Kato 10-034-1 Old Passenger Car Set (Blue) Review

For the most part, this set mirrors the Kato 10-034 Old Passenger Car Set (Brown) set reviewed earlier, but it isn't the same four coaches painted a different colour. Instead, it's a sensible selection of three passenger cars and one postal vehicle that could run together behind a range of locomotives.

Background

These four coaches represent long-lived designs that lasted throughout the transition era well into the modern era before being almost entirely replaced by electric or diesel multiple units. The Suhafu 42, Oha 46, and Oyu 10 designs date from the 1950s, while the Oha 47 was an early 60s modification of old Suha 43 coaches running on lightweight bogies.

A bit like the initials used when describing British railway coaches (e.g., a Mk1 RMB would be a restaurant mini buffet car) Japanese coaches have names that indicate their general type and usage. The first character is the weight of the coach, the second its use, and the third, if present, indicates the presence of a conductors compartment. So, an Oha coach uses O for medium weight and Ha to show that it is standard (or third) class carriage.

The four coaches in the Kato 10-034-1 Old Passenger Car Set include two different medium weight third class cars, a heavyweight third class car with a guard's compartment and handbrake, and finally a combination baggage/mail coach that would have been used by Japanese post office workers, not passengers.

On Japanese railways it was actually quite common for mail to be carried in mixed trains alongside passengers. This car, an Oyu 10, was internally divided into two sections: one half (marked with the red post office symbols) was essentially a mobile sorting office, while the other half was for carrying large baggage. Traditionally, Japanese travellers didn't carry big items with them, things like golf clubs or bicycles would be sent separately. Sometimes these might travel in the same train as the passenger, but not often, and when you arrived at your destination you had to present a receipt, called a chikki, to collect your item.

As such, the coaches presented here are classic late-Showa era rolling stock. Mail stopped being carried on JNR in 1986, as did the chikki system for handling packages and large items of luggage. Since the blue livery replaced the earlier brown ('grape') livery from 1964, those two dates bracket the period through which these coaches might be seen running together. You could mix some of the brown and blue coaches together if you wanted to, and in fact there are even a few Suhafu 42 and Oha 47 coaches in blue that are seen on the mainline today, albeit behind (most often) steam locomotives such as D51s and C57s on special trains.

Kato 10-034-1 Old Passenger Car Set (Blue)

What's in the box?

• Oha 46 third class
• Oha 47 third class
• Suhafu 42 heavyweight third class + guard's compartment
• Oyu 10 mail/baggage coach
• Tool for turning off working taillights included

All come with Arnold Rapido couplings included as standard. Like the Kato 10-034 Old Passenger Car Set (Brown) these coaches can be upgraded to knuckle couplers (Kato 11-702) or magnetic couplers (Kato 11-711).

As they come, the Oyu 10 and Suhafu 42 each have working taillights at just one end. While that sounds 'cheap' it actually makes sense. If you want taillights, you make sure that coach is on the track with the lights visible at the tail-end of the train. Turn the coach the other way around and the lights won't come on, at least, not when being pulled forwards. That means you could add additional coaches to the train (for example, behind the Suhafu 42) but not have the taillights 'on' at the back of the coach (in this case, the Suhafu 42) sitting within the consist. So, it effectively gives you two ways to use the Suhafu 42 and Oyu 10 — one way round to have the lights on, and the other way around to have the lights off. 

Performance and detailing

There's not much to say about performance. Despite feeling relatively light, the coaches are very free rolling and handle relatively tight curves without derailing (Unitrack R282, for example). While some might find the Rapido couplings unsightly, they do exactly what they're meant to do, which is to keep the coaches together even in long trains at high speeds. Overall, pretty much what you expect from modern Kato trains.

Paintwork is excellent, featuring slightly different shades of grey on the roof, as per the prototypes. The roof on the Oha 46 is painted JNR Grey#1, the Oyu 10 Mouse Grey#1, and the Oha 47 and the Suhafu 42 both JNR Dark Grey.

The lettering is done neatly and includes white carriage numbers and red Japanese post office markings. Incidentally, the marking is a katana, テ, a legacy from when the post office was called the Teishin-sho. By the time these cars were running, the post office was part of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, or Yusei-sho, but the symbol remained unchanged.

The ends of the coaches with the working taillights are marked '49-4 Saitama Works' which indicates both the location of their last service and the date of that service, i.e., fourth month of Imperial era Showa 49 (= April, 1974).

In terms of detailing, these are good rather than perfect. Kato favour moulded detail for the most part, but the details that are present are done well. There are nicely made ventilators on the roof, frames around the gangways, and a surprisingly amount of detailing underneath the chassis including battery boxes and generators.

The bogies are especially nice, and while you might imagine all four coaches come with the same generic bogies, they are in fact supplied with the correct designs: the Oha 47 with the TR23, the Suhafu 42 and Oha 46 with TR47, and Oyu 10 with TR50 bogies. On the other hand, all four coaches come with standard disc wheels. In reality, the Oha 47 should properly come with spoked wheels, and some Suhafu 42 cars had spoked wheels and some had disc. Replacement spoked wheels are available (Kato 28-193) and simply slip into the bogies once the disc wheels are pushed out.

The coaches come pre-fitted with electrical pick-ups. The warm white LED lighting kits are the ones you want to install interior lighting; either Kato 11-213 for a single kit or 11-214 for the six pack.

Conclusion

As is often the case with Japanese model railway products, the pack is good value as it comes, but if you're prepared to spend some time and money, can be upgraded substantially.

There's a cleverness to this that feels very different to the 'one size fits all' approach seen in the British model railway market. Kato have a recommended price of ¥8,250 (about £39) for the four coaches, compared with an RRP of almost £48 for a single Graham Farish Mk1 coach. By that metric, the Kato coach pack is an absolute steal. Throw in a pack of spoked wheels (Kato 28-193, ¥2,640), four lighting kits (11-213, ¥792 each) and a pack of the basic knuckle couplers (11-702, ¥440) and that's a total of ¥14,498 (just under £70).

