Built this for the Warners model railway exhibition at the Birmingham NEC last year. Can you guess what it is?
The model, by the way, is the Metal Earth 'Imperial Shuttle'. Fun to make, if fiddly, then painted with acrylics for a more realistic finish.
I'd been looking for a diesel railcar for a while, and this particular model caught my eye because of its very attractive colour and high level of detailing. Thus far, I hadn't purchased any Tomix multiple units though, just locomotives and rolling stock. So, how would it stack up against my various Kato trains?
The KiHa 40 was one of a small family of diesel railcars (the 40-series) and multiple units (the 47- and 48-series) delivered to Japanese National Railways between 1977 and 1982. They were widely used across the network, across both 'cold' and 'warm' regions. Designed for use on suburban and rural lines, these units have enjoyed long lives with many still in service today. Seating is of a high density sort, a mix of upholstered longitudinal and cross benches. A few have been modified into 'Joyful Train' sets with much more fancy interiors.
This model shows one of the refurbished units used by JR West that feature, among other updates to the original railcars, bright white LED headlights and (on a plastic sprue) wireless antenna. As such, they represent the trains as used on lines around Okayama from 2017 onwards, also reflected in the 'nostalgic' vermillion or metropolitan livery.
What's in the box?
Plonked onto the track, the bright colour certainly works nicely, catching the eye. There are some printed details -- such as the buttons for opening the doors -- but they're quite small. I do wonder if a little bit of weathering would help here, for example, some inky washes to show up the moulded details a bit. Still, the livery looks good, including some silver and grey applied to things like foot steps and window frames.
Running quality is good thanks to the coreless M-13 motor and flywheel used. The motor is completely hidden underneath the visible part of the interior. It drives the two bogies via worm gears. It's a little noisier than some of my models, but not annoying at all. With a bit of running in, I expect that it'll settle in nicely. Response is steady even at quite low speed, and there's no stalling over the Kato points. Minimum radius is said to be 192 mm, but in any event handles my 315- and 348-mm radius Unitrack curves just fine.
Worth mentioning for those that care, there is a single traction tyre on each bogie. The bogies can be pulled out for easier maintenance. There's quite thick lubricant on the worm gear and the gear at the top of the bogie, but as icky as this looks, it seems to work fine.
Functional buckeye couplings are fitted to the cab ends for coupling up to trailer cars.
Switches on the underside of the train, just behind the bogies, can be used to turn head and tail lights off -- useful if you're running the unit along with a trailer car (the lights on the cab ends facing each other would not normally come on in such a situation).
As delivered, the model includes a fair amount of detail including snowploughs and some of the multiple unit jumper cables. But there are a lot of additional sprues provided. These include some underframe detailing parts, some for the roof, and some for the cab ends. The instruction leaflet is, of course, in Japanese. So, while you do have the diagrams to help, deciding what to do with many of these detailing parts might be a little intimidating!
On the other hand, this isn't all that unusual with Japanese model trains. To some extent, costs are kept down by leaving the modeller to add the more fiddly detailing parts. Not necessarily a negative, but something to consider if you're coming to this part of the N scale railroading hobby from, say, British railway modelling where (admittedly much more expensive) models have lots of plastic or metal detailing parts pre-fitted.
Overall, this is characterful little train that I'm glad I purchased. At the time of writing, RRP is 9,460 Yen (around £45) which seems fair. The somewhat startling number of sprues with detailing parts might put some people off, but even in its basic condition, I think does the job very nicely. The body lifts off easily, so adding a crew and some passengers shouldn't be hard, which should bring the model to life.
Sekisui Kinzoku first produced N scale models of Japanese prototypes in 1965, starting with a C50 steam locomotive and Oha31 passenger coaches. The rest, as they say, is history!
To commemorate their 60th anniversary, Kato have re-released another very early model from their range, the KiHa 20 diesel multiple unit. The model is offered in two liveries, standard JNR orange-and-cream (10-040) and Tokyo metropolitan all-over orange (10-041). Apart from differences in livery, the two packs contain slightly different models. The JNR orange-and-cream one contains two of the basic KiHa 20 railcars, each with a cab at each end. If you wanted to, you could run just the motorised railcar on its own, like you might see on a quiet branchline somewhere. By contrast, the Tokyo metropolitan is a proper two-car set, including one KiHa 25 (the motorised model) and one KiHaYuNi 26 combination trailer with passenger, baggage, and mail compartments.
