RM Models Twilight Express article questions

[spacecadet]

I just recently received RM Models #198, and the first article in there is about the Twilight Express.  It's labeled "New Model PREMIUM".  I asked my wife, who actually is Japanese, to help me with a translation, but there's too much jargon in it for her and she couldn't really make head or tail out of it.  She could only give me a really literal translation of various sentences in isolation, things like "the curtains are thinner than on the real train so you can see inside the car" or "the Tomix car has fewer windows than the Kato car" (but I don't know which is correct).

She really couldn't tell me what the main point of the article was, because she knows nothing about trains, either model or prototype.  She likes them but just has no knowledge.

Does anybody else have this issue that can tell me what the gist of this article is?  I love this train and the cars they were showing looked nothing like the stock Kato or Tomix cars (they were highly detailed) but they seemed to just be modified versions of them according to the text.  Is the article saying one manufacturer's set is better than the other, and are the customizations they made stuff you can buy or were they made by hand?

Attached is a general image of the article so you can see what I'm talking about, though you obviously can't read the text.  I could take better photos if it'd help (I only have my phone as a camera right now).

[westfalen]

Could they be reviewing the latest Kato release of the train with updated tooling like the last Hokutosei set. My RM#198 is still enroute from Japan.

[spacecadet]

Could they be reviewing the latest Kato release of the train with updated tooling like the last Hokutosei set. My RM#198 is still enroute from Japan.

I thought that but it doesn't seem to be.  First, the cars in the pics are much more detailed than the Kato set as pictured on Hobby Search.  Second, they show a consist on the bottom of the second page that definitely includes some Tomix cars.  They also show a couple of individual Tomix cars and the couplers have definitely been modified.

I thought it was probably an article about modifying the commercially available sets to look more like the real thing, but the stuff my wife could translate just seemed to be almost boilerplate text about the train and the models.  I didn't hear her translate anything about any modifications done.

Let me know if you can figure it out when you get your RM Models.  I just really want to know what I need to buy to make a Twilight Express that looks like this, basically.  Or if they did everything by hand.

[clem24]

From the looks of it (and from the fact that it literally says "KATO"), it looks like a review of the Kato set possibly fitted with aftermarket PE details. Even the car composition diagram of the 2 sets matches that of the Kato set. Maybe if you can scan the page better...

[westfalen]

My issue arrived today, my take on the article is that they are showing the paper interior detailing and window curtain kits by N Goya. I've been putting them in my Hokutosei cars and they do look good with the interior lighting on. That's my guess anyway.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10166859