So, the price almost doubles if you want the coaches to be 'all singing, all dancing' ones with interior lighting, realistic couplings, and spoked wheels were applicable. Casual hobbyists probably won't care to spend the money since the coaches look absolutely fine as they come. With the extra money, how do they compare with the British ones? Well, the Farish ones have far more fine detailing including separately fitted wire handrails and pipes. British coaches tend to have more complicated liveries, too, especially the ones from the steam and transition eras. You also get authentic wheel sets and NEM coupler pockets right from the start, reducing or eliminating the need for tweaks after purchase. On the other hand, Farish coaches are not built for internal lighting and lack electrical pick-ups — unlike many of the coaches from the other big UK brand, Dapol.

To me, this exemplifies a lot of things about Japanese N scale railway modelling. Obviously, there's a lot of value for money, but also an acceptance that some modellers will be happy to spend additional money (and/or time) to upgrade the base model to a higher specification. There's a focus on producing a starter pack that includes four useful coaches that, by themselves, would make up a classic local or secondary mainline passenger train from the JNR era. Stuck behind a red ED75 or red/white DD51 you have a perfectly valid consist that doesn't need anything added to improve it. Just be sure to put the postal car behind the loco and the Suhafu at the end if you want to operate the train in the most prototypical way!

Kato E127-100 (10-1812) Review

Models of 'ordinary' commuter trains are not commonly offered to British N scale modellers, but Japanese modellers have lots of them to choose from. While such trains may lack the charisma of express trains or the muscle of big freight locomotives, the fact is, these are the trains most of us spend out time travelling on! While not a very numerous class (13 E127-0s and 12 E127-100s were built) the E127 looks to me every inch the unremarkable sort of train we wouldn't miss until it was gone.

Background

The E127 series of 2-car electric trains were introduced in 1998, intended as replacements for trains like the 165-series dating from the 1960s. Beyond technological advances, they had a number of practical advantages that made them better suited to increases in passenger numbers, including more and bigger doors per car that meant people could get on and off more quickly. Seating was a mix of transverse and longitudinal seating which provided more open space for standing passengers when the train was full.

While passengers appreciated the fact they could board the trains more quickly, they missed the more comfy seats on the older 165-series with its express train-style transverse seating. Even so, the E127 trains turned out to be extremely rugged and reliable trains. One incident in 2022 is notable, when a lightning strikes in the Niigata region crippled the brand new E129 trains on the Echigo Line and Hakushin Line. Some retired E127s were drafted in to serve the Joetsu Line, freeing up other E129s for the commuter lines. Despite being put to work on a steep, mountainous line they were not designed for — the E127s performed flawlessly.

My review concerns Kato's model of the E127-100 version of the train, designed specifically for the Oito Line and Shinonoi Line local services. These are notable for having a a 'de-icing' pantograph on one of the two cars. This second pantograph is only raised in icy conditions where it scrapes off ice and snow from the overhead wire. When it isn't needed, this pantograph is lowered.

Kato E127-100 (10-1812)

What's in the box?

• Powered KuMoHa 127 and KuHa 126 trailer
• Working headlight (can be switched on and off) on both cars
• Tool for accessing the light switch
• Features pantographs on both cars (unlike Kato 10-1811)
• Pre-fitted with standard Kato close couplers
• Optional 'denren' electrical connection boxes for the cab ends
• Optional coupler pocket pieces, A and B, specific to the E127 and E126
• Optional cab-end destination display pieces
• Set of stickers for the destination panels on the sides of the cars and priority seating
• 4-page instruction leaflet, in Japanese

Thankfully, none of the optional extras, even the stickers, are notable by their absence — so if you want to plonk the train straight onto the track and start serving your N-scale commuters, go for it.

This train is DCC-ready in the sense of being ready for Kato's proprietary slide-in cards (rather than sockets or drop-in replacement PCBs). Kato EM13 is needed for the motor car and two Kato FL12 chips are needed for lights at each cab. Optionally, you could fit a Kato FR11 to control the interior lights, if fitted. If you don't add one, the lights stay on all the time the train is on the track — which I think is fine, but might annoy some.

Incidentally, 'denren' is a nickname for the denki renketsu (or electrical coupler). When two units are coupled together, this box allows electrical controls to be shared between the units. If you've ever seen old railwaymen connecting up trains with jumper cables between sockets, you'll know that was quite a laborious task. The 'denren' opens up as the two trains join together, automatically connecting up all the different cables.

Performance and detailing

Performance is excellent, everything you expect from modern Kato, and in fact the new slotless motor used in this model is a smoother and quieter than the motor used in Kato's 2010 release of this train. No traction tyres are fitted, but they aren't necessary, since the motor is more than capable of moving a 2-car train around curves and up reasonable gradients. My train happily goes around quite tight R282 curves without problems. While the motor lacks a flywheel, there's no obvious downside, the slotless motor responding very smoothly to changes in voltage, even at low speed.

Like the 313-1300 reviewed earlier, this train features current collection across both bogies of the power car, but only a single powered bogie. The rationale for this is simple: a single powered bogie is ample for a 2-car train, and if you want to build this up with a second unit, it'd have its own powered bogie. Smaller, lower powered motors draw less current (putting less strain on the transformer) and lack the force to push or pull the other powered car if running at slightly different speeds.

