What did you order or the post deliver? (Japanese N Gauge)

[Welshbloke]

From what I can work out Kato sold all the cars for the Yamanote 205 Series individually in 2001ish, HobbySearch lists the rest of them as well. They did an earlier batch of SaHa 204s which may well have been to extend existing ten car packs.

 

I have spotted an old six car Yamanote 205 Series but as it's in the USA it would be around £110 after postage and VAT. Bit much for an old unit I probably stand no chance of finding the other four cars for!

[railsquid]

(Checks the 1995 catalogue) aha, so they did (and no indication they're available in a pack of any kind). I only ever seem to run across the 6-door variants in my perambulations.

 

FWIW I have a bookcase which I house my ah-hoc junk formation in, unusually the bookcase itself (10-331, 7 car set) came with all the bits including instruction sheet, the lot number indicates it was made in 1997).

[Welshbloke]

I'm not sure how logical Kato are about their production numbers. I know up until very recently British OO manufacturers were making equal numbers of all types of coaches, which led to a glut of brake vehicles and restaurant cars and a shortage of second class coaches (as modellers only need one or two brakes and rather more seconds). If Kato didn't base their production numbers on forming complete sets (or if some people didn't have space or funds for the full 11 cars) then you'd have the same situation.

[Kamome]

Expanded my fleet of Kato DD54s thanks to a local hobby shop. I know these were a bit of a failed experiment for the JNR but I do like the slightly top heavy appearance and those tiny Bo-1-Bo wheels. I first saw an OJ gauge model of one in the Ginza branch of Panorama Bar (n gauge layout all around the bar) and loved the look of it. I bought the Imperial train and a Royal duty DD54 from the Tokyo Kato shop the next day. It’s only taken about 5 years for Kato to release some more.

[kvp]

On 2018. 01. 20. at 12:33 AM, railsquid said:

I suspect that one was an individual pack because they were added to the real-life Yamanote sets in 1991, when they were extended from 10 to 11 cars.

Pretty much how the 2 car platform door compatibiliy patch sets were issued, to allow conversion from 11 car sets with two 6 door cars to 11 car sets with one platform door compatible car and one normal car. Sometimes the models sets could be patched to remain up to date just like on the prototype...

[kvp]

17 hours ago, Welshbloke said:

I'm not sure how logical Kato are about their production numbers. I know up until very recently British OO manufacturers were making equal numbers of all types of coaches, which led to a glut of brake vehicles and restaurant cars and a shortage of second class coaches (as modellers only need one or two brakes and rather more seconds). If Kato didn't base their production numbers on forming complete sets (or if some people didn't have space or funds for the full 11 cars) then you'd have the same situation.

Smarter manufacturers made more road numbers of more common car types, even smarter ones (many german ones) sold cars in runner packs. The tradition of having one car of each type was normal for maerklin for a long time, like having one bagagge, one first, one restaurant and one second class car in many consists. This actually mostly maxed out the pulling power of their old locomotive designs as they were mostly designed for 3 car trains. On the defense of the british manufacturers, brake seconds were usually present on at least one end of many consists, so having a full brake, first, buffet, second, brake second is actually a good setup and has only one car from each type. The japanese 50 series cars usually ran with a conductor's compartement on each end, so brake second, second, second, brake second (ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu) is a good setup and has an equal number of cars from each type.

[Kiha66]

3 minutes ago, kvp said:

The japanese 50 series cars usually ran with a conductor's compartement on each end, so brake second, second, second, brake second (ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu) is a good setup and has an equal number of cars from each type.

 

I was actually wondering about that, as I cant find any info of the locations of 50 series ohafu's when used in mid train. Were they just used as a regular coach and mixed in randomly, or kept in smaller consists within the train (ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu+ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu ect). Tomix seems to show them evenly placed (ohafu-oha-ohafu-oha-ohafu...) , while kato seems to encourage sets of 4 (ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu+ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu+...).

 

[kvp]

33 minutes ago, Kiha66 said:

 

I was actually wondering about that, as I cant find any info of the locations of 50 series ohafu's when used in mid train. Were they just used as a regular coach and mixed in randomly, or kept in smaller consists within the train (ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu+ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu ect). Tomix seems to show them evenly placed (ohafu-oha-ohafu-oha-ohafu...) , while kato seems to encourage sets of 4 (ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu+ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu+...).

