well, for all of you who like the bullet trains in Japan and have always wanted an HO scale model, or you just have too much spare income, one is finally here. it is made by Bachmann and Tenshodo. it comes pretty much ready to run except for 3 small sheets of decals that you can apply if you want to. the set comes with the 2 end units, and 3 cars. the middle car has the pantograph. one interesting thing about this set is that the locomotives on either end are not powered. it is the car in the middle that is powered. the locomotives do feature directional lighting. you can see the yellow looking LED’s on the front. and there are what appear to be red LED’s on the rear. i took the set out of the box and set it on my “layout” (an L shaped loop of Bachmann EZ track in my bedroom). the train ran fine on the 22" radius curves. the cars do couple kinda far apart so they can be run on a tight radius. i saw no way to make them couple closer. the pantograph DOES NOT WORK. it is plastic and just there for show. it does look pretty nice tho.
here are a few pictures of the set. the cheapest place that i found it, and the place i ordered it from is http://www.caboosehobbies.com
pictures are a bit worse than my usual bad photography…
the box
the nose
the pantograph
side view
overhead shot
