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D-51 Ranch Set (1976)

Originally written October 22, 2025

The D-51 Ranch Set (D-51ぼくじょうセット) was released in 1976 and depicts a rural steam-serviced line that encircles a dairy farm with a great selection of accessories.

The ST mark on the box dates its testing to 1975, and what appears to be a G-23 mark on the side of the box suggests it was printed between October 1974 and September 1975, so it must have been an early release in 1976, if not just later 1975...

Set contents

Quantity	Item	Photo
3 pieces	D-51 with two log cars (set color variant)
1	Truck
2	Cows
3	R-01 Straight Rail
8	R-03 Curve Rail
2 pieces	Farmhouse
2 pieces	Ranch Crossing
1 pair	Road ramps
4 pieces	Fence
1	Row of trees
1	Semaphore signal
1	Railroad crossing sign
1	Telegraph pole

This set includes a D-51 steam locomotive with two yellow log cars that can carry the included cows.

Although it uses the older style of coupling rods with metal crank pins, this is actually a new tooling of D-51 versus the earlier 1970s type - in addition to the gearbox no longer having black sides and using the newer style of rubber output tire, some parts of the chassis have added reinforcements and the ejector pin marks are inside the chassis as opposed to the bottom. The D51 sticker now has a black background - the earlier type were blue to match the early blue D-51s.

The log cars are a set variation color and are very nice, I like the yellow and tan combination. The cows in the set fit inside, of course. They use the more modern style of front couplings. The livestock car with cow and pig inside was not released for a few more years, but it would also fit in beautifully with this set.

Also included is a farm truck with driver in the window which can hold a cow or other objects in the bed. The box shows the truck with a slightly different sticker design.

Actually, there is a loop at the rear of the truck that Plarail cars can couple to, and the wheels sit apart at the right distance to ride Plarail rails, so you can run it around with extra cow-carrying trailers behind it on or off the rails.

This set is, in my opinion, one of the masterpiece themed sets of the 1970s - the D-51 is an excellent choice for a rural railway running near farms, and there are many good accessories included. A barn with opening door and removable roof is included which the cows can sit inside, and there are nice stickers showing a duck pond and a chicken in the upper window. This barn, the truck, and one cow were sold as the Farmhouse accessory in the late 1970s.

The neatest and probably most well-remembered part of the set is the Ranch Crossing, which has a nice sign and a spinning platform that causes a cow to spin around when a train passes. The crossing gate also goes down, and there are some more nicely-designed stickers. This crossing was shown as an individual item in a few later 1970s catalogues, but an unopened example has not surfaced, and it is theorized it may not have been released individually.

Two ramp pieces are included to drive the truck up, as well as one tooled into the accessory's base. I believe these separate ramps are based on the old Plahighway standard. The track is mid 1970s roughtop rail, of course.

Also included are four white fence sides, two of each clawed and slotted types, to form a corral for the cows. These fences appeared in a few other sets, most commonly as the pens for log loading sets, although I believe they were first used in yellow in an earlier farm scenery set which is rather rare.

Also included are a row of trees and the old 1960s accessories originally from Holgate New Tot Railroad also reappear in a nice brown color. All these old types of electrical poles and signals fit in perfectly with the rural setting.

The train will spin a sitting cow every time it goes around, and the cows can be played with and placed in many different ways.

The layout is only an oval, but the accessories and scenery are top-notch, with the railroad crossing and exclusive cars adding to the train's operation greatly.

Set name	D-51 Ranch Set D-51ぼくじょうセット	Release period	1976
Vehicle rating		Track rating
Accessory rating		Overall
Notes:	I think this is a masterpiece set of the era

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