Tomix - 2759 - Container Flatcar, Japan, Koki 200 - Japan Railways Freight - 200-29

Specific Item Information: without containers.
The Koki 200 freight car appeared in 1999 and is active in container transportation of JR freight. It can carry two 20-foot containers or one 40-foot container, and is a slightly shorter 15m car.

Prototype History: The KOKI 200 series, introduced in 2000, was designed to carry a pair of ISO 20-foot containers exceeding the allowed weight limit of the 100 series, allowing transport of two containers up to 24 tons each (versus to the 20 ton/container limit of the 100 series). This allows, among other things, use of ISO tank containers for hauling sulfuric acid. A single container of up to 30.48 tons can also be loaded. Unlike most KOKI, there is no provision for loading 12-foot domestic containers. These are painted red with gray trucks.

Read more of Japanese freight cars on Sumida Crossing website.

Road Name History: Japan Freight Railway Company (日本貨物鉄道株式会社 Nihon Kamotsu Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha), or JR Freight (JR貨物 Jeiāru Kamotsu), is one of the constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It provides transportation of cargo nationwide. Its headquarters are in Shibuya, Tokyo near Shinjuku Station.

The Japan Railways Group was founded on April 1, 1987, when Japanese National Railways (JNR) was privatized, and then divided into six regional companies and Japan Freight Railway Company. Although the passenger operation of JNR was split into six companies, fares and regulations are standard for all companies and every region of Japan except Okinawa is covered by the railway network spanning approximately 19,800 kilometres (12,300 mi).

Formerly part of JNR, the freight operation was not divided and became a single separate company when JNR was privatized and split. Although it has only about fifty kilometers of track of its own, it also operates on track owned by the JR passenger railways and other companies. The company uses the initials JRF as an abbreviated name for identification.

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: Tomix is a brand of Takara Tomy, a large Japanese conglomerate of companies that makes toys and games for the international marketplace. The Tomix brand (along with the Tomytec brand) are both managed by the Tomytec subsidiary/division of Takara Tomy. Prior to 1976 Tomy produced model trains using the "Tomy" brand name of the products. In 1976, they launched the new brand "Tomix" to segregate their model trains from their childrens toy lines.

Generally it can be difficult to understand why Tomytec releases some items using the Tomix brand and others using the Tomytec brand. There are some generalizations we have observed. Thomas the Tank Engine falls under Tomix, as do the JNR steam engines as well as bullet trains (Shinkansen) and track cleaning cars. Maybe another curator can step in and elaborate on this section.

Manufacturer Information: Largely a Japanese manufacturer of children's toys and baby products, Takara Tomy has established a number of different subsidiary companies, with sales offices and factories located in various locations around the world. The firm is the product of a 2006 merger-of-equals between Tomy and Takara.

Takara Tomy produces N Scale model trains under their Tomytec division (we use the term loosely because it is actually a more complex relationship) using two different brand names "Tomytec" and "Tomix". Technically speaking these are not brands in the Western sense but rather they more closely resemble subsidiaries -of-subsidiaries, and where they fit in the corporate org chart may be the matter for a Master's thesis, but for our purposes we can think of them as simply two different brands with one manufacturer. In the past (prior to 1976) some model train products were branded simply "Tomy". To further confuse things, since 2000, outside of Japan, the company goes by the simple name, "Tomy" for their international subsidiaries.

If you consider both brand names as a single company, then the Tomytec/Tomix product line is the largest of its kind in Japan; with Kato following in second place (as of 2017). While Takara Tomy products are popular around the world, the firm's focus on children's toys has limited the international acceptance and distribution of its Tomytec model railroad products. Furthermore, unlike Kato, their focus tends to be heavily skewed towards Japanes prototypes.