A cosmetic advantage is that smaller motors can be hidden entirely in the bogie and chassis, ensuring the passenger cabin is completely empty. This allows for more realistic interior detailing. Like most Kato passenger trains, this model can be easily upgraded with cool white interior lighting kits (11-211). If you do this, you'll want to add some passengers — I used the cheap-and-cheerful mass produced ones you can buy online easily enough. While they lack the detailing you'd get on premium N-scale people, you'll have to cut off their legs to get them to fit inside the cabin of the car, so buying expensive people makes no sense. They look fine when glimpsed at through the windows!

Although the first E127s were delivered to JR East in 1998, the model represents the train as it looks from 2016 onwards when they were updated to more modern specifications. Most of the changes were internal, but modellers will notice changes to the underfloor equipment, the skirt around the front ends, and changes to the wiring on the roof of the trailer car.

If you look closely, you can also see one set of passenger doors on the trailer car are marked with blue accessibility signs for travellers with prams, pushchairs, and wheelchairs. On the real train, this is the door that station staff will take those users to, laying down a ramp if necessary. Just like on the real trains, Kato have left out one of the benches inside the door and blocked off an area for the accessible lavatory next to it!

Conclusion

Overall, what I like about this train is its thoroughly ordinary appearance. It's not fancy in any way, but looks exactly like train that has to work for a living. The fact it runs very smoothly and quietly, and required very little in terms of additional work before I could run it, just adds to its charm. There isn't (yet) a Sound Card for this train but the generic 'clickity-clack' card works well enough.

For ¥10,450 (about £50) the value is quite good compared to other Japanese trains. Maybe not an absolute steal in the same way as the Local Sen train pack reviewed some time ago, but still a fraction of what you'd pay for a 2-car multiple unit of a British prototype. I think it's worth highlighting the differences between this Kato model and, say, the Graham Farish Class 150 DMU. With an RRP of £250, that model is five times the cost of the Kato one. Is it five times better? Well, it comes with some significant features the Kato model lacks including a built-in speaker (for DCC sound) and 8-pin DCC slots in both cars (one for the motor car, the second for the trailer to control its lights). On the other hand, the Kato model is preconfigured for an easy internal lighting upgrade. Both models have some separately fitted details, but the Farish model is, somewhat, better appointed in this regard, and unlike the Kato model, the Farish one comes with all the necessary decals applied, including tiny ones on the windows.

While I don't think that comparison is unfair, neither do I think it tells the whole story. The UK N-scale market being vastly smaller than the Japanese one, and therefore runs of new models end up smaller and more expensive. Ultimately, the Farish model might be twice as detailed as the Kato one, but not five times so — that's more about the size of the Farish and Kato markets more than anything else. And which is more reliable? Time will tell, but Kato mechanisms are widely regarded as the gold standard in terms of durability and performance — something I'm not sure has been said about the Bachmann mechanisms used in Graham Farish models!

Kato 10-1932 313-1300 (Chuo Line - Kansai Line) Review

I bought this multiple unit secondhand while looking for something short but modern-looking, and ideally, with a Kato Sound Card available. Ticking both those boxes, the 313 series

Background

First built in 1999, the 313-series of EMUs were intended to replace older JNR designs that were, by then some 40 years old. Designed for the 1500V DC JR Central network, the trains feature stainless steel bodies and snowploughs making them well suited to the arduous and sometimes rather snowy conditions.

They are famously reliable trains. Stainless steel is strong and corrosion resistant, keeping the outsides in good shape. But they are also well designed on the inside. For a start, they use robust IGBT-VVVF inverters that handle changes in current and voltage very smoothly, keeping the AC motors in good shape and providing passengers with an almost silent ride. Electrical systems are distributed across the cars, so if something fails in one car, the other takes over. Note also the two pantographs on one car. Why not one pantograph on each of the two cars? During winter, the leading pantograph acts as an ice scraper, leaving the trailing pantograph to pick up the current. During the summer, the train usually runs with one of the pantographs locked down. In fact, the second car is merely a trailer: only the car with the pantographs has electric motors.

Overall, the train was designed to be a reliable, adaptable workhorse and has fully lived up to that expectation.

The 313-1300 series are based at the Jinryo Depot (near Nagoya) on JR Central where they run predominantly on two major routes: the Chuo Main Line (between Nagoya and Shiojiri) and the Kansai Main Line (between Nagoya and Kameyama).

On the Chuo Main Line they are usually operated in 4- and 6-car trains, and in peak periods these are coupled up into commuter expresses with up to 10 cars. However, 2-car trains like the one in the pack are used on the branchlines, often in the picturesque mountainous areas up north. When the trains are also used on the Kansai Main Line where they are sometimes used for 'one man operation' trains where passengers use a machine on the train to buy their ticket. Such trains serve small stations without ticket offices that might only see a hundred passengers a day, if that.

Kato 10-1932 313-1300

What's in the box?

• Two-car 313 1300-series electric multiple unit
• DCC-ready using Kato EM13 motor decoder (and FL12 function decoder for the trailer)
• Light kit ready for illuminated carriages
• Working head and taillights (can be switched on and off)
• Realistic click-together couplings rather than Arnold Rapidos
• Quite a large sheet of stickers for the destination blinds on the carriages
• Small selection of optional details including jumper cables and alternate destination blinds for the cab ends (Nagoya installed, Kameyama replacement)
• 4-page booklet (in Japanese) including a potted history of the class, instructions on how to fit the extra details, and suggestions of which Kato models to add to create longer trains

The train is basically ready to go as supplied, but adding the stickers to the destination blinds on the carriage sides would be more realistic. They are very small though, and fiddly to apply, so if you don't add them, I doubt anyone will notice!

Performance and detailing

As you'd expect for a modern Kato train with a slotless motor and flywheel, performance is excellent. The train pulls away slowly, almost silently, and very steadily. Perhaps more of an issue for some is the single powered bogie. You can see the compromise made here by the Kato engineers. On the one hand, a single powered bogie, with a single traction tyre, is bound to limit haulage somewhat. But on the other hand, but having a small motor in the one bogie, the passenger cabin is left completely clear, ready for illuminating with the optional coach lighting kit 11-211 and populating with little plastic people.

