fall inside a hole

Plarail Sloping Rails

Since the early days of the Highway Vehicles and Plastic Trains sloped Plarail rail has been sold to give sets elevated and trains bridges to run over.

R-06 Slope Rail

<-- R-05 Double Track Curve Rail

R-07 Bridge Rail --> R-07 2x Straight Rail -->

  

The "modern" slope rail is an evolution of the earlier "bridge rail" with integrated support structure. These rails were first developed in 1975 for sets in part because it would take up significantly less space in set boxes than the fully supported style. Slope rails were first released individually in a two-pack as R-06 Slope Rail (坂レール) in 1984. When the Bridge Rail went out of print around 1996 two Block Bridge Piers were included with two slope rails as R-06 New Slope Rail (ニュー坂レール) around 1998. Unlike the bridge rails, slope rails have no inherent "direction" and can be flipped around to change the direction of the track connectors.

Set exclusive era (1975-1984)

The first set to use the new slope rail was 1975's Round-Trip Plarail 3D Loading and Unloading Set, where one slope rail was used in part of the included ED-70s journey up and down to drop off balls in the top of a loading hopper.

Before the individual release in 1984, slope rails were only used in sets where they saved room in the styrofoam parts trays inside the boxes. with the introduction of the Block Bridge Girder slits were added to the tooling to let them fit more securely on top of the new locating protrusions on the top of the new girders.

Early 80s slope rails have the curvy Tomy logo midway along their length as well as the made in Japan mark. Slope rails were treaded before many other types of rails to aid in traction when going uphill.

Individual release (made in Japan) (1984-1990)

Beginning in 1984 Tomy began selling Japan-made slope rails in hang-tag plastic bag packaging like many other Plarail rails and accessories.

Green cardboard backings included instructions about how to use the accessories contained within, like this made in Japan printing of the Slope Rail packaging showing how to use it with Block Bridge Girders and which orientation it should be used in.

These slope rails were released individually in part to compliment the new stacking J-14 Block Bridge Girders, with rails being updated with two additional slots near the connector to accommodate locating tabs on top of the new risers.

Made in Thailand era (1990-)

Sloping rails made in Thailand appeared not long after Tomy began moving Plarail production to their Thailand factory in 1989.

These rails are marked Tomy Thailand and appeared in sets around 1990 like the Hikari Overpass Set.

These slope rails were also produced in dark blue for the Tomy Express series. They were sold in pairs individually and included in the largest Tomy Express set, the Tomy-Express Multi-Set 1

Later, seemingly around 1993 when many other early Thailand moldings were similarly updated, the text midway up the rail was changed to also say Made in Thailand.

In the early 2000s the tooling was updated with the new squared-off Tomy logo, of course.

7493 Sloping Rail (Tomica World) (1998)

In 1998 slope rails were released for the Tomica World range in a two-pack as 7493 Sloping Rail.

<-- R-05 Double Track Curve Rail

R-07 Bridge Rail --> R-07 2x Straight Rail -->

R-07 Bridge Rail

<-- R-06 Slope Rail

R-08 Stop Rail -->

The Bridge Rail was introduced in 1968 and was the first slope rail intended specifically for use with then-new electric Plarail vehicles. The slopes include supports hanging down below the rails, although the upper track connector is not actually supported. This also means there are two different "directions" of bridge rail, one with the concave connector at the bottom and convex at the top, and the other with the convex connector at the bottom and concave at the top. The individual release includes one of each direction of bridge rail and two Bridge Girders, originally old yellow and later orange piers with no track clips and later the more common yellow piers with track clips.

Although they can be more annoying to use because they have a handedness unlike the regular slope rail, I think the supports look cool and fit the use case of a sloping rail leading to a bridge or elevated span.

These bridge rails survived the move of Plarail production to Thailand in the earlier 90s and were produced through 1996, going out of print in 1997.

<-- R-06 Slope Rail

R-08 Stop Rail -->