Christmas is coming...

...seems this is the container type the old Plarail wagons are supposed to be representing - JNR C12 types.

C10, C11 & C12 all look pretty much the same.  The text on the side:
国鉄コンテナ
 戸口から戸口へ

Simply says
JNR Container
Door-to-Door

 

First photo Type C10/C11 photo 21-Mar-1972, second photo 18-Jan-1981

Fair enough, gotta love they literally had 3 classes of relatively identical container, all of which share class names with JNR steam loco classes - It's a wonder nobody got confused but then again, pretty easy to tell a container apart from a locomotive so there's always that xD

So I guess now I could always attach the Plarail C12 wagon to my Tomica World C12 locomotive, and have a C12 hauling a C12? 





Incidentally all this talk of containers reminded me that here in the UK at one point we actually had sort of similar 'mini-containers' as part of the original incarnation of 'Freightliner' under British Rail, which were not as small as the JNR type but were carried on dedicated 'Conflat' trains much like the dedicated flatbeds used for the compact JNR containers. 



These were developed with a service called 'Condor' in mind, the name standing for 'Container Door-to-Door', as a continuation of BR's traditional service of individual containers of various types chained to flat wagons which had been the main means of railway container shipment for many years.

The text on the side of your Plarail green flatbed with three fixed white containers says 冷蔵コンテナ - Refrigerated Container (which C10/11/12 are not).

These are the ones you want, type 'R' containers:



http://www16.plala.or.jp/goerlitz/container_jnr3.htm

[Super]

The Master Researcher does it again 😃

This is what it looked like when new. The characters on the header:

Kanji 貨車 - 冷凍車 or Hiragana かしゃ - れいとうしゃ
=
Freight Car - Refrigerator Car

Wow how appropriate for Christmas, being a cold container...



Or perhaps we can say that it's Frozen?




I'll see myself out

I'll see myself out

It's OK, I'll get the door for you.

Please don't slam the door. You don't have to keep your distance anymore...

...'cause that joke never bothered me anyway. That film just turned ten last month and I still adore it, just as I did shortly after I signed up here; especially because of the protagonist (not who most people think it is, though I've always loved both of them).

Guess we could say that I left the door open....



Because it got stuck when I let it go!







Slightly more on topic [  ] the wagons arrived yesterday, and included a couple of bonuses, namely 3 Plarail logs, and a Mattel-era Trackmaster Thomas. 

Honestly, I was probably way more excited than most to get free Plarail logs, as my Tomica World D51 and wagons which would have come from the Basic Set originally was naturally missing the logs, although it had both wagons and was in excellent condition otherwise - So now I finally have a complete D51 train.



Also in there was the black guards-van and the brown livestock wagon, so inadvertently I've also now got a complete Tomica World C12 train exactly as would have been sold in the 'bucket' Steam Train Set, which is great   

I bought my C12 as a single 'non functioning' loco for £5 a couple years ago, all it needed was new tyres as the 'fault' turned out to be that one tyre was missing, and the other was badly perished and barely gripping, so to have the complete wagon set now is even better.




And since I'm on a recent roll with eBay; £10 got me a Tomica 'car-park' module i've had my eye on for a while, since I think it'd go great with compact layouts as a station car-park...



This was a bargain too, £10 being sold as barely used/not working, because apparently the clockwork mechanism that powers the lift is not working as intended;
Basically, the lift is spring-loaded on a clockwork motor to automatically rise upwards, and is held down by 2 button controls, one for the 'first floor' and one for the 'second floor'. 

As described, the lift just 'shoots upwards' immediately rather than the more gradual clockwork action, which indicates that the clockwork motor may be having issues? Fortunately I think it's pretty likely I can repair it honestly because as we all well know, TOMY like to use modular repairable components in their designs, and if my hunch is correct [I think perhaps the clockwork spring has lost tension and simply needs retensioning], I should be able to either repair or replace the motor and get it back to working order.

[Super]

Yes, you are on a roll P-Man 👍

Well, they arrived, and all are cosmetically in brilliant condition. Better yet, they arrived on my birthday (what are the odds LOL)

Next test will obviously be taking them to the track, the 485 appears to be unused (no joke) but the Super Hikari had a lot of hair, red carpet fibres and dust inside the gearbox, so a quick stripdown and clean was in order

However, I'm gonna say the Super Hikari might be a record holder here on BPT for the oldest tires on a Plarail model




No, those aren't black Trackmaster tyres, these are the original 30+ year old tyres (probably from 1988) that have perished so much that they've turned a translucent reddish-black, and also rock solid.



I've had to gently peel them off using a thin blade to split them, but yeah, these things are fossilised lol

Update when I get them onto the track 😁