Having a single relatively small motor also ensures that the train works well if coupled with other multiple units. The real trains would couple up to other 313-series units, but also 211- and 315-series trains as well. If each unit had a very strong motor, a mismatch between them could cause them to push or pull at each other at high speed, derailing the train or pulling couplers apart. High current draws could also overwhelm the transformer.

In practice, the train runs perfectly well, and if you were adding another unit to make a 4-car train, the add-on train would have a motor of its own. So, unless you have ridiculously steep gradients, the single powered bogie shouldn't cause any problems. As far as going around curves is concerned, my train manages tight curves (R282 Unitrack) just fine.

Because the small motor used includes strong magnets, the model features a demagnetisation plate to prevent unexpected magnetic track triggers. This effectively blocks the magnetic field from the motor accidentally tripping anything that uses reed switches or magnets to work.

The leading bogies on each car feature a small snowplough. Potentially, this could foul anything on the track higher than the ballast, but mine seems to run smoothly. Still, you might want to run the train slowly at first, to see if it catches on things like level crossings or paved track sections. Unlike the snowploughs on some Kato stock, these ones are not removable.

Speaking of bogies, the outermost couplers sit in a sort of 'pocket' as part of Kato's body-mount telescopic coupler system. This means they only stick out a realistic amount when not in use. If you want to couple the unit up to another train, the coupler needs to be slid forwards. To do that, you turn the car upside down and slide the coupling forwards from behind. Now, when the train's couple up to another, the coupler can extend enough to allow it to go around tight curves, while settling back to a more realistic distance on straights. All very clever, and explained in the instructions — but of course in Japanese!

The model features JR Central's standard corporate livery, which the real trains have carried since their introduction in 2010. While the livery isn't complicated, it is well applied and looks very smart. The interior of the coaches are not painted and may benefit from a little work if you're going to add people and light up the coaches with the lighting kits.

Conclusion

This little train has quickly become one of my favourites. The colour scheme is low key but attractive, and the illuminated headcode and headlights make it a fun train to watch. 

It's interesting to compare this EMU to equivalent models sold in the UK of British prototypes. If we look at the (admittedly excellent) Revolution Trains model of the BR Class 313, a three-car train goes for around £300. The specification for these is extremely high: electrical connections between all three cars, more and finer details, and nothing for the user to add to complete the model. The Kato model is listed at ¥10,780 (about £50) and only has two cars and a single powered bogie, but the result is a much more affordable model.

I'm on the fence about which is the 'best' approach but the different approaches taken by British and Japanese model train manufacturers is certainly striking.

Kato 803 SuYu 44 Mail Car Review

I can't quite remember where I picked this wagon up! I remember it was cheap and evidently quite old, featuring the older style Kato packaging. Perhaps from the 70s or 80s, given the 3-digit code (803) compared with the 4-digit codes used nowadays?

While it looks like a freight car of some sort, it turns out that JNR built these to be run at passenger train speeds. A simple, plain wagon that actually turns out to be quite interesting...

Background

Before the SuYu 44 car, post and packages were transported in smaller packages that were unloaded at stations through carriage or wagon doors. This was very slow, and mixed trains (that is, trains carrying both passengers and cargo) would be delayed for 10 minutes or more while this happened.

What the SuYu 44 car (and its relatives like the more general purpose SuNi 41 car) did was allow for 4-wheeled steel box pallets of cargo to be quickly loaded and unloaded at stations and depots. This was because the side panels could slide, allowing access to the entire interior quickly. Up to 24 pre-sorted pallets could be unloaded in under two minutes! This allowed JNR to speed up trains by reducing delays.

Classic cargo for SuYu 44 cars was letters and parcels. Unlike the superficially similar SuNi 40 cars that could be found in mixed trains, SuYu 44 cars were only used in trains running at express speeds. These would be either passenger trains (including sleeper trains) or dedicated mail trains.

Introduced in 1971 these cars remained in service until the end of express baggage and postal service trains on JNR by 1987. Legally, they belonged to the post office and not the railway, so after mail stopped being carried on the railways, they became redundant. Like the SuNi 40 cars, the SuYu 44 cars were basically 'all doors' they couldn't easily be converted into anything else, so once their purpose was gone, they were soon scrapped. The problem was that the doors were not rigid enough to be cut into, so they couldn't have windows cut into them or racks attached to them.

Kato also produce SuNi 40 and 41 cars that could be used to create a realistic mail-baggage train of the sort that ran through the late 1960s into the early 1980s. The SuNi 41 with its conductor compartment would be marshalled at the end of the train, the cabin turned away from the rest of the train.

Kato 803 SuYu 44 Mail Car (now Kato 8026)

What's in the box?

• Just the wagon!

Note that this is a really old model. The number on the jewel box is 803, but Kato use 4-digit numbers now. To get this model now, you'd want Kato 8026 (the current Kato 803 is apparently an HO-scale hopper!).

The wagon is pretty plain. JNR passenger blue on top and down the end faces. The sides are unpainted aluminium. Nicely printed markings on the sides include the designation and wagon type in kanji characters. This spartan appearance in keeping with the real things which were quite plain to look at. No doubt this model would benefit from some weathering, but as it stands now, it's a simple but functional wagon.

Performance and detailing

Not much to say about performance beyond the fact the wagon runs well. It's a very smooth runner in fact, and even a small tank engine like the C11 can haul this wagon as part of a train of 15 wagons without showing any signs of trouble.

The most notable feature is that the bogies have built-in Rapido couplings. If you want knuckle couplings, you can add them using Kato Parts 28-187 Knuckle Coupler. Unfortunately, the side doors don't open, but that's offset by the crisp moulding and decent paint job. The printing, as far as I can tell, is just about readable, but rather limited.

