A British domestic train from Kato? 800 series available from May 2021

[njee20]

Yes. No one was questioning that? 

I'm not sure how I'd missed that Avanti are replacing the Voyagers with 805s. Need to see how similar they are to 800s and get repainting!

[woodbury22uk]

The release date for the new "Paddington in Peru" movie has been announced for November 2024. Mr. Kato might need to do a second run if the late February 2024 release of the Class 800 has sold through.

[Spanners70]

Great to see the Azusa 9 car avail to pre order at rails at last, looks like the wallet getting a beating. No doubt we will have other 9 car liveries along soon as well

[Newportnobby]

Huge value for money compared to a Farish 2 car unit

[model-railway-magic]

No doubt we will have other 9 car liveries along soon as well

GWR set is (informally) promised for later this year.

DCC and DCC sound fitted sets also available to pre-order.

[Kris]

No doubt we will have other 9 car liveries along soon as well

GWR set is (informally) promised for later this year.

DCC and DCC sound fitted sets also available to pre-order.

Given there was a 9 coach GWR set on show at Warley I would suggest that this livery is nailed on, just a matter of when.

[njee20]

The marginal cost for sound (and even standard DCC) appears extremely good.

[Paul J]

I think there is a lot to be said for Kato-style design clever models sold at lower prices for multiple unit style models. Are a lot of easily broken small parts really worth an extra £100?

[Steven B]

I agree that the Kato style of building models helps keep the price down, but lets not forget that Kato's batch sizes are significantly larger than anything the British based companies manage. This will help (along with simplified printing of livery detail) to keep prices down.


Steven B.

[jpendle]

I agree that the Kato style of building models helps keep the price down, but lets not forget that Kato's batch sizes are significantly larger than anything the British based companies manage. This will help (along with simplified printing of livery detail) to keep prices down.


Steven B.

Absolutely.

Amortizing costs of a run of 10,000 rather than 1,000 makes a huge difference.

Regards,

John P

[Paul J]

True regarding the run size, although presumably you might sell more models at a lower price. Not so much for locos, but for EMUs, you might run 2 or 3 units together instead of just one. The same could apply to block train wagons, where a closer to scale train might become.e affordable.

The cost saving is in the spec, so the profit margin would be maintained but with higher volume sales.

[njee20]

No. The cost saving is overwhelmingly in the volume. Skimping on detail, finish, clip together assembly, owning their own factories all help, of course. but the volume is the biggest part. We simply don't have the market size to say 'well let's just make ten times as many and sell them cheaper.

[Paul J]

When I look at a Kato multiple unit model, I do not see any qualitative difference with other makes, apart from the plastic pantographs. All RTR models have clip together assembly of the main parts. 95% percent of the detail for 80% of the price is a good deal. If you cannot afford 100% of the detail, that is even better. It is not as though Kato models are Triang or Lima.

Even with the same margin and volume, that is a less expensive model, even if not as cheap as Kato. We might even be able to avoid Chinese factories and have a shorter, more robust supply chain.

[njee20]

The Kato 800, good model as it is, is emphatically less detailed than something like the Revolution Pendolino which is a natural comparator (a 9-car being £390 it's about , partially in moulding (they have virtually omitted the bulky equipment boxes on the inner ends, and they're left unpainted), but also in finish; some small labels are missed off, they've not painted the handles on the underframe equpiment boxes yellow. They also eschew standards like native DCC compatibility, NEM couplings, RP25 wheelsets which many may not care about, but they all serve to keep cost down.

I'm not sure why we should aspire to moving away from Chinese factories, and it's naive to think we're on the cusp of bringing production back to the UK, just need to smash out 10 times the volume and leave a few details off.

The price on the 800 is great, at £340 in shops it's about 15% cheaper than a 9-car Pendolino.

Dragging us back on topic it's great to see Kato making further inroads (or extending their existing ones!) to British modelling, in the early days the 800 was marketed as "Kato British Railways", but that seems to have been quietly dropped. They already have some inside bearing bogies on the Amfleet coaches, so I'd be hopeful they'll conquer these on the new 800s.

[Steven B]

They also eschew standards like native DCC compatibility, NEM couplings, RP25 wheelsets which many may not care about, but they all serve to keep cost down.

To be fair, I doubt any of these has a big impact on costs.

Wheels will be made on a computer controlled machine which doesn't care what profile it's cutting. RP25 or 1970s era pizza cutters won't have an impact unless the former takes significantly longer to machine.

Most Kato units & locos have PCBs fitted - designing and making one that's DCC compatible is pennies more than a plain DC one.

NEM couplings might a little over the couplings used in between cars in a multiple unit but compared to the working buckeyes on their coaches and locos it's probably comparable.


The big difference (particularly with multiple units) is the simplified detail (hence fewer parts to cut from sprues and fit), careful use of livery coloured plastic (less painting/printing), fewer screws (clip together = faster). It's also why you'll find Dapol class 156 for less than a Farish 150 or 158.

The effect of detail vs price is visible within Kato's range. A basic Kato four car JR 103 EMU can be had for £75. A more detailed E231 (still four cars) is twice that.

It's interesting to see that on Kato's American and Japanese locos the price differential to Farish/Dapol/Revolution etc is less than on their multiple units.

Personally there's some bits of current models that I'd happily loose (cab and other interior lighting for example). I'm not sure I'd want to drop down to the level of Kato's class 800s. Perhaps we need some middle ground and for each of us to encourage ten of our friends to start modelling in N!

Steven B