Since the fairly early days of the automatic transfer station Plarail has had some small thin molded plastic people to populate the station platform. These people were all single-color and fairly low-detail. Since the 1980s, Tomy has made several more widespread and intentional companion figures and dolls for their Plarail and related Tomica toylines.
Around 1968 as part of an arrangement with Child Guidance Toys Tomy produced and sold "finger puppet" style dolls that fit into the train cars and accessories. Some of these dolls can be seen next to Family Dolls and Doll Play dolls on this webpage.
Japanese release versions were seemingly shorter, while Tomy produced some to the Child Guidance specification for the export Kiddieland and Joy Ride trains.
Starting around 1977 Tomy released a few colors of rolling figures with ball bearings sticking out the bottoms for use on their Plarail Land playsets aimed at younger children. These sets contained gimmicks where the rolling figures or "rolling friends" would traverse a ramp to ride on a themed destination and then get onto the train or other vehicle in the set to be taken back around to do it all over again.
These dolls are a similar size to the taller American variant of the Amusement Park dolls and were exported in American Playrail sets as well as other Plarail Land exports.
In 1982 Tomy began selling individually and including in some sets small figures of a family of four and a train driver. These figures were referred to as ファミリー人形 or Family Dolls.
These figures have turnable heads and holes in their feet so they can stand or "sit" on pegs on a fairly small handful of trains and accessories.
Family Dolls were produced in several color combinations such as this darker-haired couple with blue suit and pink dress instead of green and orange. Family Dolls were also released with some trains beginning with the Mickey Poppo in 1982 and the Family Travel Salon Car in 1984 and continued to be included until the Salon Car was discontinued in 1987 and the old power Mickey Poppo refitted into its new power form in the late 1990s. The Mickey Poppo coach tooling was later retrofit to seat PlaKids.
Around 1987 a few scenery pieces were released using studded bases and some brick components similar to LEGO and other building toys under the name Plarail Town (プラレールタウン). Released alongside this series were small figures that resembled the Family Dolls that had poseable arms with hands that were rounded similar to Lego-style figures.
Although not Plarail, the figures developed for Tomy Train are an important stepping stone in arriving at Tomy's Doll Play range. These figures were first released in the United States and Europe in 1988 and have moving arms, legs, and heads. The hands are hooked to hang off or over some accessories and, later on, hold some small accessories like balloons.
It appears these figures were developed from the start with the idea of a magnet system in mind, as the tooling includes cutouts in the feet for square magnets that were first implemented around 1990. The magnetic accessories first introduced in 1990 use a large yellow base that is dated 1988 as if they had been developed but not launched or perhaps not yet been quite ready for launch. This base has two areas with magnets that are moved back and forth by two levers near a section of what is actually road, and placing a figure on the base and moving the lever (relatively slowly) moves the figure along the path. Other accessories used the magnets in the feet to unlock or engage part of the mechanism, like having an operator in the control booth of a log loader to enable it to load logs into a train. From 1990 to 1995 or so most figures included magnets and some accessories took advantage of this, but later on it seems many sets cheapened out and took these magnetic features out.
In 1993 Tomy introduced the Doll Play series of trains and sets containing dolls that were fairly similar to the Tomy Train figures.
A driver and a male and female passenger were both released with articulated arms, legs, and heads. The dolls have magnets in their feet and the larger Doll Play set included a station with an operating ticket gate that the dolls "walk" thorough alongside their tickets.
The driver and male passenger were included when the station was released individually for most of the rest of the 1990s and also appeared in some oddities such as the oversized multi-track Nozomi station.
In the 1990s to go along with Tomica Town Tomy produced tall, thin figures with flexible but connected legs and arms.
Some of these figures were exported in the Tomica World range. A few Thomas-series export sets included three Thomas Tomica figures, including the Fat Controller with a larger body and shorter leg toolings.
In 2001 Tomy began releasing a new series of poseable figures called Plastic Kids or PlaKids (プラキッズ) for short. PlaKids have connected legs and arms that move together but are made of a flexible plastic so they can be held in different positions by hand. PlaKids were included in some sets, regular train releases, and accessories or track packs and many were exported in the Tomica Hypercity range. Several different Thomas the Tank Engine PlaKids like stationmasters and Sir Topham Hatt were released.
PlaKids in my collection include...
Set/Accessory Year |
Description | Picture |
---|---|---|
Shinkansen Kodama Set 2002 |
Female passenger and station chief | |
PlaKids
Town Emily Set December 27 2004 PlaKids Town Conductor's House December 27 2004 |
Conductor figure for the Thomas series | |
PlaKids Town Sir Topham Hatt's Office December 27 2004 Thomas the Tank Engine Colorful Turn Rail Set April 16 2009 |
Regular Sir Topham Hatt figure for the Thomas series | |
50th Anniversary C12 Steam Locomotive Arch Bridge and Rail Set 2009 |
Conductor figure that can sit inside the guard's compartment in one of the set's cars |