Conclusion

While the car itself isn't particularly interesting, even brand new these only go for ¥900 (well under £5) which makes them an absolute bargain.

Suppose you were operating a branchline layout. Both the Kato 10-034 (older brown cars) and Kato 10-034-1 (later blue cars) have potential. You'd want to remove the SuYuNi 60 from the brown car pack or the OYu 10 from the blue car pack since those are mail/baggage cars already. The remaining three cars can now be used with the SuYu 44 (usually right behind the locomotive) to create a situation where mail was being carried to a regional sorting depot off the mainline. A C11 would be a good pick for the brown car era, while something like a DD51 or DE10 could be used for with the blue cars.

You could also run this car mixed in with vintage mail coaches (such as the Greenmax Oyu 12 ones), some SuNi 40 cars, and a SuNi 41 at the end. This would represent a typical mail train of the era, the older brown cars gradually being replaced by the later blue cars. On electrified railways, the EF58 would be a good engine to haul such a train; otherwise, the ever-popular DD51 will do the job nicely.

One last thing

Don't confuse the SuYu 44 for the very similar SuNi 40 cars. While the former were strictly used by the post office, the latter were used to transport a variety of things including luggage and newspapers. They were used on a wider variety of trains including freight trains, usually marshalled at the head-end just behind the locomotive.

Solving the mystery of the derailing Yakumo

As mentioned in my review of Kato's 273-series 'Yakumo', one frustration was the tendency of the 8-car set (Kato 10-2000) to derail.

Snowplough?

This is definitely one possible source of problems. If you look at the photo below, it's obvious that the snowplough is very close to the track. Unitrack laid flat on a table won't be a problem, but on a scenic layout you will need to check for anything the snowploughs could catch on.

Removing the snowplough is easy enough, but do be careful to wiggle it free: it's a clip-on detailing part, and if you pull too hard, the clips will snap off. Ask me how I know!

Alternatively, you could file back the snowplough to reduce its depth. As you can see in the photo below, there's certainly enough plastic to make this possible without weakening the part too much. Only the leading cars have snowploughs. I found filing back less than 0.5 mm made enough of a difference to be worthwhile. Okay, the snowploughs are now a bit smaller than they should be, but they're still there, which is better than removing them completely!

Couplings?

The couplings do a lot of work in this set, and as the picture below shows, the set is able to turn around quite tight corners while also tilting (a feature of the real trains).

The couplings within the set, i.e., not the ones on the cab ends, work without problems. The ones at the cab ends are a bit different and need to be pulled forward before they will work. There's a black sliding cover underneath that needs to be pulled back to release the grey plastic coupler. Once that's done, the coupler will work reliably.

If you don't do that, the train will derail as soon as it hits a curve. That's because the coupler won't be able to move from side-to-side properly.

Bogies?

While doing the things listed above helped, they didn't 'fix' the train completely. It wasn't until I looked at the bogies until that happened. I noticed that the bogies aren't symmetrical front and back. On a whim, I wondered if turning them around would make any difference. Amazingly, it did! Suddenly, the train was mostly running around an oval of Unitrack without derailing.

So, I looked at the bogies to see if there was a reason why this should be. If you look at the photo below, you can see the a clip in the centre that holds onto the chassis. Towards the bottom of each bogie, a plastic rectangle that ends in a clip. This is the bit would hold the snowplough if the bogie was on a driving car.

You can also see on the bogie on the right a small light grey circle sitting inside a recess. This appears to be from the moulding process and doesn't do anything. I wondered if it was catching on something as the bogie moved. It certainly felt a bit rough. So, I took a needle file and got rid of it, as you can see on the bogie on the left. While I was at it, I used a round needle file to make sure the circular clip in the centre was nice and clean, and then a flat needle file to smooth off the top of the plastic rectangle.

I also checked that the underside of the chassis was right, too. In the next photo you can see the brass strips that press onto the electrical contacts on the top each bogie. These carry the current from the track into the passenger car. This will be used for the headlights (on the driving cars) and the internal lighting (if fitted). Curiously, the brass strips are bent on the passenger cars (left) but flat on the driving cars (right).

Anyway, once the bogies was tidied up as described above, the result was transformative! 

'Yakumo' fixed?

As I write this, my Kato 273-series 'Yakumo' has been running around my scenic layout for about an hour at half-speed without any sign of trouble. It hasn't derailed once. Compared with before, this counts as a fix, and brings this Kato train into line with all my other Kato trains.

Kato 10-1999 and Kato 10-2000 Yakumo Limited Express Review

This isn't just a new release from Kato, but a new train on Japanese Railways. Released in March, 2025, Kato have produced two versions, a 4-car starter pack (20,350 Yen) and an 8-car special edition (38,500 Yen) in a slip case.

Background

The 273-series 'Yakumo' is one of JRWest's newest trains. Operating between Okayama (on the San'in Main Line) and Izumo (on the Hakubi Line) the route passes through numerous towns as well as famously beautiful scenery. However, earlier generations of rolling stock had a reputation for being a bit shaky and uncomfortable. So, the new 'Yakumo' trains were designed, therefore, to be much more smooth as well as fast. The big, comfy seats can be rotated so that they can either be airplane-style or face-to-face for groups traveling together, and the bathrooms are spacious enough for people in wheelchairs to use easily.

Mechanically, these are tilting trains (something the Kato model replicates) with a maximum speed of 120 km/h (about 75 mph) that operate on 1500V DC. Their livery is unique, a sort of coppery-brown with cream around the windows and a distinctive white cloud design on the sides and cab ends that represents the 'Yakumo' branding.

Kato Class 273-series 'Yakumo' (10-1999)

What's in the box?

