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Bandai Mini Mini Rail Accessories

Bandai produced and sold the Mini Mini Rail (ミニミニレール) series of train toys in Japan from 1975 until around 1982. The trains are about the same size as N scale trains and run on rails 10.5mm apart, slightly wider than N scale's 9mm.

Accessories

Mini Mini Rail sets from their inception included small trackside accessories that fit into slots in the roadbed.

Accessories include single and double track overhead wire holders, signals, and buffer stops.

Both semaphore and light-type signals were produced. Between different production eras, the colors on the semaphore signal switched around.

Buffers, signals, and overhead line poles all slot into holes in the roadbed besides the tracks.

At least three different types of trees appeared in different sets at different times, the two on the left earlier on and the one to the right later.

Larger individual accessories like stations and crossings, sometimes with sound or other features, were released in boxes starting fairly early on.

851 Tunnel (1975)

A longer, more elaborate curved tunnel was released early on in Mini Mini Rail's life.

It was vacuformed and somewhat fragile, with a model-railroad-esque flocked covering which wears off over time. It is probably only unused examples that have survived well.

The tunnel is marked Bandai inside. Actually, I have the original hang tag from the tunnel's packaging, which uses the layout photo also on the 1975 boxes. The ST mark dates the testing to 1974, when the initial range seems to have been developed. In catalogues this is called the 851 Tunnel, but the tag number is 2396.

Later, around 1978, a flimsier, smaller and less detailed all-plastic tunnel was included in some sets.

851 Iron Bridge (1975)

In 1975 - before the elevation system was introduced - the reconfigurable Iron Bridge was added to the range.

The iron bridge is made up of two side sections with several top pieces that select the width of the bridge. Older versions have two different top sections with crossing beams for the different widths and two different lengths of cross-member to cap off the bridge at either end.

Later on it seems that the bridge top sections were redesigned to have the width-spanning beams integrated into the crossing spans.

875 Bridge Girders (1976)

Appearing alongside the Slope Rail in 1976 were packs of six bridge girders to hold up elevated rail. They can clip in together in a parallel line to make double or wider elevated setups at the regular Mini Mini Rail width.

Horn Crossing (~1978)

Released in the later 1970s from what I can tell, this neat railroad crossing with signalbox produces a "horn" (really more of a whistle) when a train passes. It has two pressure pads in the track to activate an air-powered whistling mechanism inside when trains pass.

 

It takes two AA batteries housed under the roof of the signalbox. Inside a motor drives a fan inside an enclosure that blows through two whistles, one on either side, with the intake vent on the front and an exit out of either side wall. There is a white and blue version of the crossing that was sold alongside the country station as an accessory pack.

Click for video with sound!

It was also included in the No. 3 EF71 Electric Locomotive Horn Set.