Plarail Taiwan Illustrated List

Thanks Dr Chris. Well, my first impression was way off lol. Is it just me that with those vertical ribs showing in the middle resemble a container. Those ribs don't seem to be in the pictures of the real one.

Same question being asked on Plarail Taiwan Facebook. Weird.

is the middle of this Taiwan engine supposed to represent two containers in the middle?

No, good source of pictures is Chinese Wikipedia. Seems that it could be E200, E300, or E400.

and there's this:

i recognize the logo in your photo, it is offical logo for the national China railway.

i recognize the logo in your photo, it is offical logo for the national China railway.

Just to clear up any confusion, in a political world where the country name 'China' means very different things to different people.

The official name of Taiwan is the Republic of China, and the the logo in question belongs to the TRA or Taiwan Railways Administration.



The official name of mainland China, which since 1997 has included Hong Kong (and in 1999 Macau), is the People's Republic of China. The railways in the PRC are run by China State Railway Group, aka China Railway (CR), whose logo looks like this:



And while we're here, the logo of the Korean State Railway of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea known to most of us as North Korea, looks like this:

The Taiwan Railway Container Train Set was released on the 27th March 2024 at the Railway Festival held in the Dome at Dream Mall, Taipei, running from 27th March to the 8th of April, featuring a variety of Takara Tomy products (Plarail, Tomica, Shinkalion, Tomix, etc.). Also at other venues (e.g. Top City) at the same time? We can now see that the loco is an E200 class, number E223.

   

And to go with it, this new container car (台鐵貨物コンテナ), which rather curiously bears a KF designation on the box, but no actual KF number:

I'm also getting an idea that a separate Puyuma Express intermediate car was released as a limited item or event gift at a similar event in a previous year, I'll need to investigate this further.



EDIT: Same event, last year, entrance fee 50 NT$, complete three games, get your choice of one of three prizes, a PLARAIL Puyuma intermediate car, a PLARAIL backpack & sushi carrier, or an ANIA baby dinosaur.

[Super]

Thank you Dr Chris, great investigations. I am always all for new items and this set along with the separate KF car are ALL new. I believe the color/shades of all those containers are new as are the logos. Interesting to see that there may have been an intermediate coach released, given away individually for a Plarail made train just like in the past.

Wow, finally something new and different. It reminds me of the Plarail Sagawa Container train, where each engine unit could hold one container. I'm curious if the middle of this Taiwan engine is designed to represent two containers.

Wow, finally something new and different. It reminds me of the Plarail Sagawa Container train, where each engine unit could hold one container. I'm curious if the middle of this Taiwan engine is designed to represent two containers.

Yes. it does look that way, as Super said on 17th March.  I think it's just a coincidental resemblance, the actual locomotive looks rather like that, although I get the impression that the Tomy designers have emphasised the effect.