Japanese Auction Wins...

Ok, well as promised yesterday my next package turned up today (this was from Jauce, yesterday's was from 'From Japan').

This shipment was less PlaRail and more 'Model Trains' if that makes sense?!?

Firstly we have some ZJ Scale trains these are made by Akia and were originally sold around 2006 in those 'blind boxes' that Super can't get to grips with. However it is possible to buy complete sets of the trains - new, but taken out of the blind boxes if you get my drift. These are different from my previous ZZ Trains in that the scale is bigger at 1/200 scale as opposed to the ZZ scale 1/300 or N scale at 1/150 so they fall slightly in between.

These trains though sold in 'blind boxes' are a revelation, the quality and finish/detail on these is absolutely stunning, very much on a par with the mainstream N scale trains from the likes of Kato and Tomix. The other big difference to the ZZ trains and PlaRail is they use powered metal rails just like N scale and in fact are fully compatible with Z scale offerings from the likes of Marklin and Fleishmann (German manufacturers).

The blind boxes are normally random and each box would contain one random car which could be a standard 'coach', 'coach with pantographs', 'motorised car (again with pantograph) or a 'head/tail car'. In all cases they come with either a straight or curved piece of track. A full train consists of 1 power car, 1 pantograph car, 4 standard cars, and head/tail cars - so 8 in total, although of course you could add more unpowered cars of your choice or maybe even a second 'consolidated' train as some japanese trains are.

Anyway enough of my rambling, here's some pics to whet your appetites;

Head/Tail car and motorised car




Motorised Car


Standard Coach


Head/Tail Car


Unpowered Pantograph Car


Alternative 'Hitachi' colour scheme


Power Controller (I need to get a new power supply as it ships with a 110v version as per Japanese supply)

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Now we are onto some more traditional N Scale models, I have here a couple of locomotives to start with and then two 'sets' one a 'blue express' and a '485 express' (same livery as the ZJ scale models)

EF64



EF65



Blue Express Set



485 Express



Finally we have some Takara PlaRail, some new, some 2nd hand and above all else (Ta-Da!!!) the Limited Gold Chrome Steam Loco!!!!











~ Fin ~