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

[Fenway Park]

Tomytec Kiha 04-100 plus chassis paid at HS

[Fenway Park]

Expensive month ahead.

 

Kato 58 series plus Micro Ace 52 series 2-8-2 not holding breath over the latter. 

 

Tomix series 10/17 series re- issues. 

 

 

 

[Fenway Park]

E mail from HS today suggests C54 and D52 are delayed for sometime.

[Kiha66]

4 minutes ago, Fenway Park said:

E mail from HS today suggests C54 and D52 are delayed for sometime.

 

I dont have any micro ace myself, but from what I've seen their steam locomotives often are delayed for months at a time.

[Kiha66]

It never rains but it pours, two and a half months of orders show up at once!

[Kiha66]

And a familiar stickers on the boxcars.

[defor]

6 hours ago, Sascha said:

My 70000 series from Nariichi arrived. Great Model!!

Ooh! nice!

Definitely on my wishlist- were the cars that came apart repairable I hope?

[Sascha]

3 hours ago, katoftw said:

Motor car right? Greenmax?

jup!!

[Sascha]

1 hour ago, defor said:

Ooh! nice!

Definitely on my wishlist- were the cars that came apart repairable I hope?

Yeah,No problem!!

[EH500 (12)]

My Nihonkai Blue Train and Resort Shirakami Buna preorder from Modeltrainplus are ready, this month is already expensive just 3 days in.

[Philphil]

Had 15 packs of catenary poles roll in earlier, nothing exciting... Not like all those awesome trains you guys all have! 

[bill937ca]

A Kato 10-1472 Eizan Electric Railway 900 Series Kirara train from the Ami Ami eBay page.

Edited April 3, 2018 by bill937ca

[Sascha]

23 hours ago, Philphil said:

Ah, AMAZING! I'm still dying for one of these! Have you gotten to run it yet?

It runs great. The Motor is very quiet!!

[Philphil]

1 hour ago, Sascha said:

It runs great. The Motor is very quiet!!

Sweet! Any pictures?

[Kamome]

21 hours ago, Kiha66 said:

It never rains but it pours, two and a half months of orders show up at once!

I see you gave into your EF63 temptation! And is that an EF62 as well?

 

Word of warning, be extra careful when attaching the array of jumper plugs. They are a lot more brittle than other Kato locos so be extra patient.

[Kiha66]

1 hour ago, Kamome said:

I see you gave into your EF63 temptation! And is that an EF62 as well?

 

Word of warning, be extra careful when attaching the array of jumper plugs. They are a lot more brittle than other Kato locos so be extra patient.

 

Yep!  Amiami had them for almost 40% off, so I ordered a pair.  The third loco is actually a kato EF58 35 Nagaoka Operating Center, I'll try to post pictures soon!  I already figured out about the fragile details, luckily they include two sets of radio antennas with the EF63s. 

Edit: EF58 35

Edited April 4, 2018 by Kiha66

[Kamome]

Yes I’ve been buying a lot from Ami Ami recently as their prices are so good. I’ve noticed that even large media stores like Yodobashi camera in Hakata , who once had a good selection of railway items, have gradually reduced their stock. Prices also seem to have crept up. I saved ¥4000 off the price of the 883 Sonic compared to Yodobashi’s discounted price. Even with the points you earn, Ami Ami is often far more attractive if you preorder. Stock obviously sells out pretty quickly most of the time.

[katoftw]

I do the same with AmiAmi. Good for preorder but they dont keep much stock on hand afterwards.

[Kiha66]

I've noticed the same, I usually preorder from amiami, but when buying in stock I'll go elsewhere.  Also I noticed one of my EF63's has been poorly painted, the tan on the font of one is painted at an angle.  Somewhat of a disappointment for such an expensive model.  The difference is much more noticeable in real life than in the picture.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Kiha66

[Philphil]

Completely agree with AmiAmi always being seemingly low on stock. Whenever I need something, I usually need a bunch, like coupler packs or track, and Ami never seems to have any stock. Recently I've gone to Banzai Hobby for my larger orders because they always have a bunch around (Like 25+ packs of the Kato 20-004 track, where as AmiAmi had like 3...)

I also made a large spreadsheet detailing who has the cheapest prices for most of the important Kato Unitrack parts, which is incredibly helpful to me, because getting a good deal is always important!

[chadbag]

It would be interesting to see which companies are good at what.  

 

I placed two orders, within less than 30 minutes,  with Banzai on Sunday evening.  I wrote to their customer service to ask if they could combine them for shipping purposes.  I also, off handedly, remarked that it was too bad I had not found everything at once,  for one order, as I could only use their coupon once.  Their customer service responded promptly that they would ship the two orders together for one shipping fee, and they said they adjusted the second order manually to have the coupon on it.  Very good service.   Unfortunately, this morning, they emailed saying they had to cancel both orders as they were not able to source the items.   What???    They were listed as being in stock (in that they were not sold out and were able to be put in the cart -- I don't see any other way to determine the "in stock" status of an item).  You assume that a store has stock of stuff that you can put in the cart, when they don't show any other way of indicating stock, and when they also show "sold out" items as not being available.   I sent them a constructive email indicating that their business model of not stocking what they are selling and then cancelling things they actually can't get after the fact was making them "unreliable" in my eyes, and hence, I was less likely to go shop there.   (I did it in an even tone and in a constructive way).   They responded, apologizing, and said they would pass my suggestions up to management.  They also sent me a "gift certificate" equal to the value of the coupon against the cancelled orders, which was thoughtful of them.  Again, a big WIN for their customer service department.  Their customer service department has been prompt, and pro-active at solving problems and "hints" of issues, and in working to make the customer happy.  I'll definitely consider them for future purchases, but might be a bit more wary.