• One powered car and three unpowered cars
• Accessory pack including replacement one pair of folding doors and a single gangway piece
• Sticker sheet including destination signs
• Class 273 information booklet
• Instruction leaflet

Described as the Starter Pack version of the train, at 20,350 Yen this is also the cheaper of the two 'Yakumo' trains produced by Kato. It is presented in the cardboard box and expanded polystyrene tray as their other budget offerings, such as the freight car starter pack and the old-style passenger train pack. So, it's easy to store this train pack alongside those on the same shelf.

The cars need to be pushed together on the rail for the couplers to engage with a 'click'. Once that's done off the train goes! Performance is excellent thanks to its slot-less motor, pretty much what you'd expect from any modern Kato train. Cab-end lights come on with minimal current and stay uniformly bright as the train accelerates smoothly.

Externally, the models match our expectations from Kato. The paintwork and printing is excellent, though there has been some discussion as to how effectively the paint on the model matches the glossy, even metallic, finish seen on the real trains. I'm on the fence on this one. When we're looking at model trains on a layout, every 30 cm we stand away from the model is 45 m in the real world, and colours look different as distance increases.

Otherwise, these are nice trains. As is often the case with Kato trains, there are a couple of upgrades available using optional parts available from the usual suppliers. For a start, there's the addition of interior lighting, for which Kato recommend the 'warm white' lighting kits. You'll need at least four of the single-piece pack (#11-213) for a four-car set, although the 6-piece pack (#11-214) is better value if you can use the two spare lighting kits on other trains.

The other upgrade uses #28-220 to replace the lighting boards for the headlights at the cab ends. On the real trains, when two units are coupled together, the headlights of the two cabs that face each other stay illuminated, regardless of speed or direction of travel. This is a safety feature apparently, lighting up the area around the platform where the streamlined cab ends create a gap where somebody could fall into. I've not tried out this upgrade, but there's a nice overview on another blog, here.

According to the instruction leaflet, the set can be made DCC-compatible using #29-351 for the motor, #29-352 for the head/tail lights, and #29-353 for the interior lighting (if installed). These are replacement circuit boards for the analogue boards already fitted.

Kato Class 273-series 'Yakumo' (10-2000)

What's in the box?

• One powered car and seven unpowered cars
• Accessory pack including replacement two pairs of folding doors and a two gangway piece
• Sticker sheet including destination signs
• Some sort of screwdriver-like tool, perhaps for switching on/off the headlights
• Class 273 information booklet
• Instruction leaflet

Although basically similar to the 4-car Starter Pack, I found the 8-car train a bit more problematic. Livery and performance are the same, but the lack of English-language instructions caused some initial frustration!

For a start, two of the cab units have non-working couplings. These look like small, grey, L-shaped pieces of plastic. They (and the grey pockets they clip into) can be removed and replaced with standard couplings and pockets, but since the 'Yakumo' only operates as 4-, 8-, and 12-car trains, there's no real point to doing so: just make sure these driving cars are at the ends of your train.

The other two cab units are the ones with working couplings seating in black pockets. However, as supplied the coupling is recessed slightly so its doesn't flop about when used as 'dummy' couplings at the end of a 4-car train. So, you need to slide the pocket forwards to release the coupling, which now becomes longer and much more flexible. If you don't do this, the trains will couple up just fine, but as soon as the train hits a curve it'll derail because the couplings don't move.

Apparently, this approach is not uncommon on Kato trains, but I'd not come across it before. Well, 'today I learned', as they say!

Once this hurdle had been overcome, I still found the train derailing, though this time only at one particular spot. It turned out that one of the snowploughs kept catching on a piece of rail. In fairness, this was at a joint between two boards, so the railhead might well have been fractionally out of line. But none of the snowploughs on the other 'Yakumo' units caught themselves here. Odd.

There may be an issue with the moulding of these pieces, as similar observations have been commented on, here and here. As it happens, the fix was easy. The bogie unclips and that allows the snowplough to be detached easily. A few strokes with a file reduced the thickness of the snowplough, and when it was put back into place and the train reassembled, it ran flawlessly.

The photo below shows the underside of one of these cars: the coupler can be seen as well as the wedge-shaped snowplough and the headlight switch.

Unlike the 4-car pack, the 8-car pack only includes two driving cars with through doors (or, at least, the open doors and gangways needed to replicate them). The other two driving cars cannot be adapted in this way, and furthermore, are fitted with non-functional (but more prototypical) couplings. This means that these two driving cars must always be at the ends of the train, whether it's being operated as a 4-, 8-, or 12-car unit. So, if you choose to combined this train pack with #10-1999 to create a 12-car unit, the four cars from #10-1999 need to be sandwiched in between the two 4-car units in #10-2000.

Fitting the gangways isn't too difficult but the replacement doors are very thin and easily snapped -- please don't ask me how I know! You start by removing the body shell from the chassis, then gently sliding out the cab detailing part. The piece of plastic that forms the sealed doors unclips and falls out the front, revealing a space into which the corridor connection clips. The whole process takes 5-10 minutes, and as you can see from the picture above, looks quite good despite the inevitable gap between the two cars.

 Conclusion

Despite one or two mishaps along the way, once the couplers were sorted and the snowplough fixed, the train ran beautifully.

Detailing is mostly moulded, as is typical with Kato, but there are some separately fitted details worth noting beyond the doors and gangways already mentioned, such as the pantographs. There are no fewer than four of these on each 4-car unit! All can be raised and lowered as needed. As far as I can tell, only two are normally used on the real things at any one time.

There's a Kato Sound Card for the 'Yakumo' train that includes a number of authentic sounds to add to your driving experience. The card has both controller priority mode and sound synchronisation modes. In controller priority mode, you drive the train as normal, and the Sound Box reacts to things like curves and gradients automatically, for example, by having the motors 'whine' more as they work harder. In sound synchronisation mode the train speeds up and slows down more realistically, and the Sound Box plays the appropriate sounds (such as brakes and motors) as it does so. There are three horns available, one of which has a nifty Doppler effect which works nicely when the train is zipping past you.