 

Most JR era videos show 3 and 4 car trains with ohafu-s at the ends. When used in a 3 or 4 car train and some extra coaches are added as a booster, then they are tacked onto one side with an ohafu at the new end. Pure sets, like the one sold by rokuhan has ohafu-s only on the two ends. Also if a train is to be split mid way, then the two sub sets are set up to have ohafu-s on all 4 ends. What i see is that any combination is good as long as operationally you alway have an ohafu on the end of the train and mostly this was achived by having one on both ends. As a side note, it's also possible to have a train completly built out of ohafu cars if nothing else was available atm. The number of oha versus ohafu cars built would probably indicate an average balance between the cars. Also, it would be interesting to know if sub consists were used or just scheduled consists and spare booster sets or cars.

 

My two examples for mixed sets:

ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu + oha-ohafu (4 cars base consist boosted to 6)

ohafu-oha-ohafu + ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu (to be split 3:4)

 

Personally i have an ohafu-oha-oha-oha-ohafu consist, which was a 3 car basic set and 2 oha-s that were bought later because they were marked way down.

[Kiha66]

Thanks!  I have a Kato ohafu-oha-oha-ohafu in the mail, but wasnt sure what normal consists were.  I'll probably pick up a one or two more of each then as money allows.

[VJM]

I've been going on a Micro Ace Steam Loco binge.  Massive thanks to Dave at Loco1Hobby for going out of his way to obtain these for me.

 

[Pauljag900]

1 hour ago, VJM said:

I've been going on a Micro Ace Steam Loco binge.  Massive thanks to Dave at Loco1Hobby for going out of his way to obtain these for me.

 

Nice collection there Andrew👍👍😀

[Suica]

I'm back from Japan and here are a few things I picked up during this trip.

 

MicroAce KiHa 283 Super Hokuto

MicroAce EF65 1065

Kato EF64 milk cartons

Katomodels Kyoto Kashima Rinkai Tetsudo KRD-5

Tomix EF81 Hokutosei colour & HoKi 800s

Tomix EF66 late JRF version

and lots of KoKi 50000 and containers.

 

There's more on the way I didn't take any pictures of yet. (Bought so much again that I had to send a package home.) 

[Densha]

4 minutes ago, Suica said:

There's more on the way I didn't take any pictures of yet. (Bought so much again that I had to send a package home.) 

No worries there. I had to buy a whole suitcase to get my stuff properly back home!

[Kiha66]

Nice haul suica!  Where did you take those pictures?  That looks like a neat layout.

[Suica]

21 minutes ago, Kiha66 said:

Nice haul suica!  Where did you take those pictures?  That looks like a neat layout.

The photo of the EF65 1065 was taken at the rental layout at Stage.1 in Kokura.

All others are from the rental layout at Elmer Train in Osaka.

[serotta1972]

Are the rest of the layout as nice as the spots you took the pictures?  I love well ballasted track.  Good stuff there Suica.  Looking forward to seeing pictures and hearing about your last Japanese adventure.  

[Kamome]

6 hours ago, Suica said:

The photo of the EF65 1065 was taken at the rental layout at Stage.1 in Kokura.

All others are from the rental layout at Elmer Train in Osaka.

I still haven’t made it to Stage. 1 despite living in the vicinity of Kokura. Is it worth a visit?

[Das Steinkopf]

My thirst for containers is barely quenched with this latest batch of Hogaraka Dou goodness, mind you I will need them as my forever expanding fleet of Koki’s is expecting another dozen later this month. I also got some more TN’s which the grey ones will be used on the Koki 50000’s when they arrive, the black ones will be used for my Hoki 800’s which I should be giving some long awaited attention too soon.   

 

 

[Pauljag900]

Some new arrivals this morning from my usual supplier,,serotta1972,

Thank you Junior.

[Pauljag900]

Also arrived was a small American freight train and a Tomix 92838,115-1000 ,I can t upload those for some reason,will try again later.

[Pauljag900]

Tomix 

Edited January 22, 2018 by Pauljag900

[Pauljag900]

[Suica]

16 hours ago, serotta1972 said:

Are the rest of the layout as nice as the spots you took the pictures?  I love well ballasted track.  Good stuff there Suica.  Looking forward to seeing pictures and hearing about your last Japanese adventure.  

Sure are. You can check out the Stage.1 layout at the link in my post.

 

12 hours ago, Kamome said:

I still haven’t made it to Stage. 1 despite living in the vicinity of Kokura. Is it worth a visit?

If you're living not that far away, you sure should go check it out! It's pretty huge.

[keiichi77]

My first order from HLJ arrived today. The Hakodate Liner for 6000Y, great price crappy picture ;)

 

 

 

[cteno4]

HLJ is great when you find one of those bargains, but it can take waiting and hunting!

 

jeff