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Mini Mini Rail No. 1 D-51 Locomotive Set

Originally written June 22, 2025

The Mini Mini Rail No. 1 D-51 Locomotive Set (ミニミニレールNO.1セット D-51機関車) was released by Bandai as part of the early Mini Mini Rail as one of the No. 1 oval sets featuring a D-51 steam locomotive with tender and coach.

The side of the box mentions that the Shinkansen Hikari and four colors of JNR National Railways trains are also available, and the No. 1 set was sold with the Hikari and 103 series trains as well as the D-51 shown here.

I have seen the No. 1 set with JNR train in an earlier box style with a different diorama on the front.

Set contents

Quantity	Item	Photo
3 pieces	D-51 Steam Locomotive, tender, and coach
2	801 Long Straight Rail
8	807 Long Curved Rail
1	Signal
1	Semaphore signal
2	N batteries

This set includes the classic Japanese D-51 steam locomotive with the running number D-51-70 and its tender with one coach.

The D-51 has a unique chassis with metal side rods that takes two N size batteries. Even once I got the motor running, I had to disassemble the chassis and clean out the contacts on the battery compartment and motor to get it to actually propel itself down the track, especially when pulling something.

The tender is a shorter and is similarly nicely tooled, and the passenger car uses the "standard" Mini Mini Rail chassis.

Both a light-type and semaphore signal are included, although none of the trees or overhead wire holders common in the larger sets are present. I suppose the D-51 doesn't need the wire catenaries anyways.

Obviously it is a smaller set, but these numbered sets are the same way many other Japanese toys were sold in the 1970s.