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

[jozasa]

On 12/23/2021 at 5:40 AM, JR 500系 said:

 

 

Well, i did not see the DCC-ready from Kato website, so i'll assume it is not. We couldnt see the DCC drop in panel too at the bottom of the car (Video below stopped at the exact timing where the bottom of the first car is shown):

 

 

 

 

 

I just bought it and I can confirm that the Chizu Express is NOT DCC-Ready. I'm in the process of installing an ESU Loksound in the motor unit, and two Lenz Silverminis in bipolar configuration for the end cars

 

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by jozasa

[JR East]

12 hours ago, jozasa said:

 

 

I just bought it and I can confirm that the Chizu Express is NOT DCC-Ready. I'm in the process of installing an ESU Loksound in the motor unit, and two Lenz Silverminis in bipolar configuration for the end cars

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somewhere it's weird. The E257 has been released few months ago, this trainset is brand new. I can understand that a re-released of a non DCC-ready remains non DCC-ready, but I would have imagine that all new products will be designed to be DCC Ready what is obviously not the case. I really don't understand the Kato policy which sounds unlogical to me (esp. in the frame of growing a market and acquiring market shares on DCC). 

 

JM 

Edited January 6, 2022 by JR East
typos

[Das Steinkopf]

On 1/6/2022 at 10:07 PM, JR East said:

 

 

Somewhere it's weird. The E257 has been released few months ago, this trainset is brand new. I can understand that a re-released of a non DCC-ready remains non DCC-ready, but I would have imagine that all new products will be designed to be DCC Ready what is obviously not the case. I really don't understand the Kato policy which sounds unlogical to me (esp. in the frame of growing a market and acquiring market shares on DCC). 

 

JM 

 

 I think Kato know exactly what they are doing, there seems to be very little demand for DCC in the Japanese market unless you are modelling in more niche catagories such as HO or European/American prototype, the Japanese market is more aimed at more affordable models that can be at first introduced to children and then hopefully maintain a decent number of them when they become adults and guess what it seems to work. I have been into model railways for over 40 years and I have no real interest in DCC, the high costs in the beginning put me off and to be honest despite the 30 odd years DCC has been around the systems are far from reliable, I find it amusing that when reading the moaning and groaning on a certain British modelling site about X or Y's latest loco and the issues people are having with them that the DCC is 95% to blame for poor running. Yes Analog controllers may not have all the bells and whistles that some people want but at the end of the day it provides a fairly reliable source of power, DCC can be fantastic if the programming code is correct but can be extremely problematic if not, I have seen many a good locomotive absolutely panned for poor running qualities that occur when running on DCC yet they perform perfectly well on DC. 

[Kamome]

As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of model railway enthusiasts here run their trains round and round in circles. Even at the odd shows you all get tail chaser layouts and it’s the same with rental layouts too. Generally speaking, DCC is not really that necessary to most Japanese collectors, the only draw may be the sound equipped stock but Kato’s Soundbox, which may not interest overseas markets, is obviously selling in Japan as they keep churning out new sound cards.

I’ve never seen any use of model railways here that would warrant DCC. You observe people on the rental layouts and nobody is stopping at stations, shunting, collecting freight. Trains are running through the scene, same at JAM. There is no display of operations at all and enthusiasts watch trains running around. In the UK you get a lot of terminus layouts or loco facilities that would warrant DCC use but not here. Why would you shell out another price for a loco or 2 on a decoder when you just want to watch your train running around on its own track?

 

Even DCC HO trains are often just run in circles with the added advantage of  sound. But HO is certainly far more catered for in Japan than N but you still have to look hard for it and usually only expensive stores that cater for the brass market.

[railsquid]

Yeah, I get the impression Kato tried to bring DCC to tje Japanese market maybe 15 years ago, but the market said "meh, whatever, just give us our cheap models", and none of the other major players cares, so it's remained very much a niche and it's not exactly a growth market here. Also the Tomix power system does a lot of the things people ask of DCC.

[Kamome]

Yeah with cheap model prices come huge collections that need converting so you can understand why Soundbox and TNOS kind of offer some of the DCC features without the huge investment of adding decoders to everything.

 

I would add though that Kato are probably the most forward thinking N scale producer compared to other Japanese manufacturers.  Tomix, MA, GM don’t have any DCC offering, even Tomix HO have no DCC socket on their product whereas Kato have included it, be it old fashioned 8 pin, for some time. 

