Plarail Line 0 Inside Curved Track

I spotted these curved rails on eBay; the seller calls them "Test Shot Plarail Line 0 Inside The Single Curved Rail Set":









I can't see Tomy's logo, so I suppose they are custom made, or printed, or whatever... But they seem to be very useful rails. As we can see, they can form a circle inside a circle made of usual curved rails R-03. Possibilities for using them in a layout are numerous. There is a gold variant too:







Did Tomy ever produced a small inside curve track like that? They produced the Outward Curve Rail R-09 (which is basically the same track as the outward curved rail in R-05 Double Curve Rail), but what about this little ones? I think that would be much used track in every kind of layout, especially in smaller ones...

Also, I always miss 1/2 Curve Rail. There is R-02 1/2 Straight Rail, but what about curved one? Was there Plarail 1/2 Curve Rail at all? I don't think I saw a rail like that. And they would be very usefull, too. For example, with those 1/2 curve tracks you could put a crossing on curve (or Pororon Station, or some other curved piece) right in the middle of the curve in an oval layout... like this:



What do you think?

There's some older smaller radius curves but they are all 90° as far as I know, there are some in a few Merry-Go sets and a few variations of a western themed set with small curves.


More recently, the Thomas and Bertie rainbow bridge set has some different small radius 90°s, and the crossover switch can be used as a tight 90° curve - I believe ucwepn did this before.



There is a Thomas themed viaduct that makes a 90° angle but is made up of four parts, you can pull the tops off and have (wider then usual) 1/2 curves. I'm bidding on a lot that contains then right now to check them out, amongst wanting a few other things in the lot.


The first version of the carry along Thomas map set has a bit of mountain that is a non standard angle off of normal, I'm not sure if it is exactly a half curve or not, but I purchased one on the Japanese auctions so I'll know soon enough.


I have long suspected that the old red turntable with the slot for the overhead gantry gives you "illegal" off angles as well, which is why they made the later Thomas version with the diamond connectors, but I'm not entirely sure.


There are also, if anyone is interested, 1/2 curve road pieces (so same as standard Plarail curves instead of the 90° road pieces) in a few of the side by side road and rail sets, I've seen them in green and grey.


And not to change the subject, but I have a question about the other wider radius curves. I've only seen these in one early Thomas set, which I've now picked up three examples of to have a number of the curves. Were these available in other normal Plarail sets? I must confess the majority of my Plarail knowledge is about the Thomas range. The radius is not enough to make a third loop around the wider double track, but it is slightly wider then the outer double track. I don't have a picture of the rails on top of one another (I'll grab one when I go home tomorrow) although I have done it before when I got the set to see the differences. You can see that the close half of the set is double rail width apart (it includes the manual switch from the old R15 set on the close side) but it is wider in the back.

Wooden rail tracks have tigher radius than plastic tracks. They both share the same gauage.  There are sellers selling 3d Printed adapters to connect the plastic tracks to wooden tracks.

[Super]

If those are 3D printed rails they look professionally done like on a high end printer. I am curious as to the letters printed on them. Some of the curves have the letter 'L' on them. Could that mean these are one side printed rails where 'L' means left curve and there is an 'R' (right) curve one too? Not reversible? Wonder what the 'O' is for since they are on both male and female end. Those Gold ones look great for a special display.

As far as the 'Long Radius Curves' go, I thought they were simply outside curves rails were you can run tracks side by side perfectly. I am not aware of any others but I am curious as you say that those are slightly wider that an outside rail.

Here's some photos. First is normal rail, separate R09 outer double rail, and then the wider outside rail. I thought when I tried this before that it did not fit around the outside of the outer double rail. It sort of does fit, but you could never have two trains passing because they are right up against each other. Putting down straight rails to compare the ends shows that the outermost rail is slightly short of the others, and to reach it would have to be slightly on top of the double rail. It's probably within the play of the rail connector however







Here is is with normal double rail






Sitting on top of double rail and all three on top of eachother




The box they are on is the only set I have seen them in. I believe all the ones I have came with the 1992-1994 style Thomas with the different front axle, I am not sure if it was made later. The set is not too hard to find or expensive, as I said I have three now, this boxed one I bought about a year ago, and I have won on the auctions recently another boxed example in better condition for under 2000 yen and one loose for the starting bid of 300 yen

[Super]

Thanks Duck

For some reason they seem familiar to this old coot. I think we may have talked about these recently in one of Vio's vintage Threads. At least thats what my aged brain cells are telling me.

Go into the light Super...go into the light

I think we may have talked about these recently in one of Vio's vintage Threads. 

Exactly. There's life in the old coot yet. All the detail you need is in the Vio's Collection So Far thread, starting about here.  

And the link Vio posted there, to Plarail current part dimensions inherited from the official use of "Large Curved Rail" 

I think this little "0" rails, printed or whatever, are done very professionaly, too. "L" and "R" could stand for left and right, indeed. But I think "0" is not a letter O, but a number 0 (zero). I suppose zero suggests the smaller radius then the regular R-03 curves.

We have seen wider rails, recently we had even some pictures and a video of the double track wider then usual double rail, didn't we? But I have never seen rails that can form a circle inside of a R-03 circle.  And if we look at the first photo, they are just perfect, and trains can pass each other on all three tracks. Very, very useful rails. I'd love to see it in regular Tomy assortment...

[Super]

Thanks Dr Chris for confirming that there is still life in this 'old coots' brain....at least for now.

Thanks Chris. I do have all these rails except the non-TOMY rails.

The purple rails don't really connect like that. The rails will have an overlap so there is a subtle error with the illustration program.