Child Guidance / Kiddie Land Trains

I was looking through more Child Guidance stuff on eBay and came across a few things, there's a Kiddie Land for sale with the box. I'm almost tempted but I've been spending too much on eBay lately



More interestingly perhaps, here's a lot of Child Guidance trains with a track style I haven't seen before (in a Child Guidance set, at least)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/174035142136

Take a look:



Hmm, don't those connectors look familiar?

I don't really think that it is Tomy made to be honest, the molding looks pretty rough and like the type of plastic used by Child Guidance's other rails, but I've never had any Plarail track from the same time period to compare. It has the splitting problem I have seen on other CG rails, where the outer sides split away - look at the right side of the upper straight in the pile. It looks like it has sleepers molded in though. Maybe Child Guidance bought some ex-Tomy molds along with the Yuuenchi locomotives, added sleepers, and cast them with their own plastic mix? Or made their own molds by casting some early Plarail, and added them?

[Super]

I'm almost tempted but I've been spending too much on eBay lately

I have heard that its a World Wide Virus.

For sure I know the Yuuenchi series is separate from Plarail because they do not have the Plarail logo during that time, and the construction of the trains and layout are different. (although the Japanese version of Yuuenchi have blue tracks)

Those black tracks might (?) not be made in Japan, so I do not know if they are compatible with blue tracks. Does somebody have these black tracks? Please post here if you know that they are compatible or not. The shape of those piers look like the Plarail white piers. If somebody have them, please also tell if they hold those blue tracks well or not.

Well, I submitted an offer and it was accepted, so I'll be able to say when it arrives... I have some other Child Guidance piers but they are different from the old Plarail piers and the ones in this lot. The ones I have have these small "spikes" to hold the track and have a different, closed lower support structure

Thanks DuckGWR, looking forward to its arrival. The question is do they hold the Plarail blue tracks as well?

The box finally arrived today, seems like it got held up in the post for about two weeks. The track is not quite a direct rip, the straights are shorter and it seems like the curves are a smaller radius. 

But they're also not the same length as the normal Child Guidance rails.

The straights are shorter then those as well, but the curves slightly longer.
It's possible someone at CG saw Tomy's track and only borrowed the connector style and a few track piece ideas, because there were also these tracks that resemble some vintage Plarail pieces as well.

I think this ascending track piece is similar to the early push era Plarail ones?

Here are some other bits, a small crossing section, some ramps and buffers, scenery, and two styles of pylon

The track does fit Tomy track, but not very well. The outboard connectors aren't split like the Tomy ones are (except for the switch that looks like the vintage close double rail switch, weirdly), so they are a tight fit in a Tomy inboard connector. The opposite connection is loose. They fit fine on the pylons together


Anyways, it is not a direct rip of Tomy track, but it seems like some of the track pieces were inspired by it.

Great details. The first Y rail and the branch rail are definitely from Plarail designs. It seems that your set was manufactured during the 1960-1964 TOMIYAMA times. The 3rd last image definitely resembles all the parts from the old TOMY sets, like the standing signals, sloped end and the junction. The buffers did not appear in TOMY sets so it is original.

The black rails, child guidance rails and TOMY rails have a great resemblance. Are they partners at one time or they just didn't copyright their rails?

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I do like the simulated railroad ties on these. Something that would look good on the Tomy rails.

Turns out the branch rail I picked out by chance was special. There were three in the box, only one has the split in the connector like Plarail does, the others are solid like the rest of the track. It is also marked 10-12 at the bottom in addition to the marks near the connector that all the other pieces have

It also seems like they might have only made the one branch rail, not the opposite connector style, they all have one input and two output.

Here's some of the black rails and their grey counterparts. The branch rail is longer then the normal black straight rail, but is the same as the grey rails - maybe this was something they fixed when changing to the grey style?

There were also these two buildings. They have no markings underneath. Are these related to Plarail buildings at all?

Here are all the accessorise included. Looks like mainly telephone poles, streetlights, and signals, all in the up position. I hope the bases fit the later Tomy trees, I have a lot of trees missing bases.


I checked eBay to see if there were any other black rails, and I didn't see any, but I did spot these which look related to old Plarail ascending track. They have the round connectors from the grey track, not the square Tomy ones.


It seems possible Tomy and Child Guidance worked together at some point, as we saw with the Shuttle Train. Possibly the Tomy copy was earlier and Tomy asked Child Guidance to change it. It definitely seems like the grey/red track is a lot more common.

[Super]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing Duck.