Tomix - 8613 - Locomotive, Diesel, ND552 - Nagoya Railway - ND 55215

Prototype History: Nagoya Rinkai Railway is a waterfront railway that opened in 1965 to cope with the increase in freight transportation due to the expansion of the Nagoya Waterfront Industrial Zone.

Road Name History: Nagoya Railroad Co., Ltd. (名古屋鉄道株式会社 Nagoya Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha?) TYO: 9048, often abbreviated as Meitetsu (名鉄?), is a private railway company operating around Aichi Prefecture and Gifu Prefecture of Japan. As of March 31, 2010, Nagoya Railroad operated 444.2 kilometres (276.0 mi) of track, 275 stations, and 1,090 train cars.

Some of the more famous trains operated by Nagoya Railroad include the Panorama Car and the Panorama Car Super, both of which offer views through their wide front windows. While the Panorama Super train is used extensively for the railroad's limited express service, the older and more energy-consuming Panorama Car train has been retired, the last run being on 27 December 2008.

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.