But in an age where models feature working lights (not just headlights, but interior lights as well) and separately fitted details, are reissued models from such a long time ago worth buying?
The KiHa 20 series dates back to the immediate postwar era when the Japanese state railway had the problem of marrying their largest available diesel engine (the DMH17, with about 160 horsepower) with passenger coaches of suitable size. A welded, stressed-steel construction was required to reduce the weight of the coaches while retaining the strength and durability needed. The result was a series of railcars produced between 1957 and 1966 that ultimately numbered well over a thousand vehicles.
They were used throughout Japan, including Hokkaido. KiHa 20 was the basic model and featured air cooling, a lavatory, and small cabs at each end. These railcars were used singly or in multiple across the warmer parts of Japan from 1957 until 1991. KiHa 21 was a cold-resistant version for use on Hokkaido that had double glazing and better heating, but wasn't satisfactory, and in 1958 the KiHa 22 series was produced that was even better suited to cold conditions. These would remain in service until 1995.
By sacrificing one of the cabs, the KiHa 25 design could carry more passengers (88 vs 82), making them better suited to suburban work than the KiHa 20 series. These remained in service until 1987.
As you'd expect for a commemorative reissue, there's a definite nostalgia feel to this model. The outer packaging uses the older Kato colour scheme and typography. The models are supplied inside the usual transparent boxes, but the cardboard inserts are like the ones used on older Kato models, and if you remove the plastic moulding that supports the model, you'll find a yellow inspection certificate -- apparently like the ones Kato used to include with their early models. All very neat!
Apart from that, though, there's nothing but the trains themselves. No sprue with detailing parts, no transfers to add to destination blinds, or anything like that.
Once you take the models out of their packaging, their strengths and weaknesses become obvious. Almost all the details are moulded: the only exception seems to be the interconnecting door frames at each end. Other than that, the models are very basic. The roof looks fine, but the air vents are moulded on. The headlamps at each end are painted silver.
The bodywork is nicely moulded and painted, but with no details (such as lights or window frames) picked out in their own colours. There is also relatively little printing on the sides, though the depot affiliation apparently says 'Sekisui', reminding us that these are commemorative models rather than line-specific replicas. The underframe detailing is basic, and while looks quite good on the trailer car, it is very shallowly moulded on the powered car, presumably to allow space for the motor (see below).
The bogies feature standard Rapido couplings, but apart from taking the hooks (and springs) out you can't modify them. You can't, for example, replace these couplings with more prototypical ones like you can with modern Kato multiple units.
Performance is fine, but I don't think a coreless motor is used here, and compared with some of my other Kato models, this model is a little bit noisy. Not enough to make me not want to run it, but definitely not silent in the way that the best of the best models are nowadays. Slow speed performance is good though, and the railcar will travel around 15 cm radius curves reliably, though with a little bit of extra 'grinding' noise from the gears! On more typical curves, the train runs flawlessly in both directions, whether the motorised car is pushing or pulling the unpowered car.
Anything else lacking compared with modern trains? Well, the bogies don't have electrical pick-ups and the trains can't have interior lighting installed (without modification, at least). The lack of headlights or taillights is another obvious deficiency when we compare these models to Kato's more recent multiple units.
While the model itself is basic, to say the least, its Japanese price, ¥5,500 (around £25) should be borne in mind. For about the price of a round of drinks at the pub or a couple of takeaway pizzas you're getting a smooth-running, quite attractive two-car train in quirky packaging.
Kato deliberately market this model as not just a nostalgic model for experienced modellers but also a cheap, entry-level model for beginners. I think that's a really clever approach. If you're someone who expects high-end features in your models nowadays, you might happily buy this set just for its novelty value and to enjoy owning a bit of Kato history -- or at least, an imitation of an old Kato model!
But new modellers will find these models useful, too. Of the two paint schemes, I liked this one more because it has that classic anime feel, and you could easily imagine one of these railcars tootling down some rural branchline in Japan, with rice paddies on one side and a forested mountainside on the other.
Really, for the Japanese price it's hard to complain. By the time you add shipping and import taxes the deal might not be quite so sweet, though. Would I spend the UK RRP of £55 on one of these? I'm not quite so sure, especially when the much higher specification KiHa 52 railcar retails for about the same price. Admittedly, that's a single unit versus a twin-pack, but the KiHa 52 model has much nicer paintwork and working lights, plus the option to add interior lighting and replica buckeye couplings.
Built this for the Warners model railway exhibition at the Birmingham NEC last year. Can you guess what it is? The model, by the way, is the...
