Takara PlaRail (Pocket Trains) Information

Well after various chats and comments with Super, Andrew (aka Mr Ripley) and others I finally decided to create a site with info on the Takara PlaRail/Pocket Trains product range.

As my friends on here know I have a great interest in this very short lived but nice range of Japanese loco's and having finally found some product info on Japanese language sites I've gathered together as much as I can at the moment and built a site.

Anyone interested can find it here; Takara PlaRail

At the moment it is still under construction and tuning and has mainly images I've located elsewhere, but I will be taking new pics of my stuff and adding a section on maintenance etc... so expect it to grow as time passes.

I've off course mentioned Blue Tracks in the about section and will also add links when I've added a 'links' section. But there's only so much you can do in one morning/afternoon

Enjoy!

[Super]

Fantastic looking site Nigels. Well done, looks like it was professionally done. A great place to keep all the information on a series that I never knew existed. Look forward to more of your plans

Thanks Super, I just felt this much overlooked product range deserved at least one site in English, although you can find a couple (literally just a couple) in Japanese and translate those it's not really easy. So I felt I'd give something back to the hobby that I enjoy so much.

Once this one is more populated I'm also contemplating similar sites for ZZ Trains, ZJ scale trains and PlaRail Advance. But one thing at a time, if anyone here has anything to contribute to the Takara one please feel free to message me and I'll add it if relevant.

Sweet site. Where'd you get those?

The trains? I had to open pandora's box aka Jauce. Although they do pop up on ebay occassionally...

I was just looking for them and failed to find one. Maybe some other day.

[Super]

I wonder how well the user modified tandems run with I assume the added weight of a second motor unit or do you think they turn them both on. That couldn't be the case with the tandem red DD51 as the front car must not be powered right?

Very nice pictures. Is the setup that has the landscaping around it yours Nigels? It looks great. Wish there were overall pictures or are they just dioramas set up for the picture taking. I even see tracks painted brown with white rails.

I was just looking for them and failed to find one. Maybe some other day.

What exactly are you looking for? Trains, track, accessories or all? Bear in mind that these are a slightly different scale to Tomy so do not run on the blue tracks, you need the original Takara track.

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I wonder how well the user modified tandems run with I assume the added weight of a second motor unit or do you think they turn them both on. That couldn't be the case with the tandem red DD51 as the front car must not be powered right?

Very nice pictures. Is the setup that has the landscaping around it yours Nigels? It looks great. Wish there were overall pictures or are they just dioramas set up for the picture taking. I even see tracks painted brown with white rails.

For the dual ones I would assume they either run them both or they fit the motor body to a dummy chassis (a trailer car). In fact it is almost certainly the latter, I say this as they do not freewheel when 'off' and the motor car and battery car (middle car) are normally permanent connections.

The plus side is that the motor bodies would easily fit a trailer chassis as they are all the same size as is the middle battery chassis for that matter. This is in fact quite a handy thing as a couple I've bought in job lots that don't work, but have a body type I've not got can be transplanted onto working chassis that I've got duplicates of

As for the pictures, those ones are all harvested off the Japanese site I found and/or google (in the former case I did try to email the site owners for permission but the email bounced). Longer term I intend to start posting my own pictures as well, but I need to build a layout first

Kind of all of the above, but my budget might say no...

Hmmm, maybe so Rokman, it depends what your budget is lol!