May 2024 Kato Train news from Train Trax UK

Thank you to those who came and visited us at Model World Live. It was a bit exhausting, but as ever really good to meet customers and put faces to names. Our next big-ish show is 'The International N Gauge Show' in September.

Pre-orders for the latest announcements from Kato Japan (posters above) are now open at our usual pre-order page:

This month we see announcements of the E233 Tokaido Line sets, Classic 113 series sets, Locos and coaches for cold region sleepers, Steam Loco crew figure sets and pre-war coaches in HO. All will be arriving in the UK in the autumn.

We've also seen the newest runs of the EMD NW2 announced by KatoUSA.  Coming at the end of the year are two road numbers each for UP, ATSF and BN liveries in the normal options of DC/Analog, DCC silent and DCC Sound fitted. 

More information about pre-ordering is here:https://traintrax.co.uk/pre-ordering-at-train-trax-uk we've had to add a note about ensuring that your details are up-to-date. If we don't hear back from you within 7 days of a pre-order arriving then we may need to cancel it.

And now for something completely different...

In my last email newsletter I mentioned that I'm looking for some help with a new project.

A bit of background first: I'm quite often asked about other Japanese model railway manufacturers. In particular I'm asked about Tomix finetrack.

Now I've become very fond of Kato Unitrack over the last couple of years, but there's no denying that the Tomix range shares many of the same benefits but does have a few extra pieces that would help with the geometry of some layouts. With a bit of thought you can even use the two types together.

Once you start looking into Tomix (and the related Tomytec) products you can see that there's quite a lot of interesting items in their catalogue.

The problem for the UK modeller is that it isn't possible to get these products easily, without resorting to the 'Japanese elephant' online stores.

So, could we help with this? Is there enough interest to make it worthwhile for us to start 'TomTrax'? Which are the most interesting things on offer?

Sign up here for updates on this, and to tell us what Tomix and Tomytec product lines you might want to buy. Your feedback is always very useful.

Thanks for your continued custom and interest in what we do. As the weather improves here in the UK, it's often the case that the model railway hobby gets 'put away' for a while and our little online shop gets a bit quieter. However, we'll still be here if you need us! Stay tuned for some summer offers...

Best wishes,

Ian Miller

On behalf of Train Trax UK

A few of you asked about our second hand business. You can find our current range here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/model-railway-magic

More items are added daily.