 

Anyway as regards to new releases, i’d probably say if the train has the same or similar chassis to a train already produced in model form, it’s far more cost effective to use existing designs for current collection and light units etc perhaps with subtle changes to underfloor equipment.  This may have been the case with the Chizu HOT7000. I’m sure if they had needed to design it from the ground up, they would have included the newer EM decoder design. 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Kamome

[Das Steinkopf]

24 minutes ago, Kamome said:

Yeah with cheap model prices come huge collections that need converting so you can understand why Soundbox and TNOS kind of offer some of the DCC features without the huge investment of adding decoders to everything.

 

So true, if I was to invest in installing DCC I would need at least 50 decoders, that would cost me about $2000.00 AUD to begin with, add in the controllers and associated rig I would have to spend another $1000.00 to $1,500AUD for that, considering it costs me about $70.00 to $80.00AUD a locomotive, $10.00AUD a single KoKi or between $100.00 to $300.00AUD for between a 2 car to 6 car EMU I know where I would much prefer to spend my money.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Das Steinkopf

[disturbman]

I always felt that the increased focus of European N scale manufacturers on DCC and sound was making the hobby less and less accessible to new and/or younger generations by pricing them out and making the entrance appear more technically savy and complicated.

 

Who wants and/or can start a hobby where some locomotives are selling for 200 or 300€? I probably would never have looked at it again if I hadn’t discovered Japanese models.

[roadstar_na6]

4 hours ago, disturbman said:

Who wants and/or can start a hobby where some locomotives are selling for 200 or 300€? I probably would never have looked at it again if I hadn’t discovered Japanese models.

 

I can 100% agree here, Euro prices are beyond anything somebody is willing to spend on a potential hobby he might not really be interested in in the end or who is just on a budget.

[gavino200]

On 1/6/2022 at 6:07 AM, JR East said:

 

 

Somewhere it's weird. The E257 has been released few months ago, this trainset is brand new. I can understand that a re-released of a non DCC-ready remains non DCC-ready, but I would have imagine that all new products will be designed to be DCC Ready what is obviously not the case. I really don't understand the Kato policy which sounds unlogical to me (esp. in the frame of growing a market and acquiring market shares on DCC).

 

I get the frustration. When you come to expect something from a manufacturer and suddenly it's not available it can be a disappointment.

 

I love Kato's practice of producing trains that can be run DC or can be easily converted to DCC if desired. Even their locos that aren't DCC ready have often been designed to make it possible. DCC is not for everyone, but it's a lot of fun.

 

 

[JR East]

45 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

 

I get the frustration. When you come to expect something from a manufacturer and suddenly it's not available it can be a disappointment.

 

I love Kato's practice of producing trains that can be run DC or can be easily converted to DCC if desired. Even their locos that aren't DCC ready have often been designed to make it possible. DCC is not for everyone, but it's a lot of fun.

 

 

 

My aim is not to open a controversy, but Iwant to make my remark more precise. I fully understand, reading the post above, that the DCC market is small and Japanese customers want cheap trains to play with. 

 

Looking to the physical difference between non-DCC ready and DDC ready rolling stock, it seems that it's only a place to put the DCC cards in the different cars and the right access to the main copper srtings. So that, if - at the design phase - this slots are included, the train itself becomes DCC Ready. Then it up to the customer to decide to convert it using Kato parts. 

 

On my side, DC is far enough but having an option to do it easily in DCC friendly mode is something I really appreciate at Kato. 

 

JM

 

[gavino200]

16 minutes ago, JR East said:

 

My aim is not to open a controversy, but Iwant to make my remark more precise. I fully understand, reading the post above, that the DCC market is small and Japanese customers want cheap trains to play with. 

 

I don't think there was anything controversial about your post.

 

Quote

 

Looking to the physical difference between non-DCC ready and DDC ready rolling stock, it seems that it's only a place to put the DCC cards in the different cars and the right access to the main copper srtings. So that, if - at the design phase - this slots are included, the train itself becomes DCC Ready. Then it up to the customer to decide to convert it using Kato parts. 

 

I totally agree. But it seems that for some trains that are similar to older trains, they don't really redesign them at all, except for in the most superficial ways. This isn't just an issue for DCC fans. Often people on the forum who are more modeling purists (I didn't say rivet counters) are upset when an older mold is used to make a new model without improvement. I guess it's similar.

