Can anyone help date this Gordon please?

I’ve been using the Thomas wiki to try and sort these out, but now I am stumped...


I cannot seem to be able to put this into the Tomy Gordon timeline.

It has blue/red striped stickers inside of the wheel wells just like the Powerful Gordon version, whereas the all of the others have pinstriping around the outer portion.
Can anyone tell me what year this variation was released, where, etc. please?

The stock photo for the 2003 Gordon looks like that, with the striped stickers inside the wheel arches.


I have seen quite a few 2nd Gen Talking Gordons that look like that, though I have also noticed some by themselves. My guess is that TOMY reused leftovers from the Powerful Gordon and switched permanently to the outer striping once they ran out (maybe around mid-to-late-2004). Also, these seem to have the white engine-tender connectors (just like the Powerful Gordon), while most 2003-onward Plarail Gordons have black ones. Is this the case with yours, Muddy?

I know somebody here had a release log for all of TOMY's Products somewhere.

3 Things:

1. Can you post an Image of that Gordon's Coal there should be a Sticker with a code like C03 (Month and Year)
2. I'm pretty sure that is an early 2003 Plarail T-04 Gordon.
3. In order I think it goes 1995, Angry Gordon (first plarail release of gordon with a white running board I think according to the motorized wiki), Sticker Wheelarch Gordon (comes right after for a regular release), and then Printed Wheelarch Gordon (sometime in around 2005-2009 i think)

Thank You!
@FfD Yes, this is the coal lid, so I guess it’s 2004?

@tRa Yes it has white wire wrap, where as the other one is black.

So are these years correct?

I would think the one with the sticker wheel arches was available from 2003 to 2004 and the one with the printed wheel arches is from ~2005 (just as FfarDev said).

Also, isn’t the PG from 2002?

The 2003 Gordon was made until 2015 which is the year the redesigned verison came out.

Yes, but there were several changes along the way

The red rim was moved from inside the wheel arch to the rim, as has been discussed. I believe the 2005 estimate may be about right. The change happens at just about the same time as the blue plastic was changed - I have not seen a red rim Gordon with the terrible yellowing plastic mix, and nearly every inside rim Gordon I see is the old plastic mix. The "2004" Gordon shows off what happens to this poor plastic mix well. In the mid 2000s (I believe shortly before Tomy stopped selling in the US) the white coupling between tender and engine was changed to black. In the 2010s - I believe someone has figured around 2012 based on production stamps - the middle wheels went from loose on the capped axle to press fit. You can see that change in the last Gordon in Muddy's photo.
It is hard to tell without keeping a good record of incredably specific mold and wire and other component changes, and without opening something from a sealed box yourself it is hard to tell when specific revisions happened because you don't know exactly what life ir has had previously, as wheels and couplings and wires and really any component can be replaced over time from repairs.

To throw another Gordon in the ring, here is a puzzle still unsolved: a friend spotted a Gordon in a Japanese lot with different wire colors and a Made in Japan style coupling. We both assumed this was an early production Gordon reusing some parts left over from the Made in Japan era. I ended up finding another one with a possible original battery cover, and it claims to be from some time in 1998, not 1995.


So there are two possible timeframes, and without finding another one with more concrete evidence both are possible in my mind - either it is a 1995 Gordon which swapped its battery cover over the last 25 years, entirely possible, or it is a 1998 Gordon, because it is known that around the start of the Tomica World era engines were being given weird wire colors in some cases and Made in Japan style couplings in others. I have a James from 1997 built for the US market with different wire colors then usual, and have seen Tomica World stuff come from the factory with old style couplings, so I have no reason to rule out the possibility of it being from 1998.

I do have boxed Plarail Gordon examples from 1995, 1996, 1997, and 2001, but it is possible that my 1995 Gordon is too late to have these early features assuming it really is a very early production run with swapped battery cover, and I am missing a 1998 Gordon boxed to compare the other possibility.