Tomytec - 288596 - Bus - Japanese National Railways

Specific Item Information: Set of 2 Buses decorated for Chugoku JR. One is a transit bus and the other a double deck bus.

Road Name History: Japanese National Railways (日本国有鉄道 Nihon Kokuyū Tetsudō), abbreviated Kokutetsu (国鉄) or "JNR", was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987.
By 1987, JNR's debt was over ¥27 trillion ($280 billion at 2009 exchange rates) and the company was spending ¥147 for every ¥100 earned. By an act of the Diet of Japan, on April 1, 1987 JNR was privatized and divided into seven railway companies, six passenger and one freight, collectively called the Japan Railways Group or JR Group.

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: Tomytec is a subsidiary of Takara Tomy, a large Japanese conglomerate of companies that makes toys and games for the international marketplace. The Tomytec subsidiary focuses on toys which are scale models of real and fantasy prototypes. The Tomytec range includes trains, vehicles, aircraft, dolls and other items (camera lenses?). Most importantly (for us) the Tomytec brand name lands on certain N Gauge models.

Generally, but not always, Tomytec branded N Gauge items have some element of "collectibility". Sometimes they have packaging that obscures the exact item being purchased which encourages the consumer to buy multiple items to complete a set. Sometimes they produce limited edition releases which are quickly retired and replaced by a new similar item with an alternate series marker (A, B, etc). The brand also is used for their operating N Gauge bus system.

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.