 

My first time to run into this was with the Evangelion Shinkansen. Up until then all the Shinkansens I bought from Kato were made for drop-in decoders. The Eva 500 on the other hand is really quite a difficult install. I had to really up my decoder installation game to achieve it - especially for the cabs. But fortunately I was able to get ideas and guidance from people here and I was able to do it.

 

It turned out to be a good thing. After converting the EVA, I had the confidence to branch out and start converting Tomix trains, which are also often quite difficult to convert. At this stage I feel fairly confident converting anything, but it does take some time. I still really appreciate the Kato drop-in models.

 

If you have any difficulty converting this train, open a thread in the DCC forum and I'm sure that you'll get good help. As far as I have seen there's no loco that can't be crowd-sourced into it's place by JNS. Good luck.

 

 

Quote

 

On my side, DC is far enough but having an option to do it easily in DCC friendly mode is something I really appreciate at Kato.

 

 

I couldn't agree more. Each to their own. Having the choice is always nice. I really appreciate all that Kato does to facilitate DCC.

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by gavino200

[Kamome]

7 hours ago, JR East said:

My aim is not to open a controversy, but Iwant to make my remark more precise. I fully understand, reading the post above, that the DCC market is small and Japanese customers want cheap trains to play with. 

Your comments were not controversial and I can appreciate the frustration of receiving a brand new model only to find it doesn’t have features that have been around for many years and have become the bare minimum in most countries. 

 

And really that should be the case. Perhaps if Tomix and Microace started making DCC ready then it would catch on in Japan eventually.

[ED75-775]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here, I haven’t had any new trains in a while. Until our friendly DHL courier dropped this box o’ bits off today:

the mortal remains of what was (almost) a relatively tidy Kato 3028. This was after I set to it with my screwdrivers and tweezers to render it into kitset form.

 

The chassis will eventually be paired with a 3009-5 body shell and the reusable components will join what’s left of that 3009 chassis in store. And as for that body? Well, if someone wanted a ED75 cab for display on their layout, I have (almost all the) bits for that...😉

Edited January 10, 2022 by ED75-775

[cteno4]

I would also say Japanese market likes having a large variety of trains as there is a large variety of trains in japan. So then adding cost of dcc or even dcc slot can squash having a large variety. It appears Kato has decided to eat the cost if redesign, assembly and parts for the decoder slot that it hopes to make up in market share as they don’t seem to have appreciably raised their prices to cover the feature. It will be interesting to see if it works. Plus they have experience from katousa to draw on with dcc stuff as well so hidden resource there.

 

i love the variety of trains, it’s what brought me to Japanese model trains along with infinite variety of scenes that could be modeled with train in them. But if I had to pay for dcc installed only (like it’s slowly moving towards in other parts of the world as the default) I’m not sure I would have gotten very deep into Japanese trains. Now my very varied collection I fear has way past the point of going dcc. While I’ve played with dcc some on various layouts it’s never totally enraptured me to want to convert hundreds of trains (or pay for it as well!)

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Brennan91]

Personally, I do want DCC in my trains, which is mostly because I want to be able to run them at my local club layouts. Until I actually establish a decent layout for myself (or the space for a layout first) running trains at the club is the most fun for me. It is annoying to have to buy all the decoders though, so unless I really feel like automating my layout at some point I may not convert many trains. I will probably end up having a couple of ‘club trains’ and the rest be normal, or even multiple sets of the same train for DCC/Non-DCC.

[Nozomi329]

18 hours ago, disturbman said:

Who wants and/or can start a hobby where some locomotives are selling for 200 or 300€? I

I think they offer some sort of starter sets but Yes, European model prices are insane, at least many of them don't seem have enough details when comparing to models of similar price from Asia and NA. I wondered if production number caused this issue...

On 1/8/2022 at 8:07 PM, Kamome said:

if the train has the same or similar chassis to a train already produced in model form, it’s far more cost effective to use existing designs for current collection and light units etc perhaps with subtle changes to underfloor equipment.

Kato's 221 series 10-435 from the year 2014 is not marked as DCC friendly, while the renewal ones (10-1491 and more) are DCC friendly. On the other hand some newly designed products are not DCC friendly. I'm kind of curious about how they determine whether a train should be DCC friendly or not...

[roadstar_na6]

2 hours ago, Nozomi329 said:

I'm kind of curious about how they determine whether a train should be DCC friendly or not...

