Is the HO Kato Kiha58 as nice as it looks in the photos?

[Ken Ford]

I've been drooling over pics of the Kato HO Kiha58 series DMUs. Are they as nice as they look? How do they run?

[marknewton]

Yes, they are. I have 9 of them altogether and I'm very happy with their looks and performance. The powered Kiha58s have a low profile mechanism that drives all wheels on both trucks and they can haul a reasonable number of trailers. Some low-quality video of some of my fleet running on the club layout is here:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/94424961@N00/16802123945/

 

You'll see I have all the variants in the Kato range; Kiha28, Kiha58, Kiha65 and Kiro28. All nice models that I'm sure you would enjoy owning.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Ken Ford]

Thanks, Mark - I think I need to add a powered 58 and a dummy 28 to my wish list.

[marknewton]

Bet you can't stop at buying only two! :)

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Ken Ford]

I'll bet I can - they aren't easy to find, and I have no idea where I would run them anyways!

[marknewton]

At the moment HobbySearch has the Kiha28s in stock, and you can nearly always find Kiha58s for sale on YahooJP auctions.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.