Just an observation on the price of things

[Snowwolflair]

You will note that Kato have opted for the Dapol Terrier and GWR 14xx and associated coaches as the running stock for their first two Kato British outline railway sets The Hayling Islander Starter Set and the Great Western Rambler Starter Set.

I am not sure if 'opted' is quite the right word here. As I understand it, these sets are the marriage between Dapol (who do not make N gauge track) and Kato (who do not make UK stock - nor as far as I know have any desire to enter what to them is a small market), arranged by Gaugemaster (the UK importers of Unitrack). I do not believe these sets are available in Japan ('squid can put me right here), but if they are Dapol's QC will need to improve markedly.

Definitely not available in Japan, and I've never seen any sign Kato is directly interested in the UK market, though they do certainly produce for some mainland European ones.

You can be sure if it carries the KATO logo is been approved in Japan.  As per you last post Farish Dapol Kato and probably Greenmax are the closest.  If you want to look at the "British" KATO sets follow the Train Trax advert from this site when it appears.

[Snowwolflair]

I also think part of the "toy" appearance is that the prototypes are very toy like in appearance.

http://www.mr-endo.com/lineup/brass/shitetu_kidousha/hot7000.html

The Japanese design culture and style in general is towards the colorful and visually appealing, with a degree of caricature in their design renderings.

[railsquid]

I also think part of the "toy" appearance is that the prototypes are very toy like in appearance.

http://www.mr-endo.com/lineup/brass/shitetu_kidousha/hot7000.html

The Japanese design culture and style in general is towards the colorful and visually appealing, with a degree of caricature in their design renderings.

Expert on these things are you?

[Snowwolflair]

Yes, I lived in the Far East for many years running factories, which is why I understand how and why the models are made the way they are, and I still travel there regularly and have a lot of Japanese friends.

[railsquid]

Well there you go then 

Out of interest, which model railway factories/manufactures were you involved with?

[Agrippa]

This is not attempt to restart the discussion on prices which certainly had run its course. Just an observation.
I needed a new chassis for my Farish GWR rail at and following advice on another topic on this forum I purchased a Tomy chassis direct from Japan using EBay. I only received it today and gave it a test run straight out of the package. I have to say this chassis oozed quality. Wonderfully smooth, quiet, wobble free, fantastic pick up and absolutely excellent slow running. It cost me just over £20 and the selling price in the UK is under £30.
My observation is that the rep of a Farish coach is £30 while the rep for a class 24 is £120. A difference of circa £90. The main difference between a coach and a diesel loco is that the loco has a powered chassis. In the context of the cost of the excellent Tomy chassis this price difference seems somewhat high. Ok there may be volume differences and locos have lights but the price difference seems high. Maybe UK manufacturers should design diesel locos around the already available Tomy chassis.

But you have done just that

[Snowwolflair]

You are aware that in China and Japan the "model railway part manufacturers" also make the plastic interiors of fridges, Hi-Fi, mobile phone parts in fact almost all types of engineered plastics, and my experience as an engineer is in products using electronics and engineered plastics, to a much higher standard and quality then we get in model railways.

[Claude Dreyfus]

Oh, I certainly don't dispute Kato approved these sets; they do contain Unitrack. These are simply tie-ins, and are not part of a move from Kato to enter the UK market. They do not feature on the Kato website, nor do they appear to be available outside of the UK. Traintrax is a Unitrack dealer,  therefore I suspect this is more to do with these ease of classification ; official Kato sets are US and Japanese.

P.S. Ironically the link you posted is to the ENDO site. They are one of the top-end Japanese manufacturers...that unit will set you back over £2,300 for the basic set!

[Agrippa]

You buy the Kato UK set, the track fits together perfectly and the engine
doesn't work.

[Snowwolflair]

P.S. Ironically the link you posted is to the ENDO site. They are one of the top-end Japanese manufacturers...that unit will set you back over £2,300 for the basic set!

I know, the choice was to make a point.  Every market has top and bottom, and the ENDO models look very real compaired to to the original.

[Snowwolflair]

You buy the Kato UK set, the track fits together perfectly and the engine
doesn't work.

Is this conjecture or slander.

You could get several businesses upset by such a post.

[Agrippa]

relax dude its a joke geddit!

[railsquid]

You are aware that in China and Japan the "model railway part manufacturers" also make the plastic interiors of fridges, Hi-Fi, mobile phone parts in fact almost all types of engineered plastics, and my experience as an engineer is in products using electronics and engineered plastics, to a much higher standard and quality then we get in model railways.

Happy to be informed. 

[belstone]

Several people have suggested that less fine detail on locos would bring the price down, but I'm not so sure.  I suspect the biggest single cost is tooling for the moulded plastic bodies.  I found a very old article on plastic vs cast whitemetal kits (1971) and Triang Hornby provided some tooling costs for their then-new 9F.  The cost for the loco body was £3000 - in 1971!  I should think prices in real terms will have come down since then, and Triang Hornby tooling was top quality for huge production runs, but even the tooling to make, say, 5000 locos is going to be big money, compared with paying Chinese workers to stick little bits of bent wire into holes.  As others have said, British "N" is a small market, so the tooling cost per item is going to be a lot bigger than on a Japanese model.

[Snowwolflair]

Tooling is a really interesting area and yes it has all to do with the cost.

soft tooling can make up to 10,000 shots (cycles of injection moldings) and hard tooling is hundreds of times more but more expensive.

In Hornby days the molds were made by hand,  I visited Airfix as a lad and saw them making kit molds.  These days the tooling is made by computerized systems, is just as expensive but is much faster to produce.

What causes the cost is the number of parts to the mold/tool.  Airfix kit is a two part tool, where as a locomotive body can have 5 to 8 parts and its the assembly, dis assembly of the tool pre and post the molding shot that increases the per unit cost.

The reason the Japanese make detail the way they do is to allow simpler molds and faster and cheaper injection molding cycles.