as well

Will do. They are made of very thin bendy plastic which is not great considering their price point. The Kato ones are much sturdier. If I have no joy with Yodobashi, I’ll try Takara Tomy. I’m sure a spare can be organised between 2 large companies.

 

Luckily it runs very nicely and all other parts are ok. I’m wondering whether the Tomix boxes are too tight. They’re packed well but my EF71 had a bent pantograph, again due to the thin bendy plastic construction.
 

Seems to be a coin toss with Tomix and Kato HO. Tomix are extremely highly detailed with some inadequately designed plastic parts vs less detail but robust design. Maybe Tomix want to encourage purchases of the Prestige model with pre-installed metal parts.

 

The other main difference, if lots of customers had the same issue, Kato would’ve done a QC recall or sent out an updated part as they did with my 787 and SL Yamaguchi.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Kamome

[GDorsett]

My DE10 has a new issue where it doesn't go. I'm pretty sure it's the decoder, though, so it should be an easy fix if I ever get around to buying the mass amounts of decoders that I need...

[Kamome]

So an update on my ED78. Annoyingly I've still not heard back from Yodobashi but Tomytec responded very quickly. I will have to send it to their factory in Tochigi prefecture, which will be after Golden week now, as it starts tomorrow. Seems they have a good aftercare department but they prefer to look at and fix the product themselves rather than send out parts. They will cover the postage too which is very good but only open to domestic Japanese issues rather than international sales. 

 

I can still use the loco until then but will not be adding any details until I've had it back from Tomytec. It's a nice runner and pretty well speed matched with the EF71 on the LOW speed setting. The EF71 did not have the light and speed switches labelled on the body shell but they have rectified this on the ED78.

[GDorsett]

Speed switch?

Do what?

Does it change voltage? Gearing?

Never heard of that before.

[Kamome]

18 hours ago, GDorsett said:

Speed switch?

Do what?

Does it change voltage? Gearing?

Never heard of that before.

Seems to be something they initially added to the EF71 to run in consist with their Kiha 181. Its a switch added to the light board which, I assume, limits the voltage to the motor. As the ED78 tended to run with these locos, probably felt necessary to add it to that too.

[GDorsett]

Also, light switch? What lights are switched? Is it like with the Kato EF515 where the switch controls the marker lights or more like in the KiHas where it's all on or all off?

[Kamome]

A simple on/off switch for the headlights if you’re running a double-headed train. 

[GDorsett]

So the tail/marker lights are not lit. Darn.

[Kamome]

Yeah, I’m not aware that any of the Tomix locos have tail/marker lights except the EF63s. Seems to be a very common addition to DCC installs here though.

[Welshbloke]

I've never really understood the love of tail lights, other than on locos which frequently propel trains (like my Marklin Br.111 in S-Bahn livery).

 

An unexpected and random ebay find turned up today. Two brand new unopened packs of Tenshodo trailer wheelsets/weights/pickups to fit the T-Evolution range from a seller in the UK, for about what it costs to buy a single pack and have it delivered from Japan. One will go under another KuMoYa when ordering from Japan becomes feasible again, the other will wait for Tenshodo to release the KuMoRu/KuRu pair they announced plans for last year.

[Kamome]

4 hours ago, Welshbloke said:

I've never really understood the love of tail lights, other than on locos which frequently propel trains (like my Marklin Br.111 in S-Bahn livery).

Certainly this was a tempting idea initially but only really of use if you are using DCC.

I have the Kato EF510-500 (ex-Hokutosei blue) and EF81 both of which have the shunting/tail light features. As they spend the majority of their time pulling trains, these tend to be switched off.

 

I do intend to convert my HO Tomix and Kato locos to DCC somewhere down the line, but I’m not sure whether the Kato set up is more of a hindrance for this. Would be nice to have a full light package on them once I gain more understanding of decoders etc..

