fall inside a hole
Child Guidance Kiddie Land (1967)
First written April 3, 2024
Guild Guidance Kiddie Land is a Child Guidance Railroad set seemingly first released at JCPenny for Christmas 1967 produced in collaboration with Tomy wherein Child Guidance seemingly came up with the concept and design for the toy with Tomy manufacturing the locomotives, trains, and accessories for Child Guidance and in return Tomy got to adapt the accessories for the Plarail system and release their own "Yuuenchi" or Amusement Park line of Plarail in the late 1960s. The front of the box shows some early prototypes of the train with a different coupling system and an earlier version of the stop rails.
The boxed Child Guidance Kiddie Land shown here is the U.K. import distributed by Mettoy-Playcraft and is probably from around 1968. The box specifically states it is for distribution in the Sterling area and European Free Trade Association countries. Later, Mettoy produced their own battery powered range of sets that used the Child Guidance style track. The American box is very similar but does not include the Mettoy-Playcraft or Great Britain text. Child Guidance Kiddieland as well as some of the more traditional non-powered Child Guidance Railroad sets can be seen in the 1968 Child Guidance catalogue (archived).
The U.S. Patent for the Child Guidance Kiddieland concept was first filed for in late April 1967.
Set contents
| Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
|---|---|---|
| 4
pieces |
Joy Ride train |
 |
| 3 | Straight Rail (red) |
 |
| 8 | Curve Rail (red) |
 |
| 3 |
Stop Rail |
 |
| 1 |
Ferris Wheel |
 |
| 1 | Spinning Teacups |
 |
| 1 | Carousel |
 |
| 9 | Passengers (three each of three types) |
 |
The Joy Ride train plays the part of an excursion train running around a small amusement park in this set, which I think it is nicely suited for. The carriages on the train resemble cars and have a seat for the included passenger dolls. Like other Child Guidance amusement park trains, it was made in Japan by Tomy.
The trains seem somewhat fragile (particularly the red plastic the chassis is made from) and most examples I have seen need some kind of repair. Some information about how to repair these trains can be found here.
These cars have a coupling system somewhat similar to Plarail of the time. It has a wide range of motion and resembles the Child Guidance Shuttle Train coupling system (incidentally, the prototype coupling system resembles a prior style of Plarail couplings used on later examples of Plarail's early push-trains).
The small dolls in this set can sit in the train and amusement park rides and are marked with Japan on the bottom rim. This same style of "finger puppet" doll was used in some other Child Guidance sets, and they are vaguely similar to the later rolling dolls used in Plarail Land sets.
The main features of this set are the three amusement park rides; a Ferris wheel, a carousel, and a spinning teacups ride.
The carousel features three horses that bob up and down while the carousel goes around.
The Ferris wheel has three free-spinning buckets that can seat the passenger figures.
These accessories have gears or other geared features lined up with the track connector to accommodate the gear on the end of the stop rail. Locating the accessory onto the two locating pegs lines up the gears and will let the train's tires run the accessory around when stopped.
The spinning teacups ride has a central planetary gearing system to make the teacups spin when the round base is driven around by the train.
All of these accessories are marked as made in Japan on the bottom, being produced by Tomy, and the tops of the bases say A Child Guidance Toy and Pat. Pend. Plarail amusement park accessories came out of these same toolings and were marked identically.
The track in this set is made in Great Britain, although American releases would have American-made Child Guidance track. The only exception are the three stop rails, which were seemingly produced by Tomy in Japan for all Child Guidance releases, as well as their own Plarail-standard stop rail that interfaced with the accessories in the same way.
The stop tracks have a bent piece of metal acting as the spring under the release switch. The gears on these pieces are splitting with age. Some notes on repairing these tracks is available here.
The pieces included in this set allow for several different square, rectangular, or hexagonal layouts, with many ways to arrange the different rides. Depending on which way the track is set up, the rides can be on the inside or outside of the loop.
The Joy Ride train is one of the earlier Plarail export products and the collaboration between Tomy and Child Guidance has been a big interest of mine since learning about this set and others like it. I think the fair rides are very nice with interesting color choices and cool operation. The stop rails at each destination will automatically stop the train, meaning the set does not really continuously run, but the whole point is to represent an excursion train taking passengers to different parts of an amusement park and for that I think it makes fine sense. The train can be sent around to each ride in turn and the passengers can be taken from the train and put onto the ride before reboarding the train to head off to the next ride.
It seems that in the mid 1970s the concept of this train set was borrowed for the Walt Disney Character Play World, which featured a very similar locomotive carrying Disney characters in three cars around a Disney World playboard with similar attractions and mechanisms.