Plarail 7105 Yoshitsune Museum Edition Review

I hear exactly what you're saying and it probably is a better compromise for what is at the end of the day a child's toy. It is a shame they've messed up and I'm not totally sure that the battery in the tender would make it better. We all know the connecting cables are always a weakness so in the environment of a child it is far more robust to have the battery in the loco. the other choice would be to put the motor in the tender with the battery and we all know how much you love that idea

I also wonder how much of this is maybe re-use of tooling used for the Chuggington steam loco (puffin pete?!?) as that has the raised middle wheel and I think the false front truck.

What they really should have done for the PlaRail version of this is to have had a real axle truck on the front with the cow catcher attached (full size) and then had it pivoted so it would move left/right or up/down depending on steep slopes and/or tight curves...

---

and have fitted a real dummy freewheeling middle set of wheels even if it made it a little bit longer