fall inside a hole

J-20 Rail Road Crossing (1985-1990)

First written March 8, 2024

<--J-19 Doll Play Automatic Ticket Gate Station

J-21 Electro Railroad Crossing --> J-21 Large Railroad Crossing -->

The J-20 Rail Road Crossing is a Plarail accessory that forms a crossing with the 1980s Plaroad system of road and vehicles from Tomy. The crossing can be left operating automatically or it can be triggered manually. It appeared in virtually every one of the Plarail-Plaroad crossover sets.

The earliest examples of this crossing were sold in yellow tag bags in 1985 and 1986 when it also appeared in the Rail Road Level Crossing Set. In 1987 it was rereleased in updated packaging and in 1988 it was given the designation J-20 as shown here. The original release was sold as レール・ロードふみきり but this was changed to レール・ロード踏切 - the new name can be seen on the front of the hang tag and the old name on the green card insert in the back of the bag, as it was seemingly not updated. I have the sealed crossing shown here, a nice condition one from the Rail Road Level Crossing Set, and a third one with broken crossing gates found in a lot. The back of the later style packaging shows some of the different ways it can be used.

The rubber bands holding the boom arms in place in my example have perished and partially turned to goo. The sticker sheet is the same as the one later used for the New Railroad Crossing which used the same boom gates, supports, and LEGO-stud style railroad crossing signs.

The crossing itself is a nice light blue base matching the color of Plaroad with the crossing inserts in regular Plarail blue. The boom gate design based on the 1970s crossing would go on to become the "standard" gate design for the New Railroad Crossing, Deluxe Crossing with Sound, double crossings, and other similar pieces. There are a few different single studs on the base for installing the signs in different places.

The crossing is one-way only on the road line. The sticker in the road says, approximately: "All sections of Plaroad are one way. Stopping and parking is prohibited."

The mechanism for stopping and starting the little bus relies on the little protrusion in the front of the Plaroad chassis. The rearmost hanging gear, which runs slower than the two exposed gears between the wheels, runs up the rack at the stem of the crossing, slowing the vehicle down so the powered rear wheels engage with the rollers embedded in the surface and the hanging protrusion hits against the stopper's catchment mechanism.

In the regular position the peg to the right is poking upwards and stops the bus against itself. When the button or the rail pads are pressed down, the right peg drops and the angled left peg raises up, still holding the bus in place until the button or track sensors are released, dropping the left peg before lifting the right peg which now locates behind the bump in the chassis, letting the car zoom off.

This setup allows for both completely automatic operation where a captured vehicle will be released after the next train passes or manual operation where the vehicle is let through whenever the button is pressed and released. I really, really like this as a feature and this is something that most of the later Motor Tomica/Plarail railroad crossings do not do (they are typically manual-release only).

It does not matter which direction a train approaches from in order to release a car but the catch and release mechanism is only on one side of the crossing. If the car approaches from the other side it will crash into the molding around the off-center catchment mechanism. The Rail Road Crossing was included in every Plarail/Plaroad crossover set, such as the Rail Road Level Crossing Set.