I just came back from a vacation in Japan for a week. I was surprised though that many department stores and hobby shops there actually carried a decent selection of train items. Most of them had a full selection of Kato and Tomix N scale items and some even had HO and Z-scale too. There are some really good train stores in the US but none of them are really in my area. The last train store in my area closed down over a year ago. It seems like the model train hobby is doing pretty well over there. I think one of the reason is trains impact people lives more because most people in a major city like Tokyo use subways and commuter rail. Also the intercity passenger trains like the Nazomi Shinkansen are world class and are heavily used. Has anyone else traveled to Japan and noticed this?
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