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

[kusojiji]

Yeah, N would be worse with 1/148, 1/150, 1/160 and am not sure who is who. I guess since I 3d print a lot of my stuff nowadays, they're all skewed anyway.

 

Ah, nice about the HOx-Trak - maybe it'll take off! 🙂 Yeah, took a look at the Kato offerings and they are based on their track sizes as you state. When I saw that the S248 track is what one side's length is, I realized the scale of this and they are too tiny. This would require very precise alignment methods to prevent wonky track joints and a good method of jointing power.

 

Was watching thiswayworks videos on his build, but he seems to have fallen off. Hope he's ok. His repair/mod videos were pretty good.

[kusojiji]

BTW, nice Tomix coaches! I just did a search and see that Tomix offers quite a bit of HO stuff, more than Kato I believe. I haven't bought much Tomix stuff as my buddy gave me one of his N scale  locos and that thing won't couple up to anything I have, which are a mix of Kato and micro-trains (which work fine together). 

 

How are the HO couplers for Tomix? Work fine with other species?

[cteno4]

1/148 is UK and 1/160 is US and Europe. Japan is all 1/150 except for shinkansens are 1/160 and many steam are a bit under 1/150.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

On 4/1/2025 at 3:46 PM, kusojiji said:

Ordered a Kato Degoichi. Been waiting since Oct. Got a notification that they are delayed.

I too expected to be running mine the by end of March/early April. Now being pitched for late April so hopefully no further issues to change the release date further.

 

As for Tomix coaches, they are most often fitted with Kadee #5 couplers from the factory. This is not the case with good wagons. Koki, Taki and Kumu come with plastic couplers, similar to Kato. The plastics are pretty standard using Kadee as a comparative size guide which they also couple with. The shank on the plastic freight (Koki type) couplers are way too long however.

 

Personally details on Tomix coaches are pretty good, let down only be the very simplistic one colour plastic interiors. They can obviously be improved with some painting and detailing. The wheels do have a tendency to be shiny silver and I'm also not a big fan of the current collector parts for internal lighting which can easily be seen through the windows. Kato are definitely better in terms of value, Tomix can seem a little over-priced by comparison in certain areas. It really depends on what outline you want as Kato and Tomix don't produce the same coach types as each other and other than price and the addition of factory fitted Kadees, they are very similar in terms of quality.

Edited 18 hours ago by Kamome

[kusojiji]

Thanks for the info! I may be looking that way now. I like the older, cha colored cars. Luv my suha44 set in N-scale.

 

Also good to know they are set up for lighting like the Katos. I do my own lighting system with rectifier, 5v led strip, resister and cap. I am going to be changing my DC lighting to DCC soon in my oha 35s, so all that will change.

[EB421]

7 hours ago, cteno4 said:

1/148 is UK and 1/160 is US and Europe. Japan is all 1/150 except for shinkansens are 1/160 and many steam are a bit under 1/150.

 

Thanks - and this is why I settled on 1/87 - I can get models from every single one of those countries in the same scale. In Japan it's only Shinkansen (since I can't afford any of the 12mm kits!). In the UK it's only USATC, Sheds, Gronks, Scottie and a handful of specific vintage models.

 

But at least I can do it!