An interesting purchase...

They've not been delivered yet, but I ordered some knockoff Plarail container wagons - The difference here is, instead of the usual Japanese railway containers that look like this....




They're what I know as a shipping container, the longer Western kind that I see literally every day going through my local station - I live in a city on Britain's Great Eastern Main Line [GEML] which is a key freight artery connecting London and Felixstowe, which is one of our largest container ports.




I bought a pair because I was curious to see what they'd be like in terms of quality, and of course because if I end up using them on my layout [likely] then having a pair fits the usual Plarail formation of one locomotive and 2 coaches








Incidentally, it was being sold with a lot of random Thomas [all Plarail] bootlegs, including some rather odd 'carriages'; Here's a few of my favourites


Strawberry and lime flavoured Tobies, minus the face [My guess is these are supposed to be cabooses as they aren't motorised]




Lime flavoured Annie/Clarabel, presumably designed to be hooked up to the matching Toby to create a train? No matching red equivalent here for red Toby though lol




A rather dodgy looking Percy knockoff, the face looks badly painted ^_^




Diesel 10 but with holes for coupling rods, because I guess they planned on a steam conversion for him lol xD

Curious that your image of the webpage for the container wagon (a Southward knock-off) it says "497 pieces available" but when I go to the same webpage it says "1 pieces at most per customer". Not sure how you got around that!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003569682294.html

@chrisjo

Huh, not sure how I did either lol 😂

I added 2 to the cart, and the order went through, so for all intents and purposes I'm expecting 2 to arrive ^_^

Try adding 2 and see what happens, and use the browser version (that's what I tend to use).

Also, isn't Southward a fairly common bootleg Plarail name? I swear I've heard it mentioned before but never noticed it was on the containers till you pointed it out 😜

Southward - yes, a well-known knock-off brand. The container car exists in various colours both individually and as part of set.

You can search this forum for 'southward' to find several previous discussions.

is it just me or this one comes with just 2 or 1 curve tracks?

Well, a lot of this will now depend on if I ever recieve the package with them in!

Which leads me nicely onto the point of how Royal Mail kinda should invest in a tracking system that y'know, TRACKS?

Basically, I had reasons to believe a parcel I had due had, as previously been sent to the wrong place, and would probably end up wrongly returned to sender.

Nope, tracking just didn't bother to update and so it arrived around 4:30 today lol 😂

Pictures to come.

Further edit - @chrisjo - You were right about the 1 per customer thing, because it seems I only ordered one to begin with, and for some reason thought I'd got 2 - Having had a look at it (and being surprisingly impressed with the quality) I might order a second just so I have the requisite pair for a standard Plarail formation.

I don't know if it comes with one or two curves, but one thing is for sure... It comes with a lot of disappointed

Further edit - @chrisjo - You were right about the 1 per customer thing, because it seems I only ordered one to begin with, and for some reason thought I'd got 2 - Having had a look at it (and being surprisingly impressed with the quality) I might order a second just so I have the requisite pair for a standard Plarail formation.

And yet now it looks like I can order as many as I like! Which I have done.

Nice. Happy with those. (They are all the same size - phone camera distortion).
Impressive shipping / tracking from AliExpress too.

Next job is to search for some appropriate OO/HO scale 20' container decals.

[Super]

Those look very nice Dr Chris. Might look pretty good with some Graffiti Decals too 😃