Heh, thanks 🙏
To be honest this was one I really wanted to (and will keep trying to) crack as to be honest, I knew straight away when I saw it that it was unusual, mainly because you don't often see larger-scale model railways at charity shop/thrift store places in the UK, and when I realised the coaches were the JNR type I'd seen with Plarail, I was sure it had some sort of interesting Japanese connection despite it's 'British' appearance 😁
It's interesting actually as the switch and electronic systems on board are amazingly similar to early Plarail (furthers my suspicion of a TOMY connection), with similar motor and gear arrangements, and the use of a metal plate 'slide' switch like those seen on the front of early Plarail models (although this one's at the back).
Not just that, but the wholly mechanical design to me just absolutely screams 'TOMY', how everything inside is either all or mostly mechanical, and thus repairable with simple replacement parts, so yeah.
That said, the loco design I think is an unusual puzzle, as there's evidence that later on they made a US style 'F-Unit' diesel model for the same track system if I recall from my research, but unlike this model, I think that may have been a unique tooling made for Durham Inc. rather than being something modified from a Japanese design as I think happened here.
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/sQzVpsnr/image.png)
In fact, here's the F-Unit, in 'Chessie System' livery
To be honest this was one I really wanted to (and will keep trying to) crack as to be honest, I knew straight away when I saw it that it was unusual, mainly because you don't often see larger-scale model railways at charity shop/thrift store places in the UK, and when I realised the coaches were the JNR type I'd seen with Plarail, I was sure it had some sort of interesting Japanese connection despite it's 'British' appearance 😁
It's interesting actually as the switch and electronic systems on board are amazingly similar to early Plarail (furthers my suspicion of a TOMY connection), with similar motor and gear arrangements, and the use of a metal plate 'slide' switch like those seen on the front of early Plarail models (although this one's at the back).
Not just that, but the wholly mechanical design to me just absolutely screams 'TOMY', how everything inside is either all or mostly mechanical, and thus repairable with simple replacement parts, so yeah.
That said, the loco design I think is an unusual puzzle, as there's evidence that later on they made a US style 'F-Unit' diesel model for the same track system if I recall from my research, but unlike this model, I think that may have been a unique tooling made for Durham Inc. rather than being something modified from a Japanese design as I think happened here.
In fact, here's the F-Unit, in 'Chessie System' livery
Been building Plarail worlds since 2001; Building when I can in 2023 
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