Kato 10-1764 KuMoHa 52 Iida Line train Review

Kato currently produce two different versions of the KuMoHa 52 series: the first batch (#10-1764) and the second batch (#10-1765). While similar at first glance, the most obvious differences include the windows (smaller on the first batch) and the air vents on the roof (circular on the first batch and a mix of circular and rectangular ones on the second batch). This review looks at #10-1764, the first batch trains.

Background

Built in 1936 and 1937, the KuMoHa 52 series was initially used for fast passenger services around bit cities, particularly Osaka. The first two batches had streamlined front ends that very much reflected the sensibilities of the time. However, with a maximum speed of 95 km/h the streamlining didn't really offer any practical benefits, and a third batch of trains was built with conventional front ends. Inside the trains sported wooden panelling, electric lighting, limited overhead luggage storage, and nicely upholstered seats.

Kato are modelling the trains as they were seen on the Iida Line between 1957 and 1983. This 1500V DC line runs for about 121 miles, much of it single track, and is famous for its attractive scenery and seemingly deserted stations.

Kato KuMoHa 52 (10-1764)

What's in the box?

• Powered driving car and three non-powered cars
• Jumper cables on plastic sprues
• Iida Line booklet

The first thing that grabs your attention is the livery. The combination of blue and cream works really well. It is neatly applied with sharp edges where the two colours meet. Apart from the pantographs, there are no separately fitted details; handrails, etc., are all moulded. Each of the driving cars features one large headlight on the roof and two small red tail lights below the front windows. Removing the body reveals a switch that allows you to switch off the lights if you want to (useful for driving cars in the middle of 8- or 12-car formations).

All the cars are equipped with couplers based on the 'old national' type of coupling used on the Japanese multiple units. These are slightly fiddly to use: they click together just fine, but pulling them apart can require an alarming amount of force.

 is as expected for a modern Kato train. The slotless motor and brass flywheel ensure a smooth, steady response to the controller. Maximum speed is considerably above that seen on the real things, and a slightly lower gearing would have been better. But with that said, the trains move smoothly at low voltages, so this isn't a major problem.

As is usual with Kato coaches and multiple units, you can add internal lighting if you want to but it doesn't come supplied as standard. All the bogies have electrical pick-up, the wheels having pin-point axles that press onto copper contacts.

Like the coaches in the 4-car pack from Kato, this train comes with non-prototypical disc wheels rather than spoked wheels. If you want to replace them with authentic spoked wheels, the ones with 13.2 mm axles are the ones required for these older units. As far as I can tell, you can only replace the un-driven wheels on the trailing cars, not the driven wheels on the power car.

Also included in the box is a leaflet about the Iida Line and the Unitrack assortment produced to replicate it. If you have 210 x 110 cm available, it looks a lot of fun!

The train is presented in a foam-lined slip case for easy storage. A bit larger than a paperback book, this is easily stored on a bookshelf and should keep your train safe when out of use.

Conclusion

This a lovely 'old timer' sort of train that will surely grace many layouts. On the plus side, the paintwork is attractive and the moulded detail nice and sharp. Quibbles about maximum speed aside, the train moves quietly and smoothly across the power range thanks to a well-built mechanism.

The two main negatives are more about what's not included but available as upgrades: the spoked wheels and the internal lighting. I'm on the fence about the couplings. They seem to work well but don't look especially durable.

Definitely worth mentioning is the existence of a Sound Card for this type of train. This adds some excitement to driving the train, but doesn't, perhaps, offset the lack of a DCC slot or easy DCC upgrade.

RRP is 19,030 Yen, around £100, which feels like good value for a four-car train.

Kato 10-1345 KuMoHa 11 200 Nambu Branch Line 2-Car Set Review

This model was bought with a specific project in mind. Not having the space for anything serious, I thought about creating a Japanese-style layout on a circular piece of wood I'd come across in a charity shop. What I needed was a quaint railcar or EMU to run on it, something happy to go around a circle of track just 30 cm in diameter. Although not the most colourful train that Kato produce, this unit does the job and has some nice details and an old-fashioned look that make it a charming addition to the fleet.

Background

Built at various points during the late 1920s, these sets were ordered by the Ministry of Railways to replace older wooden-bodied units (the DeHa 63100 series). Although those units had worked well, building wooden bodies had become expensive after an earthquake increased demand for timber, and on top of that, wooden bodied cars didn't provide much protection for passengers during collisions.

The new railcars used standardised underframes and bogies. Steel plates were attached to the frame of the body using rivets, while additional strips of steel reinforced the plating around the windows. Additional ventilation was added to the roof, while curtains were added to the windows instead of shutters.

Maximum speed was 95 km/h. Seating was third-class throughout.

Kato 10-1345 KuMoHa 11 200-series

What's in the box?

• One powered car with pantograph and one unpowered trailer car
• Working headlights and taillights
• Sprue with assorted plastic parts such as cables and ATS gear
• Sticker sheet including train numbers and destination headcodes suitable for the Nambu branch and main lines, the Tsurumi line and the Ome line

On the one hand, the colour scheme isn't the most exciting. The seating inside the cars is plain off-white plastic looks very plain. As per the prototype, the seating runs longitudinally along the car, and other than these 'benches' there's really not much to see inside the cars. On the real things, the upholstery is blue, so painting them is certainly one possible upgrade. Adding some seated passengers, and a driver in the cab, would also make a big difference.

But on the other hand, the models themselves are cleverly designed and include some excellent features. Starting with the underframe detailing, there's a lot to see here, including all sorts of pipes and rods. The wheels are spoked and look very nice indeed.

