fall inside a hole
Super Rail Shinkansen and Steam Locomotive Wide Panorama Set
Originally written August 31, 2025
The largest Super Rail set, and the only set with more than one train, was the Shinkansen and Steam Locomotive Wide Panorama Set (新幹線&SL ワイドパノラマセット) which released in 1989. It features a large concentric-loop layout with elevation and a yard with several uncoupling rails.
The large early Super Rail sets had been shrunk down in the later 1970s, but with the inflation of the Japanese economic bubble in the 1980s some large sets like this began to reappear... It cost 14,800 yen.
Set contents
| Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
|---|---|---|
| 3
pieces |
Tokaido Sanyo New Shinkansen |
 |
| 1 | Klaus-type Steam Engine |
 |
| 1 | Uncovered Car |
 |
| 1 | Tank Car |
 |
| 5 pieces | Container Transport Vehicle Koki 5000 |
 |
| 1 | Passenger Car Suha 43 |
 |
| 6 | Straight Rail |
 |
| 5 | 1/2 Straight Rail |
 |
| 8 | B Curve Rail |
 |
| 9 | C Curve Rail |
 |
| 3 | C Turnout (two right, one left) |
 |
| 1 pair | Crossover Point Rail (one of each type) |
 |
| 3 | Uncoupling Rail |
 |
| 2 | Return Control Rail |
 |
| 4 pieces | Slope Rail (two sets of two pieces each) |
 |
| 5 | Bridge Girder |
 |
| 3 | Buffers |
 |
| 18 | Station |
 |
| 8 | Single wire holders |
 |
| 2 | Semaphore signals |
 |
| 2 | Tree |
 |
| 2 | Fir tree |
 |
| 4 pieces | Tunnel |
 |
| 2 | Reversing insert |
 |
| 1 | Railing ramp |
 |
The titular Shinkansen is the 100 series Tokaido Sanyo New Shinkansen, the last new Super Rail train, already a few years old by the time this set was first released in 1989. This is the only Super Rail set to feature two trains (although there were a few large Brazilian Ferrorama sets with two trains).
This copy of the set was produced in July 1990, as the Plarail-style stamped production sticker inside the 100 series reveals.
The other train in the set is the Klaus-type Steam Locomotive, a small AA-powered steam engine that can couple and uncouple on both ends.
The set includes a nice selection of cars for Klaus to shunt around, including an open wagon and a tanker...
...and a cool container car with four removable containers.
A Suha 43 passenger car is also included. It is rather nicely detailed, and lets Klaus carry passengers instead of freight.
There is a very nice selection of track in this set, including the return of the old concentric loop layouts of the early 1970s sets with B and C curves. Both types of crossover point are included to facilitate lane switching.
Three turnouts are included to branch off and form a yard with the three uncoupling rails, and part of the outer loop is elevated with the nice two-straight-long slope rails.
The very cool and well-detailed Super Rail platform station is included. It is made up of many components with several stickered signs.
The station sits between the outer loops and the uncoupling rails, giving them the image of a yard next to a station. Although there were plenty of Shinkansen-conventional transfer stations, I don't think many connected to steam-serviced lines directly, certainly not by the late 1980s...
One of the four-piece tunnels is included as well as five bridge supports for the elevated section of the layout - the 100 series here is borrowing an extra intermediate car. The last new Super Rail set in 1991 included the 100 series on a layout similar to the Plarail "overpass" layout and included the old red arched bridge, and it would heave been cool to see one here, but it is already a large and well-filled-out set.
Smaller accessories include two semaphore signals, four trees, three buffer stop sections, and eight single wire line poles. Its a pretty nice selection.
One of the grey railing ramps is also included, which is useful, although only the passenger car is the harder two-bogie type of car... Two reversing inserts, as in nearly all sets, are also included.
The main layout has two concentric loops, with the Shinkansen speeding around the outer loop and the steam locomotive Klaus can shuffle around the yard and inner loop. Click the GIFs for larger, higher-frame-rate video versions with sound.
If you switch the crossover rails around, you can switch the Shinkansen onto the inner loop and then back out on the other end, and the yard can still be worked in.
Of course, you can also run the trains on the other loops.
I got out a second 100 series Shinkansen intermediate car to run an even longer train as well.
There are a few other suggested layouts, which I would like to set up and photograph as well eventually. This is a pretty large and impressive set, and is a very fun and fairly complete look at the Super Rail system.