Japanese Auction Wins...

Well the first of my much awaited wins arrived today, a batch of Takara PlaRail locomotives and rolling stock. There is a mixture, some Shinkansens, Suburban Passengers, Passenger Express, and just for Super we have some Goods trains - these are actually pretty cool - the level of detail is stunning bearing in mind their age and the fact they are smaller than Tomy PlaRail.

Anyway onto the pictures, I'll start with the Goods trains (2 of) and rolling stock;

First EF81 + 5 goods wagons, 3 with removable loads;





Now the DD51 with two rolling stock, this loco (as well as being a Super favourite) is particularly detailed, well chuffed with this one for sure ;





Next up we have the suburban passenger trains - 3 different models, each is 3 cars long as per Tomy PlaRail;





Now we have a passenger express with an EF66 loco and two passenger cars;




Now we are onto the Shinkansen's, there are 4 different types;

Firstly the 'East i';



Now the '500'. there were 2 of these in the package, 1 currently a non-runner;



Not sure what one this is, it has 'Max' on the side, but I don't know which model, although I don't believe its the E3 as I already have one of those;



Finally we have this one, there were 4! of these in the package, 1 currently a non-runner, the other 3 fine runners;



So in total there are 14 trains, 12 of which are runners out of the package, the other 2 I reckon I'll be able to fix when I get time to dismantle them and check them out. The nice thing is in all 14 the battery terminals are pristine so the faults on the 2 non-runners is likely to be wiring related based on the prior shinkansen I fixed

The goods trains and the passenger express with the EF & DD class loco's were quite an eye-opener, the level of detail on these is stunning, including grills, individually painted window frames etc... Interesting that Takara was doing this back in 2001 and the newer PlaRail on the market doesn't exhibit this level of detail. Sometimes progress doesn't result in superior product.

Anyway I'll keep adding to this thread as new goodies arrive, if the Royal Mail keep to their promise my next package (bigger than this one) will arrive tomorrow

[Super]

You are right Nigels, I love the freight cars. The chubby tanker and brown box car are cool as well as the container car. Love the look of the flat cars and really like the covered cargo on the one. What might the gondola car have inside, salt maybe, I like that too. Alright, you got me, I like it all. Is all the cargo removable including the containers?

With the cargo cars all except the one immediately behind the engine can potentially have its cargo removed. With the Takara trains they have the battery box (takes two AAA batteries) and a hard on/off switch in the first car behind the engine. You then have a power lead that goes through the permanent connector into the engine which has a standard type motor with worm gear connected to the power by a miniature latching on/off switch mounted on the top rear of the car. If you look closely you will see near the rear wheels of the engines a small bracket type arrangement, this is combined with a small spring in the top of the rear of the engine which allows it to hinge slightly up and down (if that description makes sense). You then just get a small pressure on the rear of the train to start or stop it.

Personally I find this arrangement excellent as it enables you to easily turn them on and off when running without having to try to catch them and flick a switch etc... I'm surprised that either Tomy or Mattel haven't picked up this idea as it is far superior to the on/off switch they both use and would probably be more child friendly into the bargain - it should also stop the stripped/cracked gear as well because you're not having to try to hold it while turning it on/off

When I get a chance and my proper camera out as opposed to my phone I'll get you some clearer, closer up images of the goods trains/wagons. Just try not to get too hooked, I don't want too much competition in the auctions

[Super]

Just try not to get too hooked, I don't want too much competition in the auctions

LOL... You don't have any worry's there my friend as one collection at a time is all I get into. When I decide to get into another collection I sell off any current collection. Before delving into Plarail it took me 6 years to sell off my collection of vintage Computer Adventure games.

Oh I wish I could be that organised, I tend to collect something then it spins off into something else and the collections just grow lol! Mind you I'm going to have to slim down my Thomas stuff as I need the room for the new gear arriving

[ripley802]

I am with you there.. Slim down the Thomas to free up the $£¥ for more Plarail and Tomy things.

Those are really cool trains BTW. The one I sent you I was very impressed with it, just had no use as it was the only one I had seen and I only had one piece of track.. I think you will/do have the lagers collection of this range.

When todays package turns up my collection will grow exponentially for sure and the next one when I get it shipped has some true gems in it. I'm getting used to identifying the range now including accessories so it makes it a bit easier. Although they are still pretty rare to find.

Seems like I'm becoming the Takara expert just like you're the TnA bod lol!

Ok, so my second shipment turned up today, much bigger than the first one (the first was from 'from japan', this one from 'Jauce'). So here we go, sorry there's lots of pics, but there's lots of goodies in this one

Firstly the star of the shipment, a complete (and brand new/unused) set, this contains a 5 car loco rather than a normal 3 car one (E3 Max Shinkansen), a bunch of track, station, tunnel, overhead power things, etc...;








Then we have a Goods wagon set - this must be the set some of the ones from yesterdays batch originated, you'll notice the flatcar comes with a car as a load and there are 3 loads provided for the wagon, the other loco is a 485 express;







Next up with have an EF81 goods loco (with container cars) and a type 205 Suburban train;





Then we have some more suburban trains, the first two have not only a locomotive, but also an oval of track in the packs, both are type 205's;

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Next we have a type E217 Suburban train and a type C11 steam locomotive, these come packed like most loco's with just two straight pieces of track;





Now a type 885 Shinkansen, I'm not sure if I have one of these in Tomy, but its quite a nice looking loco;




Well that's the end of the 'new in box' goodies, now we have some batches of track;

The first two are basic 'ovals' of track with a shinkansen type loco in each batch;






Then we have three bulk batches of track;

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Then we got a bunch of 'used' locomotives which came as part of a bundle with one of the track bundles above, as well as 8 full complete locomotives (4 shinkansens, 3 suburban and a 'Romance Car' I think - looks a bit like a 485, but is more rounded) there is another shinkansen (E3 Max) with a broken coupling - first I've ever seen and another shinkansen which is complete except the centre car is an incorrect type, however this is the same model as the one I had 4 of yesterday and of which one was non-functional so I can either not fix that and pinch the covers to complete a working train or something. Out of these 10 trains all run apart from one of the suburbans which will go with the other two non-runners from yesterday for investigation.














There were also some odd cars and bodies included (a complete Suburban body set including the trailing car chassis and a couple of odd trailer cars - all good stuff to kick off the 'spares box' );






Finally we have a new sealed Tomy PlaRail Advance, but not a normal one, its a special edition one ;

[Super]

Holy Smokes!!!

And all new too. I hope you are planning on creating a large layout and make a video for all of us to see your massive collection at work? Have you attained a list of all the trains Takara released and do you have them all yet?

I know, it's quite an impressive selection of new goods, bearing in mind they been out of production since 2002. But having said that I've already got a few that are different to those ones.

I also know I've not got anywhere near the entire range of loco's yet, for a start I've got a few used loco's I won in auctions since this lot was shipped which are new to me - for example the yellow 'Dr' shinkansen and a chromed steam loco.

To date I've had no luck finding any real resource on the net about these loco's and the overall range, I suspect the year it died 2002 is about the time the net started in earnest and since then of course we've had things like wiki's etc... but as it was by then a dead product line I guess nobody is interested.

Long term I'll probably put together an info site about them, but for the moment I'm just still gathering what I can while they are still available

And yes, eventually, I will be building a layout and at least showing the used loco's running, although knowing me I'll likely open up the new ones too eventually - I mean that's what they're intended for. But for now I'm still collecting track and scenery items as well as loco's to see what is possible to build