Just before the winter holiday, I ordered and received a new bit of rolling stock, Kato’s キハ (KiHa—the designation for standard class diesel passenger cars) 110 diesel multiple unit (DMU—and yes, it’s hard to call a single car a multiple unit, but that’s what it is). Say hello!
I need a little warm-up project to get me going, as I’m feeling a little intimidated by Akihabara Station just now. I am going to construct a series of very small dioramas of the Suigun Line. I’ll say more about this project in a later post, but this new DMU is a little motivation to get the ball rolling.
The Prototype
The キハ110 was created by JR East to replace its aging stock of DMUs serving rural northern Honshu. It was first rolled out in 1990. These sorts of units are run in singles or pairs on rural lines, connecting little villages. The color scheme for this model is used on the Suigun Line and West Ban’etsu Line. It is now being phased out in favor of the キハE130, and is scheduled to be discontinued from service, I think, this year. More information can be had at Wikipedia (via Google Translation).
The Model
Kato made three variations on the 110:
- 6043: キハ110-100 (motorized)
- 6044: キハ110-100 (dummy)
- 10-347:キハ111-100 + キハ112-100
The model I purchased is Kato 6043. None of these are in production anymore, and are now pretty hard to find. I got the last one Rainbow ten had. If anyone ever stumbles across the dummy 6044, I’d love to know…
The 6043 has working headlights and taillights, and each side has a switch to turn off the lights in case you want to consist it with another unit. It also takes Kato’s standard interior lighting kit, which is nice.
The model doesn’t use Kato’s drop-in DCC decoders (boo!), but their website does give instructions (albeit in Japanese) for how to modify the headlight circuit boards for DCC, which is very helpful. I haven’t yet figured out how to get to those circuit boards, however, which is a problem. I’ll be installing a Digitrax DZ143 soon, and I’ll be sure to post the blow-by-blow, and share the results here.