 

But this sort of thing should be avoided to begin with.   I'd be interested on which stores are go-to for which sorts of items.

 

I admit I go to amazon.co.jp first.  If they have it (and it is sold by Amazon itself) it is usually, though not always, cheaper.  And in most cases, they beat everyone on shipping costs for the same items for shipment to the US.   I don't know about their shipping costs for other countries.  And, at least for the US, their DHL shipping is wicked fast (I can use that expression, without so-called "cultural appropriation", as I grew up in New England :)  ), and they usually ship in 1-3 days for most orders (unless they say up front that a given item takes longer).  

 

But for most things, unless it is a current item in a manufacturer's catalog, Amazon won't be selling it themselves. It will be one of their marketplace sellers.  Most of those won't ship outside of Japan, and the few that do ship outside Japan have quoted ridiculously high shipping costs (even for places that run their own stores as well, like Ami Ami, the shipping they quote on Amazon is huge compared to their own website).  Luckily I have family in Japan who will gather things for me and eventually forward them on, and their are other services that will do so for you.  But that just adds cost.  And many of the other marketplace sellers on Amazon are not that great at pricing, anyway.  

 

So I have gone elsewhere for items that I cannot get at Amazon.  I have mostly used Hobby Search.  Mainly for the convenience of their website.   And Model Trains Plus.   And on eBay have used Plaza Japan when they had something I could not find a better deal on elsewhere, or I had a coupon or something on eBay that brought the pricing down to reasonable.   

 

But I am not sure where is best for what sort of things.

 

[nah00]

Nothing really exciting, another car collection so I can move some of the cheap 'filler' cars to less visible locations, 2 packs of the Nippon Express containers (anyone else feel like these were a little loose and didn't snap on quite as tight?) some buses, the railway car moving convoy (luckily it comes with a lot of warning stickers, it's too plain as is) and the Yuuko Iwase Portram (forgot to order a motor for it so I'll have to wait for a while).

[Philphil]

1 hour ago, chadbag said:

It would be interesting to see which companies are good at what.  

 

I placed two orders, within less than 30 minutes,  with Banzai on Sunday evening.  I wrote to their customer service to ask if they could combine them for shipping purposes.  I also, off handedly, remarked that it was too bad I had not found everything at once,  for one order, as I could only use their coupon once.  Their customer service responded promptly that they would ship the two orders together for one shipping fee, and they said they adjusted the second order manually to have the coupon on it.  Very good service.   Unfortunately, this morning, they emailed saying they had to cancel both orders as they were not able to source the items.   What???    They were listed as being in stock (in that they were not sold out and were able to be put in the cart -- I don't see any other way to determine the "in stock" status of an item).  You assume that a store has stock of stuff that you can put in the cart, when they don't show any other way of indicating stock, and when they also show "sold out" items as not being available.   I sent them a constructive email indicating that their business model of not stocking what they are selling and then cancelling things they actually can't get after the fact was making them "unreliable" in my eyes, and hence, I was less likely to go shop there.   (I did it in an even tone and in a constructive way).   They responded, apologizing, and said they would pass my suggestions up to management.  They also sent me a "gift certificate" equal to the value of the coupon against the cancelled orders, which was thoughtful of them.  Again, a big WIN for their customer service department.  Their customer service department has been prompt, and pro-active at solving problems and "hints" of issues, and in working to make the customer happy.  I'll definitely consider them for future purchases, but might be a bit more wary.

 

But this sort of thing should be avoided to begin with.   I'd be interested on which stores are go-to for which sorts of items.

 

I admit I go to amazon.co.jp first.  If they have it (and it is sold by Amazon itself) it is usually, though not always, cheaper.  And in most cases, they beat everyone on shipping costs for the same items for shipment to the US.   I don't know about their shipping costs for other countries.  And, at least for the US, their DHL shipping is wicked fast (I can use that expression, without so-called "cultural appropriation", as I grew up in New England :)  ), and they usually ship in 1-3 days for most orders (unless they say up front that a given item takes longer).  

 

But for most things, unless it is a current item in a manufacturer's catalog, Amazon won't be selling it themselves. It will be one of their marketplace sellers.  Most of those won't ship outside of Japan, and the few that do ship outside Japan have quoted ridiculously high shipping costs (even for places that run their own stores as well, like Ami Ami, the shipping they quote on Amazon is huge compared to their own website).  Luckily I have family in Japan who will gather things for me and eventually forward them on, and their are other services that will do so for you.  But that just adds cost.  And many of the other marketplace sellers on Amazon are not that great at pricing, anyway.  

 

So I have gone elsewhere for items that I cannot get at Amazon.  I have mostly used Hobby Search.  Mainly for the convenience of their website.   And Model Trains Plus.   And on eBay have used Plaza Japan when they had something I could not find a better deal on elsewhere, or I had a coupon or something on eBay that brought the pricing down to reasonable.   

 

But I am not sure where is best for what sort of things.

 

That's quite an interesting and disappointing story. I have to ask, what did you order? If it was more expensive things like train sets, it seems a bit more understandable that they couldn't always get stock in, but if those were things like track, then that would be a bit odd that they couldn't get it ordered.

[Philphil]

This was kind of a rough draft for a comparative Kato Unitrack price spreadsheet for selected track packs. 

-Green boxes are the cheapest price.

-Yellow are second cheapest, but that's really only important when the item is sold by Amazon JP, because of their usual 7 of the same item limit.

-Orange are the third cheapest.

Black boxes mean that company doesn't sell/list that item on their website.

Unfortunately I can't upload actual spreadsheets, so screenshots will have to do for now. This was done awhile back so the prices may not be entirely accurate, and could have changed.

[katoftw]

Shame amiami stocks next to no track, unless it was a recent re-release.