Kato USA Inc. N Mixed Freight Car Set 6 KAT1066275 N Rolling Stock

The rolling stock in this set are usual Kato quality products. Each car has nice, molded details, good paintwork, and free-rolling metal wheelsets. Each car rolls freely on inclines and couples to other Kato rolling stock and locomotives without problems. For six pieces of rolling stock, this package is an excellent value.

Nice set of Kato rolling stock. The rolling resistance is extremely low. My lay on my dining room table is slightly off level. These cars will roll to the lower end of the table on their own where other brand cars will not move.

Excellent. Great price.

These feel a bit small to US folks, especially if you pull them with a beast like the SD90. I'm told they are standard Japanese sizes. The models have quite a bit of nice detail, including some extremely fine printing, tiny ladders, rungs, etc. They look a little plastic-y next to nicer cars (which are 3x as much!), but really the size stands out a bit more than the finish. They use metal wheels and truck-mounted couplers. They pull reliably as shipped, but can derail in reverse going through points, especially the gondolas (which are very light and have a a longer coupler arm), especially with a longer locomotive (again, SD90). The only assembly is to insert the optional trip pins for magnetic decoupling. Most of the issues with these cars can be fixed by adding a scale amount of weight. The gondolas are only about 0.35oz, and the other cars are about 0.65oz. Recommended weight is closer to 1oz. If you open them up (the tankers are easy, the hoppers are trickier, and the gondolas have nowhere to hide) and put in some metal weights, they will run more reliably and work better (still not amazing) with the Kato magnetic decoupler.

I bought these Kato wagens and l am happy wirh their product as always. They are high end and at good cost. They hook up and roll really nice. Thanks Kato!

nice product

A good value at about 12 to 13 bucks apiece. They have Kato knuckle couplers which don't wok well with other manufactures, but knuckle coupler incompatibly is the industry standard really. I have been seriously thinking of converting the trains back to all Rapido Couplers. They may not look like the real thing, but they are so small I can't see them anyway. I always thought the Rapido's were more reliable and easy to work with. The new cars look great and run smoothly. In the video I posted the last six cars are the new ones being pulled by a Kato C-57 Locomotive. The C-57 has a Rapido Couple so the Gray coal Car is a Bachmann (1990). It is my Transition car. The Car has it's original Rapido Coupler on one end and a Knuckle coupler on the other end. This allows me to pull cars that have a mix of couplers.

As usual, KATO delivers with high quality. These cars are nicely detailed, run smoothly, couple with other KATO cars fine, and look great. They have KATO knuckle couplers, and have the wire pieces packed separately if you use magnetic decouplers. For Newbies: Older style couplers were called "Rapido" they do not work with any brand of knuckle couplers. I have found that most brands of Knuckle couplers can couple together, although it's not always a happy marriage. Just a head's up there.