fall inside a hole
Rays/Straco My First Train Set (1974/1975)
First written December 11, 2023
In 1974 a company under the name of "Ray's" who seems to have primarily imported plastic toys from Hong Kong released a version of the 1974 Plarail Panorama Tokkyu set. This set seems to have been sold in the U.K. and possibly the U.S. and exists with both a "normal" red and white Panorama Tokkyu and an odd blue and yellow version. In 1975 the F. J. Strauss Co. Inc. of New York, who had previously made (or imported) tin toys and also imported plastic toys in the 1970s, seemingly repackaged components originally manufactured for the red and white Ray's sets with an additional cutout scenery set under the Straco name. The Straco trademark was first applied for in 1960. The contents and manufacturing of both sets appears to have been identical (aside from the cutout scenery kit). The original Panorama Tokkyu set can be seen in the Plarail Museum.
I have a number of boxed copies of the Straco version of this set, all purchased sealed. As there is little information about what the set is when it is taken out of the box it is easier to find the toy new in the box than open and used. I opened one copy of the set in July 2023 to inspect the contents and have three more sealed in storage. I had previously owned a power and tail car from what I thought was a Ray's set but after opening a Straco set and seeing that the Straco trains were also molded with Ray's in the chassis it is probably also from an American Straco repackaging.
The train is held in a cardboard frame with an additional support sheet underneath it. A thicker frame of cardboard reinforces the relatively thin cardboard box bottom.
It is seemingly the case that this set was produced with no real connection to Tomy and that Ray's or one of their Hong Kong manufacturers got ahold of a copy of the original Plarail set and ripped it off. I have seen some toys that rip off Plarail trains from the 1970s but they are generally fewer and further between than the later "Southward" and similar knockoffs and do not always rip the track system, which this one does. Many of the toolings used to produce this set are not the same as domestic Japanese Plarails, but this is also true of other export Plarail-adjacent products made by Tomy in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the later 1970s.
Set contents
| Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
|---|---|---|
| 3 pieces |
Panorama Tokkyu (direct-drive, Hong Kong made) |
 |
| 1 | Sticker sheet |
 |
| 2 | Straight Rail (Hong Kong produced) |
 |
| 8 | Curve Rail (Hong Kong produced) |
 |
| 1 |
Standing tree |
 |
| 1 |
Signal |
 |
| 2 |
Catenary |
 |
| 1 | Cutout scenery set (Straco version) |
 |
The Panaroma Tokkyu in this set looks like the period Plarail version with a red body with white chassis, cab, and lights. The power switch sticks out the front of the engine. Unlike the Plarail original which would have had blue stripe and headmark stickers applied at the factory, the stickers seemingly came separate in these sets. I have not applied the stickers from the copy of the Straco set that I opened, but I suspect they would no longer be sticky anyways. A scan of these stickers is available below.
The gearbox in the train is a fairly simple metal-bodied affair with a two stage reduction across three plastic gears. The motor pinion is a nine pin gear for a 2mm shaft and will probably be split with age. The contrate gear with connected spur gear and the spur gear on the drive axle are both larger and less likely to split. The motor is glued in place in its plastic supports and holds the rear coupling in place. A molded peg applies force down on the motor when the body shell is installed. The front latch is somewhat stiff and I have found it is easier to open the power car by pushing in the rear of the power car and undoing the larger, shallower rear clip first.
Some of these Ray's power cars use a darker gearbox casing.
This gearbox design was not typical for Tomy as the time (or any other time, really) and is one of the aspects that leads me to believe this set may have been produced with no real association to Tomy. It seems to me that this sort of thing would have been easier to get away with doing in the 1970s before the world became so much more connected - a factory in Hong Kong acquires an example of a popular toy in Japan, produces their own toolings for it and changes some aspects to fit their manufacturing processes, and then simply sells it to importers in areas that the original manufacturer was not active in, and nobody really figures it out until fifty years later.
The chassis of both the Ray's original and Straco repackaging is marked No. 2117 and Made in Hong Kong with they Ray's logo behind the rear wheels. The couplings used are based on the more fragile 1970s type, as are the wheel supports. The drive wheels are similar to an older, thinner style of Japan-made wheels with black traction tires.
Construction of the intermediate and tail cars is the same as Plarail of the day, with a single screw holding the body shells down to the chassis. The roof of the body shell is marked with a reversed molding slot mark.
The track in this set is all roughtop, which was new for Plarail in 1974, and all pieces are marked as made in Hong Kong on the bottom. There are also circular molding marks in the roughtop surface and a molding pip in the center of the top of the rails. The Hong Kong markings do not match other Hong Kong-made track like that used in the Palitoy Discovery Time sets. The track in the copy I opened seems to have hardened or possibly expanded and contracted over time and is hard to connect together, and for the photographs and videos of the set below I have substituted some later 1970s Plarail rails except for the straight rail closest to the camera.
The signal has smaller circular "lights" than regular Plarail signals and has a riveted arm. The stem of the support for the signal and tree actually thin out and nestle inside a protruding section of red base, which is a much more translucent red than the Plarail original. The catenaries appear the same as Plarail ones of the era with no region of manufacture mark in the track support clips.
Here is a scan of the sticker sheet from my Straco set. The head and tail mark read "Ray's." The sheet is cut off at an angle.
The Straco version of the set also includes this punch-out cardboard scenery kit. It does not particularly match the style of the rest of the set. Some of the standees like the oddly vertical railroad crossing sign and the cow being milked are a little strange. It does not look like the tunnel would actually fit the train if punched out but the perforations actually extend upwards far enough into the printed design where I think it probably would.
Click for video with sound
The train in this set is geared rather fast. The set is the most basic oval type with no larger or set exclusive accessories. There were a few sets like this in Japan in the mid 1970s that included this exact layout and selection of smaller accessories. I do think that with the stickers applied and the scenery cut out the set would look more interesting - perhaps if other people are interested in seeing it, I will set up the rest of the components of the set some time.
