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J-07 Car Wash (1975/1983)

First written April 21, 2024

J-08 New Turntable -->

The Plarail Car Wash (洗車場) is a straight rail-long scene component that incorporates foam rollers on either side of a passing train so that they roll along it and "wash" the train as it passes. It was first used as a set item in red for Round-Trip Plarail in 1975 and was later released individually in 1983 in the blue color shown here, still with reverser.

The original made in Japan individual release also included two "dogbone" pieces to help accommodate it into a layout with its double concave ends.

These washes were first produced in Japan with two concave connectors. When the tooling moved to Thailand and was also put into use in the Tomy Train series the tooling was updated to have a convex connector on one end. The text around the reverser switch was also changed from UP and DOWN to REVERSE and PASS.

These washes were originally marked with the boy and girl logo. The Thailand version has a larger patch over the old mark with the curvy logo and Thailand text. For a short time around 1993 a stickered made in Thailand version appeared (it seems around this time a new requirement made Tomy update toys from simply saying "Thailand" to "Made in Thailand" instead, and for some toys whose toolings were not immediately updated Tomy affixed these stickers). Later the tooling was updated to say Made in Thailand (as seen on a red Tomy Train example, which was also produced in the "THAILAND"-only tooling). I do have somewhere an earlier Thailand wash without the sticker, but the tooling is the exactly the same as the sticker version, just without the sticker.

The Tomy Train version of the train wash has a red base like the 70s original but white accenting instead of blue.

The foam on these washes can degrade with time or be torn up if it has been played with roughly - if you end up with multiple partially-bad roller sets, you can take the screws out of the bottom of the roller housings and swap them around.

Even after the end of Round-Trip Plarail production at the end of 1992 the engine wash continued to come with a reverser until it was renewed as part of the refreshed 2003 range. The new version has a lighter blue base with no reversing function.