Tomica World Boxes

Hi guys,
I just wanted to know how rare early Thomas and Friends trains are with their original Tomica World Boxes. It's not really the trains I'm into as much, it's their beautiful tomica world packaging they were originally released in. I've seen a couple up for sale on eBay but only a few over the past month but not too many. I was also wondering if any of our members here have any original Tomica World Boxes in their collections, and if they do, maybe they can post photos of them as there aren't many photos of them on the internet.
Here are some photos if you guys don't know what I'm talking about:



The boxes I particularly want to see and know about are the yellow boxes, however I'd still love to hear about and see the later generation Tomica World boxes too.
Any photos and information is greatly appreciated.

[Super]

I don't recall seeing the yellow ones before, they are cool. The Logo is different too, could that indicate age?

I think the Yellow boxes were the first releases of the Plarail versions of Thomas and Friends trains to the Western World. I think they were most likely released in the UK in the late 90's.

[Super]

What years might the red & blue boxes be from? The yellow boxes Logo seems to be whimsical and I thought maybe it was older. Here is a question, when did Tomica World start selling these Tomy trains in the UK and for that matter, when in the US?

BTW: what is this Carousell site you linked too? I am not sure I have seen or heard of it.

I know that the Yellow boxes came first then they switched to the Red and Blue boxes. I'm not sure of the years which they were released but I'm pretty confident that the Yellow boxes were only released in the UK, and then they switched to the Blue and Red boxes when they decided to release them worldwide.

I'm not sure what Carousell is either. When I look for photos of these trains on google images the pictures I get are usually from Carousell.

Edit: I just looked at the wikia and it says the Tomica World trains were first released in 1997 and were discontinued in 2003 when the changed the name from Tomica World to Motor Road and Rail and chose to directly focus on Thomas and Friends. It doesn't help us find out when they were first released in the US, or, I could be wrong and they were all initially released worldwide in 1997.

[Super]

Thanks Thara

Plarail Thomas was first brought to the US as the Battery Operated Rail System in 1997

Percy, James, and Henry were available with track in "Accessory Sets" - I haven't found any photos of them

They started using Tomica World packaging the next year in 1998 (Sometimes they even used UK boxes with a sticker over the European Tomy information with the US info on it)

I don't have any boxed Tomica World engines, but I do have the two sets pictured plus a TW Thomas Starter set

[Super]

Thanks Duck

I know to most here 1997 seems like ancient times but to me it doesn't seem so long ago. I always envision in my head that Tomy has been in the US for so much longer but I am sure its just my warped time continuum.

Interesting, don't think I've seen that US box art before.

Well, some of the TomyTrain stuff made it to the US before that, but it doesn't seem like much of the range was released here.

There's usually a few sets in the earlier box style available on eBay, but there was only two or three sets released at the time - I wanted that one in it's original release because by the time of the Tomica World release they had changed the suggested layout plans slightly by moving the half straights to be perpendicular to the long side of the layout instead of having them at a diagonal on the curved sections.