fall inside a hole
Toybox Mysterious! Transfer Station
First written August 2024Toybox's Mysterious Transfer Station toys were a series of toys that had a motorized chassis that would swap different designs of train body shells and traverse around a track layout before returning to the station to swap train bodies again.
The U.S. patent for the original toy was applied for in December 1976 and is credited to Makoto Saito, the same designer on the Big Loader patent, as well as Tomy, implying their involvement with the development of the toy.
Oh no! Mysterious Transformation Station (1990s)
In the 1990s Toybox rereleased new versions of several old Toy Town toys under their Disney license. The track layout for this version used two 180 degree curves instead of the spinner-bowl type curve on the original and had a similar Hikai-steam locomotive-subway train combination of vehicle tops. Mickey, Minnie, and Donald stickers are applied to the train. An example of this Disney-licensed version can be seen on this webpage.
Thomas the Tank Engine Mysterious! Transfer Station (2002)
The most recent rerelease of the transfer station was this 2002 Thomas the Tank Engine rethemed version featuring Thomas, Toby, and Percy cycling around one after another. This was called きかんしゃトーマス不思議!のりかえステーション or Thomas the Tank Engine: Mysterious! Transfer Station. The station in this set has a new clear dome with stickers to make it look like Knapford station from the Thomas series.
Set contents| Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Power chassis |
 |
| 3 pieces | Thomas, Percy, and Toby body shells |
 |
| 3 pieces | Knapford Station |
 |
| 2 | Turn rail |
 |
| 1 | Straight rail |
 |
| 1 | Hill rail |
 |
| 1 | Drawbridge rail |
 |
Thomas, Percy, and Toby are new toolings for this version of course.
The little chassis had a sliding top cover that holds the single AA battery.
The little gearbox inside is relatively simple with a worm-drive off the motor. On the drive shaft, one large gear engages with the output from the previous stage and is sprung against another large gear that does not actually engage with anything, just acting as a slip-clutch and using the friction between the sides of the two relatively large gears to transmit power. I ended up having some trouble with this and glued these two gears together to try and get the set working more reliably - my chassis was slipping when it tried to push through the lined-up train shells inside the station.
The Knapford Station section is where the different train tops shuffle around. Returning trains enter the back and shuffle the other trains forward, then the chassis slips under the trains and picks up the topper in front.
On top of Knapford is a nice two-sided sign. This toy is relatively simple all things considered, but it is nice that they actually bothered to make the art different on both sides.
The other track pieces also have numbers underneath to show what order they go in, although it can be assembled pretty easily in general.
Even with the glued clutch, the chassis in my set still has some problems getting the trains to swap properly. I think perhaps the traction tire may need replacing as well, I couldn't get the chassis to swap properly even twice in a row let alone a whole loop. I will have to revisit this one at some point.