fall inside a hole
Sound - Door Opening and Closing Yamanote Line Set (2004)
Originally written August 25, 2024
The Sound - Door Opening and Closing Yamanote Line Set (サウンド・ドア開閉山手線セット) was released in October 2004 featuring an E231-500 series train with doors that can be opened and closed on the intermediate car and a sound circuit in the rear car that couples into its wheels as well as the door mechanism in the intermediate car so that it can play accurate station announcements for either the inner or outer Yamanote Line loops in order as the train stops, opens its doors, closes them again, and then takes off.
This set was one of several cool train sets released in Tomy's period of producing highly-detailed trains with advanced features in the 2000s.
This example was produced in October 2005 and was packed in an original 2004 print run box.
Set contents| Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
|---|---|---|
| 2 pieces | E231-500 series with opening and closing doors and sound feature |
 |
| 1 | R-01 Straight Rail |
 |
| 2 | R-04 Double Track Straight Rail |
 |
| 8 | R-05 Double Track Curve Rail |
 |
| 1 | R-08 Stop Rail |
 |
| 1 | R-15 Double Track Point Rail ("lever" type only) |
 |
| 1 | Station |
 |
The train in this set is a E231-500 series train with Yamanote green stripe. The power car is similar to many other commuter train power cars, using the rectangular chassis and single-speed new power gearbox. The box says of the train and line: E231 series train (for Yamanote Line) - The Yamanote Line runs through Tokyo's wards, from Tokyo to Shinagawa, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, Ueno, and Tokyo. JR East's local train runs the 34.5km circuit in approximately one hour. Originally it was a freight-dominated line connecting the Tohoku Line and the Tokaido Line, but with the development of the city center it has evolved into the transportation route we know today. Train service began in 1909, and it wasn't until 1925 that the current circular route began. The E231-500 series trains used are next-generation lightweight, high-performance commuter trains that were introduced in April 2002 and are designed to be energy-efficient, have increased passenger capacity, and display a variety of information inside the train.
The neat features of the train reside in the connected intermediate and tail cars. The intermediate car uses a variation of the mechanism developed in the late 1980s, with the doors quickly snapping open and closed to show the PlaKid-style people inside. The tail car is based on a variation of the sound car that Plarail had begun using on sound trains from other commuter lines a few years prior and has a three-position switch for 1-OFF-2, with 1 setting the train to play announcements in the order of the inner counter-clockwise service and 2 playing them in the order of the outer track's clockwise circle through Tokyo.
Even cooler, the sound car is connected into the intermediate car's mechanism, allowing it to play a door opening and closing announcement when the doors are actuated. Depending on if it is set for the inner or outer loop, the sound car will play announcements for each successive station on the line, with the train checking if the train has run and also if the doors have been open and closed each time it stops at a station, advancing around the line. The sound car takes two AAA batteries.
The track in this set is mostly double rail, with the curves being the new-logo update of the Thailand retooling of an old roughtop Japanese tooling. I am not sure if it is because the original tooling was already so old by the mid 2000s or if the plastic has worn out over the last 20 years but the rail fits together somewhat roughly and the curve rails did not really want to sit completely flat at the joints. Also included are a few double rail straights, a normal straight rail, and a stop rail to make the train stop at the station as well as the manual type of double track crossover switch.
The station in this set is a tooling originally developed for Super Rail, and is thus a little bit larger than most Plarail stations in scale. This does make it nice and long, sitting along most of the train when stopped. The tooled and stickered details give it a nice look, I like the light blue seats.
I can tell that the previous owner of my set was a little bit of a Plarail nerd, and although they nicely applied the shop and informational board stickers to most of the station they could not commit to making the station one specific stop on the line, nor did they install the head mark stickers for one or the other line. Naturally, they instead safely stored the sticker sheet inside the box. The back of the box also has a very cool suggested layout with tons of stations to activate the train's sound features over and over.
The main idea of the sound feature is to choose a direction for the train and then start it going with the train making running noises and occasionally blowing its horn, stopping it every so often to open the doors and pretend to let passengers on and off. When the train stops (as measured by the switch hit by a cam on the rear wheels of the tail car) the sound of the train slows down and then when the doors are opened and closed announcements play. At specific stations, the train plays the special chime associated with them. In order for the train to move on and play the next station's announcement, the wheels must be run for at least a short period of time. It is pretty cool that Tomy fit and sequenced the entire line with special chimes and integrated the classic door opening mechanism with a double-rail layout. Click the GIFs above for the video versions with sound.
| Set name | Sound - Door Opening and Closing Yamanote
Line Set サウンド・ドア開閉山手線セット |
Release period | 2004-2000s |
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