The couplings are used are not Rapido couplings but adaptations of the classic Japanese Shibata coupler. These work well, but you can't easily join them together on very tight curves (such as 15 cm radius Unitrack). I ended up replacing them with home-made neodymium magnet couplers that do the job nicely on circular layouts. That aside, what's really impressive about the couplers is the 'kinematic' hinge they're attached to on the body, rather than the bogies. This clever device allows the couplings to swing freely, while being gently centring, keeping the cars quite close together even on tight bends.

Inside the power car there's a motor with two flywheels, connected via cardan shafts to both bogies. Electrical pick-up is via the pin-point bearings on all eight wheels of the power car. There are no traction tyres, but haulage is more than adequate for the two cars in the unit and a couple more unpowered cars if you wanted to add them (Kato #10-1347, Tsurumi Line 2-Car Extension Set).

On both cars, the body unclips to reveal a couple of extra goodies. One is a small switch for turning on and off the headlights and taillights. This is useful when coupling together two sets to make a four-car train: the lights on the inward-facing cabs would not normally be in use, so shouldn't really light up when the train is running.

The other useful fixture are the standard Kato lighting kit attachment slots. As always with installing these kits, the instructions are somewhat generalised so a certain amount of fettling may be required, but once installed, the results are worthwhile.

Conclusion

As the video above hopefully shows, this is a decent model that works astonishingly well even on ridiculously tight curves. The motor isn't quite as silent as some of the more recent ones used by Kato, but the noise it makes isn't obtrusive by any means.

 While the styling and livery might best be described as workmanlike, as an 'old time' model this is a useful little train for suburban branchlines set anywhere between the 1920s and 1970s.

Kato Roundhouse 10-913 485-Series 'Kirishima - Hyuga Type' Review

Bit of a labour of love this one. While picked up inexpensively as a secondhand model, the sellers description that it 'ran' was only true in the loosest sense of the word. With only a single bogie working, and even that one growling and offering insufficient traction, the train just about crawled along, and needed occasional nudges to keep going. But after a few false starts, the model was fixed and now runs quite well.

Background

For me, this is an example of one of the most characteristic Japanese electric trains. Built between 1964 and 1979 across several different series, the type lasted in regular service until 2017. A few soldiered on on special services until 2022. They were intended to work on both AC and DC routes at up to 120 km/h, though the type could apparently reach speeds of up to 160 km/h safely.

The design was based on the earlier 151-series, and the earlier 485-series trains had similar front ends including the long, streamlined nose. From 1972 onwards, they were instead built with more flattened front ends that made it easier to couple two units together to form a single train. One distinctive feature of the type is the illuminated headboard panel at the nose, which in typical Japanese style has both the name of the train and some sort of colourful artistic flourish.

Inside, the trains were equipped to provide a comfortable environment in both hot and cold weather. The standard train comprised 11 cars including two first class cars and a dining car.

This particular model, however, is of a three-car variant as it operated between 2000 and 2011 on as the Kirishima & Hyuga limited express between Miyazaki and Kagoshima in the Miyazaki Prefecture on the southern tip of Kyushu.

Kato 10-913 485-Series 'Kirishima - Hyuga Type'

 What's in the box?

• Two Kuha cab cars with working headlights, taillights, and illuminated headcode
• One powered Moha car with pantograph

The model didn't come with any extra parts. The instructions are printed on the back of the box. One cool feature though is that the illuminated headboard can be rotated using a very small flat-head screwdriver inserted into a small hole under the nose. The model can also be upgraded for internal lighting using the Kato 11-201 kits. 

Although the model is equipped with headlights, taillights, and the backlit headboard, these are barely visible until the train is running at close to full speed. That's a bit disappointing since they add a lot of character to this sort of train.

Getting the thing running properly again!

As it came, the model barely ran and one of the couplings was broken.

Replacing the broken coupling, at least, was easy. A set of Kato 11-705 Type B Black Couplers was bought from TrainTrax and arrived within a couple of days. The broken one was pulled out, and after assembly, a new one pushed into the receptacle. So far, so good!

Getting the model running properly was more of a problem. One problem was a missing cardan shaft between the motor and one of the bogies. The motorised unit drives both bogies, and each bogie is connected to the motor via a green cardan shaft that has a similar sort of fitting at each end. The bogies pop out easily if pulled and twisted slightly, and presumably at some point in its life, the owner of this model had done that and lost one of the cardan shafts.

So, after rooting about the Kato website, I managed to find the cardan shafts used on the current 485-series models. I ordered a pack, and again, TrainTrax delivered them in a couple of days. But alas, they were not the right sort, as you can see in the picture above.

After a couple of emails to Kato, one of their engineers offered a solution! This particular model has been out of production for a while, and spare parts aren't available. But a different sort of bogie, ASSY #41912ZD1, would fit the model and had the right sort of cardan shaft. The engineer was absolutely right, and after receiving these from Kato, I popped them into the train and put it on the tracks. Off it went!

The story isn't over yet, though. While the motorised car now ran beautifully, the replacement bogies were designed for a different sort of train. The couplings were set back so far that it couldn't connect up to the two unpowered cars. Or rather, they'd connect on a straight, but as soon as the train hit a curve, it would derail.

With the couplings pulled out from their clip fitting, and then pushed in only a little bit, they could be glued to about the right length. Superglue did the job, and once dried, the bogies were put back into the train and tested. All went well! 

While the bogies aren't the same colour as the originals, that can be easily fixed with some black paint. The main thing is that the model runs and brings a delightful splash of colour to the layout.

Conclusion

Operation is pretty good. Overall, the model runs smoothly, if not quite as quietly as the latest Kato trains. The motorised car seems to have no problems hauling the two unpowered cars. As mentioned above, the lighting is lacklustre, but otherwise this is an attractive train well worth the effort it took to get up and running.