Kato USA Model Train Products N Scale Santa Fe Super Chief Starter Set

The media could not be loaded. Great Starter set. Took only about five minutes to set up. Kato Track is the easiest uni track out there. Fully assembled the Oval outside dimensions are about 26" X 53". To big for a 2x4 piece of plywood as I am showing on my Queen Bed. The Loco and Cars had some additional small pieces for lines and hoses. Since I Handle the trains a lot I usually just leave that stuff off. N Scale is so small those things can not be seen and would just broken or lost. At full speed I was only really at about 75 percent throttle. I felt if it sailed off the bed onto a Hardwood floor that would not be good. Kato trains run a super slow speed as well.The box has a slide out drawer on the bottom where the re-railer and Documents are kept. I bet you could shove 20 or 30 feet of track in there also. The train has Kato's standard knuckle coupler( non-Magnetic). They don't play well with the newer Magnetic type couplers, so you need to kind of lift then in place.. I did hook up a Bachmann Santa Fe Chief as the lead Loco, and the Kato hooked on in the Backwards configuration, hooking the Kato Passenger cars to the Kato Loco. That worked well. The two brands of Santa Fe Chiefs have a near perfect size and paint schemes, so they work well togetherThe End car has some nice tail lighting. The Manual recommends Kato 212 light kit to light up car interiors. Kato also has a kit 214. The 212 kit imitates Florescent Lights, the 214 Kit imitates incandescent lights. I have three left over 214 lights from a previous install, so I think I will use those. These Locos ran around the country in the 50's and 60's, so I think the incandescent look will be fine. It has a bit more of a amber tint.

This KATO N scale starter set is awesome! KATO makes the best trains and combined with their Unitrack make setup extremely easy. The detail of the locomotive and cars is superb, and the engine runs so smoothly. This is an ideal introduction to N scale model railroading. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to play with trains!

The set itself is very nice, very detailed and easy to work with. I take one star off because the accessories you can buy that are supposed to be designed for it don't work very well. The lights you install inside the passenger cars are easy to install for the most part, but hard to get working right without flickering. I also bought the elevated viaduct/bridge set that's supposed to work with it, and the locomotive is barely strong enough to pull the cars up the hill. I have to run the train at full speed just to keep it from stalling half way up.

We set this up in an office/cubicle space at work over the holidays, with winter decorations & scenery. It worked great. At slow speeds, we couldn't hear it at all. At medium, you could hear a quiet 'shhh' sound as it went. High speed, the little clicking noises from the track sounded more like a train. Reverse functioned well, easy to set up, even comes with a little 'jig' that's used for aligning the cars on the tracks, if that's difficult for you. We plan on expanding next year!

This train is great. The track is easy to put together and take apart. I bought it for my 4.5 and 2 year old to play with. I help them put it together every now and then, let them play with it and then put it away. The 4.5 yr old can put it together and take it apart by himself. Sometimes I have to help him get the train or a car on the track. Of course the 2 yr old needs help, will knock the train off track and could break it.

I know this can't be helped but I want to say that these long prototype cars need a large diameter curve which needs a large width table. One needs to expect this. Train looks great when set up. You will want to add more track to get the full effect of this great looking train. Needs a B unit for full effect.

This is really a well madeand easy to use train set. With track and train included a great way to get started in N scale.

A very nice set and well made, I just am not thrilled with the overly long passenger cars. I ended up putting "regular" cars on it and it looks great.