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Plarail Turntables
Turntable (1972)
New for 1972 was this nice large and sought-after Turntable (てんしゃだい), released individually with eight "bean" joint rails to connect tracks to all of its concave connections. A version of the red catenary is included which looks very nice with the bright red and yellow plastic. The two pale blue stoppers in the table are activated by the lever on the rotating table itself. The lever holds itself in place, so it can be left clear to allow the train to pass straight through.
The turntable base is a little bit longer than a regular straight rail. The table itself can just about fit a power car and a single smaller car, or something like a D51 with tender of C12 with single car.
This turntable is often broken (the crank and the release lever are both broken on mine) and went out of production by the early 1980s. It looks wonderful with garages and locomotives and rolling stock from the 70s and 80s.
In the 2000s this turntable was revived and reworked for the Thomas the Tank Engine series with diamond-keyed connectors to prevent the connection to the exits located 30 degrees off-axis. This turntable keeps the rail stoppers and turning knob functionality.
J-08 New Turntable/J-08 Turntable (1981)
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In 1981 a new shorter geared turntable was introduced as New Turntable (ニューてんしゃだい). The lever near the crank drops the stoppers in the turntable's table - an incoming train is caught and can be rotated around and then released with the stopper. This turntable only really holds cars, either just a power car or an individual locomotive or a single unpowered car - longer cars or connected trains like some of the radio control trains can only pass straight through.
These turntables were first produced in Japan. Depending on the exact production, some are easier to get the lever to stick in the "pass" position, although they all spring back into the stopped position quite well.
Later production moved to Thailand. Like other Plarail trains and accessories, the tooling was first updated to simply say Thailand and was later changed to say Made in Thailand. This tooling was used into 2002 before the tooling was updated with the new Tomy logo on the top and bottom.
Around 2003 the turntable was updated with the squared-off Tomy logo. It still operates pretty much the same way, and is still in the range today. The date code on later examples gives the exact day it was produced - B signifies February, 17 is the 17th day, and 14 is the last two digits of the year, 2014.
A geartrain inside runs the table around with a noisemaker to make it click. The blue stoppers sit in a spring-loaded carriage which the lever pulls down to release a stopped train.
I do think that this turntable works well as a little yard turntable, something that is just used to turn locomotives or single cars, or to let a few sheds access a line... It works well to compliment the old, large turntable or its Thomas-series descendants but as the main turntable in the range it seems a little lacking. I suppose not a lot of Shinkansens end up on turntables and it works just fine for small electric, diesel, and steam locomotives and looks nice with the classic garage.
A version of the turntable was produced for the export Tomy Trains range as part of the 1325 Turntable and Engine Shed Accessory Set. It has slightly different stoppers and lifting pegs that let it interact properly with the reversing locomotives for the Tomy Train series.
7526 Engine Turntable (2000)
In 2000 the half-straight turntable was released for the Tomica World range in Europe with a full wasp-stripe sticker. In 2003 it was rereleased in Thomas Motor Road & Rail packaging in Europe with the new catalogue number 7504.