Nano Gauge N scale

[cteno4]

Interesting thing posted by Nariichi in his ModelTrainPlus newsletter about nano gauge coming out this spring. Its like lego trains but with nano block and N gauge track! this might be very fun!

 

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0271/6863/files/page_nanog.jpg?482

 

thanks for finding this Nariichi.

 

jeff

[westfalen]

I want some. :)

 

I'll be looking out for this on my next trip to Japan in May.

[IST]

As I see it can be ordered from HS:

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10262401

 

[cteno4]

One of our clubmembers is a lego guy as well and he said years ago his club had hollowed out some regular bricks to place N scale engine chassises in them and popped on n scale trucks to make cars and had a small n scale layout like this.

 

jeff

[IST]

It is very hard to resist to push the preorder button at HS. I really do not want to buy the set and start another new project, but I would like to have that E231... :-)

[dabsan]

This looks really interesting :icon_thumright:

Very tempted to order some ....... :)

[Martijn Meerts]

Oh great, more stuff I want and that I don't really need ;)

[westfalen]

Looks like it should be able to run on normal N gauge track. Hmmm...

[katoftw]

My 5yo that love my N scale stuff only just go into lego of the same size.  More stuff I have to blow my wages on. haha

[ToniBabelony]

Must! Resist!

 

Maybe in 10 years or so, when my son is old enough to engage in such seriously small blocks. Do want, but argh! Budget!

[NJHA]

My 5yo that love my N scale stuff only just go into lego of the same size.  More stuff I have to blow my wages on. haha

hehe. Come to Portugal... our government takes really good care of your wage, since the "crisis" my wage has suffered severe cuts, i now earn around as much as i did 10 years ago (i guess i need a new job on a different country). 

 

Anyways, my 6yo is also into lego, as is my 8yo daughter, but no lego trains for them yet (they will get to play with daddy's trains instead). These items it seems to me that are "lego like", but they could still be interesting for kids (and us also). 

One good thing though, it may be easier to install decoders on them.

[kvp]

These bricks are as thin as a lego plate but half the size horizontally, so a 1x1 lego plate is a 2x2 nano block. (like a lego duplo brick is twice the size of a normal lego brick) A normal (shorty scale) lego train is 6 studs wide, and so are these small trains. That means these nanoblock trains are half the width and 1/8th the volume. This is much smaller than a lego train, but the 2.4 cm width is around 3.6 scale meters, about the with of a normal shinkansen car. However i'm not really sure a nano gauge train would fit the normal kato or tomix platform clearances.

 

Lego vs nanoblock:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2707/4298140151_99eb905c12.jpg

[gmat]

Dredging up a fossil topic. 

Has anyone gotten a Nanoblock train set?

I've recently discovered it but at this point 6 years on, there are only a few trains available at the Shinjuku Yodobashi Camera store but no train set. I became aware of it at the Seijogakuemae Kojima. There is still a good selection of the figure and building sets at Yodobashi.

 

Here is a video assembling a set. It's in Spanish? or Portuguese.

NANOBLOCK TOHOKU SHINKANSEN E5 [Hayabusa] 🚄#FUNWITHTRAINS 10

 As far as I understand, each set is designed to potentially be motorized or have wheels attached, but the motor unit and truck pair set only come with the train set, which is about 10,000 yen. And each set has only one motor unit and truck pair. Each train is about 1000 yen. Each train has a lego case to hold the motor unit or truck set. There is no provision to have wheels attached to have it move on the floor. The catalogue that I picked up do not show the motor set nor truck set as available separately. Bummer. The Kato motor as used with the B-Train Shorty doesn't easily fit. 

 

The reason why I became interested in this is that the Daiso 100 Yen shops also has a similar mini lego type brand called Petit Block and they also have a selection of shinkansen kits for only 100 yen. But these trains also have no wheels to move on the floor. The Petit Blocks do have a series of vehicles that have wheels. Too bad there is not separate set of only wheels to make the shinkansen trains mobile.  Driver car or middle car is sold separately. 

https://www.atpsmx.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=108929

One problem is that the Petit Block legos are slightly larger than the Nano Block legos, enough so that they can't be mixed.

Looking to add wheels/kato trucks to the Petit Block trains. Later making some kind of motor housing.  These are for my student who is crazy about trains.

 

Grant

[cteno4]

wow the Daiso 100yen sound great! the lego nanos keep popping up on ebay now and then, but not cheap and just never sparked me to want to pop for them. but i could at a buck a car!

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

Nanoblock! Those cute little things!

 

Yap there is a nanogauge motor unit available to convert the trains into movable train sets, and it seems they use Z scale controller and track set ... 

 

There also used to be cute little plarail type trains being sold here in Daiso but they are long gone now... People here dont really like trains ~ 

[gmat]

Here is a more direct link to the motor. Hope it works. I had to check out if the link worked. 

https://www.1999.co.jp/10262406

nanoGauge Bogie Unit (Set of 2) (Block) --Hobby Search Toy

 

From this page.

https://www.1999.co.jp/search?typ1_c=104&cat=&state=&sold=0&sortid=0&searchkey=nano+block+&spage=1&ItemSeries=nanoGauge(ナノゲージ)

 

Unfortunately seems to be all sold out. 

 

Grant

Edited November 21, 2020 by gmat

[gmat]

I can't see anyone investing over a hundred bucks for the Nanoblock train set, but Kojima x BIC Camera Seijo, next to the Toho Studios near SeijoGakuenMae Station had a set a week ago. I suspect that other Kojima stores might, too. 

Link to the train set.

https://www.1999.co.jp/10370804

 

Here is a link to the google map for Kojima Electronics in Tokyo.

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk00A0Evz95jRWDUTQuOfXqGzdNQN3w:1605987455153&source=hp&ei=a2y5X-zyIZjr-QboxIPoBw&q=kojima electronics store tokyo&oq=kojima+electronis+store+tokyo&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgAMgoIIRAWEAoQHRAeOgQIABBDOgIIADoICC4QxwEQrwE6CAguEMcBEKMCOgIILjoFCAAQyQM6BQgAEMsBOgYIABAWEB46AggmOgcIABDJAxANOgQIABANOgYIABANEB46CQgAEMkDEBYQHlDeAlikXGCBcmgBcAB4AYAByweIAYo5kgEOMi4xMC41LjEuMi4yLjKYAQCgAQGqAQdnd3Mtd2l6&sclient=psy-ab&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:4&tbm=lcl&rflfq=1&num=10&rldimm=3426129011391499011&lqi=Ch5rb2ppbWEgZWxlY3Ryb25pY3Mgc3RvcmUgdG9reW8iA4gBAUiY-sL85YCAgAhaSAoYa29qaW1hIGVsZWN0cm9uaWNzIHN0b3JlEAAQARACGAAYARgCGAMiHmtvamltYSBlbGVjdHJvbmljcyBzdG9yZSB0b2t5bw&ved=2ahUKEwjVr5y-sZTtAhXxw4sBHVvsC0QQvS4wAnoECAMQJQ&rlst=f#rlfi=hd:;si:;mv:[[36.526027056173646,141.44968497275414],[34.66580202113954,138.1949852657229],null,[35.601319413551956,139.82233511923852],9];tbs:lrf:!1m4!1u3!2m2!3m1!1e1!2m1!1e3!3sIAE,lf:1,lf_ui:4

 

The link to the Seijo store is less helpful.

https://www.kojima.net/shop/shoplist/seijo.html

 

Grant