They roll the dice 😄

 

I'm so lucky my club's N scale layout is a mainly automated DC one and it'll stay that way, so I don't really have to bother with DCC conversations 🙂

[Arctic]

Orders from both RG-Rokko and ModelTrainPlus arrived today! Got the C57 to pull the SL Yamaguchi coaches alongside the D51 and some other Yamaguchi Line rolling stock past and present. Also got a 225 to run alongside my other Kosei Line trains. And now the people (imaginary at the moment) on my layout now have access to alternative forms of transport. 

 

 

Looking forward to running some trains this evening!

[railsquid]

Another tram for the tramline:

 

Tomytec Toden 7700 series (7702) by Rail Squid, on Flickr

[SL-san]

Microace D61-3 from Yahoo Japan via Zenmarket and DHL.  Although a 1997 release this "secondhand" model is in immaculate condition and runs well!

 

Graeme

 

[disturbman]

On 12/11/2021 at 8:13 PM, cteno4 said:

That’s easy 98101 gets you one of each! Did they issue it singly as well?

And in the end, I received the full set as a birthday present.

 

The livery doesn’t translate well to winter days for cellphone pictures, but the livery is very nice. Probably my favourite JR Hokkaido KiHa 40, even more to my liking than the four blessings.

 

It seems that Tomix changed the antenna sprue, as I remember another design. I was also surprised that 1791 needed to have a hole drilled right above the destination light box. I had two check twice to be sure I was not making a mistake and even wondered if Tomix hadn’t given the wrong guide, as the position was different on other JRH 40s.

 

I haven’t run it yet, I’m curious to see how the new motor compares to the older design. These are supposedly fitted with the new M13.

[JR East]

High grade seems really appropriate.

 

 

[disturbman]

It's. Imo, Tomix KiHa 40s are the best on the market, and their special liveries are always top notch. Now, if only they could make all their trains to that standard of quality...

[JR East]

Delivered today, my RGR order sent wednesday has arrived at noon.

 

This is a mix of my presents for Christmas and my coming birthday end of January. 

 

As usual, very well packed by RGR '(more than 4kg ...)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The full set of JR E533 Series

 

• The basic set is composed of 10-1522 + 10-1523, meaning 4+5 cars
• 10-1524 is the 3-cars add set 

 

 

Below, on the left hanside, the 3-cars set BUT, you must notice it's only a trailer set.

 

 

Doing a personal cherry-picking after downloading the assy, I questioned Masaharu. Thanks to him for his advises as he told me that a dedicated Assy to motor the 3-cars set was existing.

 

Always good to ask as initially, I was not doing the right choice in my Assy cherry-picking ... he's really a great specialist you can rely on. 

 

On the picture below : The basic set (with motor car) and the dedicated assy part for the 3-car set trailer. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then comes the Tomix  Hinotori 80000 Series

 

 

with the destination labels etc (well packed) ... puchased apart from other suppliers by RGR for me

 

 

 

 

 

a real nice looking trains with its intense glossy

 

 

 

 

to retrofit with TN couplers as I prefer having narrow spaces in between such a beautiful cars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tomix JR 103 series (98422 + 98423)

 

I rode it from Nara to Kyoto in 2010.

 

You can see it there

 

 

Once more, it's always good to ask your favourite dealer. RGR found it in stock despite it was marked 'Out of Stock' on the web site.  

 

 

Initially I was to order Tomix JR 103 series 97935 special release, but it's really out of stock everywhere and quite expensive on Yahoo Japan. 

 

 

 

 

An eventually a nice EF-210-100. 

 

This will perfectly complete my JRF collection composed today of : 

 

• EH-500
• EF64-1000
• DF-200

 

 

 

 

Thus, what remains to do now ? 

 

• First of all, do a test run just for the pleasure of it, 
• Stick all the destination labels (which is really easy to do) and other internal seatings stickers
  • There are also dedicated Densha.me stickers to make the internal beautiful, but I've no clue how complex it is to do it. Thus I've ordered a cheaper N'EX Stickers set at Densha. me to test first. If I succed in applying them on my N'EX, I'll see if I'm going to do the same for this marvelous Hinotori. 
• Install my KTILC leds in the Hinotori (I'm waiting for an add. delivery)
• Install all add parts, etc ... on my EF210 and my trainsets including short couplers

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by JR East
completed info & typo corrections