[Welshbloke]

I wired the Br.111 so that the headlights work as normal on f0, but the tail lights are on f1 and f2 respectively. So before departing with the steuerwagen leading you switch headlights off and turn the tail lights on. They could probably be programmed to be directional too (rather than using two function buttons) but I only have an old 6021 digital controller, which has limited abilities to adjust CVs.

 

I haven't bothered finding the switches on my EF510, it's had a bit of exercise with freight while I wait for the Hokutosei to be delivered. Four or five KoKis don't give it much of a workout!

[Martijn Meerts]

I sent a list over to RG-Rokko of some items I'm looking at ordering, waiting for them to get back to me with confirmation on whether it's all in stock at the manufacturer.

 

It includes various couplers for the H0e stuff, as well as couplers for the Hokutan #2 steamer and WaFu22000 car. Also a set of wheels for the WaFu22000 car. Other than that, various other useful tools, like some heat resistance 'sleeves' to put on your fingertips, which helps with holding parts during soldering. Some heat resistant board and squares to help with soldering as well. A little tool for scraping off solder where it's not supposed to be, more solder pellets, some brass wire in various sizes, some spare screws etc.

 

The more interesting stuff though, is a kit of a small manually operated crane from World Kougei, as well as a Kiso Forest caboose. I also ordered several H0j plastic kits of ToRa6000 and WaMu50000. Obviously the detail won't be anything like the metal kits, but the price is also nowhere near the metal kits. Do they come with very plain wheels, which I need to replace at some point, but the spoked replacements wheels aren't in stock at the moment.

 

For now I still need to wait and see if they can get it all, and then when they can send it, if at all 🙂

 

[GDorsett]

Finally got my 1/80 Tomytec Collection of cars. A whole buncha 'Yotas!

 

 

 

 

 

Got a whole town's worth of cars! Now I just need a few non-Toyotas for variety and a bus!

[Kamome]

A small envelope arrived today with my ED78s replacement snowplough. It has taken a while to arrive but I managed to negotiate with Tomytec and get them to send me the replacement part rather than send the whole loco back to them. Due to the pandemic I think the customer support team were mainly working from home, but I was happy to wait as it wasn’t a priority. They were very accommodating and arranged it for me, despite it not really being their error.  Almost a month on, I have not heard from Yodobashi customer support at all, nor could I ever get through to their customer helpline. (Their website explains you have to call and arrange if you wanted to take an online purchase back to a physical store)

 

I certainly won’t looking at Yodobashi’s website for future purchases like this, although I did use my accumulated points on a couple of Ohafu 50s.

[Kiha66]

Well I was weak, and amazon had one remaining in stock so I've ordered all 5 of the Kato HO Kiha 58 series.  Hopefully their shipping isn't too delayed!

[al camino]

Today I received a small parcel. Content was TOMIX ホキ5700  kit(2) HO-702. New and sealed parts inside. I just had to discard the box and manual because of the musty smell of 25+ years deep down in a cellar. The kit of 2 cars had been just 20€ but with an aching 15€ for shipping from France to Germany. But compared to the value of the 5th and 6th ホキ5700 to me - bargain.

 

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Nice! I have a couple of these kits, along with some tankers. They have been a work in progress over the last five(!) years, but they are decent kits and make a nice model.

[catcliffedemon]

I really wish Tomix would rerun some other these very early kits/models... I’d love to get hold of a rake of Hoki 800 ballast hoppers (HO-703 and HO-710). I did email them about 5-6 years ago about them but never got a reply. Oh well 😞

Edited June 19, 2020 by catcliffedemon

[al camino]

Tomix just announced the タキ1900 but price is more than 3 times higher that this ebay finding. I had the ホキ5700 sets on focus for a long time but the price wasn't right. Last weekend I noticed seller dropped the price of his last set. He had 3 of them. The last one was sold for 30€ a month ago. Good for me that only one set had been left - otherwise too much new stuff for my train room.