New Gaugemaster Commissions - GWR Castle HST Set and more...

[pinball]

Such a shame that Kato haven't looked at HST and thought about releasing one....

I'd hazard a guess that as much as the HST is iconic in the UK, it would be of limited interest to the Japanese market. I drove and worked with HSTs for years and to say they are my favourite train is an understatement - but attempting to be impartial here, I'd imagine they'd be considered fairly archaic to the Japanese enthusiast / traveller compared to their bullet trains - even when they came out in the 70s. They were after all considered a quick stop gap to our APT project at the time.

I am no fan of the 800s as trains - but I can see exactly why Kato chose the model and why it would appeal to the Japanese market as well as the UK. I suspect the reverse equivalent would be that say Dapol was essentially the UK's Kato and 1) if N gauge was the major scale in the UK and thus production runs for N gauge were a lot bigger and 2) Dapol released a properly tooled Australian XPT, there would be a lot of interest in the UK, just as Kato are confident the 800 models will sell in Japan too. After all if Dapol could sell me a 7 or 8 car (including power cars) XPT for say about £200 I'd be snapping it up.

I cannot see Kato offering an HST happening however. There is of course no competition for 800s in N either, where as Kato would have to battle with Dapol and produce all the variants of HSTs people would want (prototype / early production sets / later production sets / buffered HSTs / new lighting clusters / 2+4s / Blue Pullman / Network Rail) and so on and all the variants of trailer vehicles such as TGS, TRUK, TRFB, TRSB and so on. I would like to be proved wrong however! Would they go for the current scene or the BR era or the post privatisation era with their first HST? If they were going for the "historic trains of the world" market it would be the blue and yellow livery and probably not much else.

I suspect Kato's plan somewhere down the line is to model other variants of 80x units and other Hitachi units, and push Unitrack and other Kato products with them. Since Hitachi essentially have the monopoly now on new "intercity" trains in the UK, I suspect Kato will be going down this route. Their platforms for example look utterly "Un British" with steps to track level rather than ramps - but looking at modern stations and station rebuilds (e.g. Reading) or on HS1 the Kato products do not look that dissimilar to railway modernisation projects in this country. And if the wider Kato range encourages more people into N-Gauge that is good for everyone, since even if people are modelling various 80x traction and modern stations and largely buying Kato, they'll soon want a Dapol 66, Farish wagons and a Revolution 387 too to go along with it.

[devonjames]

One has to wonder whether the models will arrive before or after the real ones have gone.  I was really keen to have one of these but, now the real ones are on the way out, i'm not so keen. Think I will wait for a Dapol cross country voyager......

There was a 4+2 set which came into platform 4 at Exeter St David's when I was there waiting for a train two weeks ago. 

[steadfast]

One has to wonder whether the models will arrive before or after the real ones have gone.  I was really keen to have one of these but, now the real ones are on the way out, i'm not so keen. Think I will wait for a Dapol cross country voyager......

There was a 4+2 set which came into platform 4 at Exeter St David's when I was there waiting for a train two weeks ago.

And by the end of the year, all the GWR HSTs will be gone

Jo

[pinball]

They are supposed to come out of service in December, but whether they will is anyone's guess, especially with the 769 programme abandoned. Plus I doubt Cardiff to London punters will be too impressed being crammed into London commuter EMUs (387s) either with no catering, first class and the full on true ironing board seating - so there will be some serious pushback there whilst 800s and 802s are released for essentially regional stopping services. And Laira deal with the Cross Country HSTs anyway which will still remain in service, so the infrastructure and staff remain in place to keep them running.