Diesel 10 is a large, mean diesel who comes to Sodor searching for the "lost engine" in the first Thomas the Tank Engine movie Thomas and the Magic Railroad. The Plarail Diesel 10 was released alongside Lady, also featured in the movie, in the summer of 2000.
Plarail Diesel 10 (プラレールディーゼル10) was released on July 27th, 2000 for the Thomas series of Plarail trains, coinciding with the first Thomas the Tank Engine movie Thomas and the Magic Railroad. The three-pack release includes Diesel 10 with two matching mustard-colored troublesome trucks.
Pinchy on Diesel 10's roof can open and close, but it is not otherwise articulated - the Talk 'n' Action Diesel 10 has a liftable, spinnable, opening Pinchy. Diesel 10 uses the Duck-type C-battery gearbox. The trucks are some of the earliest troublesome truck color variants, and have cream lining on the braces further matching Diesel 10's color scheme.
The trucks in this pack have happy and sad faces. I don't know if trucks in quite this shade were used in the show but the dark yellowy mustard fits in perfectly well with other colors of troublesome trucks. These trucks ended up being fairly common (although they were never released in the United States, as the three-pack Diesel 10 was never sold there).
These earlier release trucks come from the new-circa-2000 chassis tooling with centered 1996 licensing information.
The initial 2000 print run boxes were used up to the brand refresh in 2003. Later on in this box's lifespan, Tomy added production stickers similar to those used inside trains to the rear of boxes, eventually moving to impressioning the information in instead. The July 2002 example shown directly above has only a slight variance in that Diesel 10's front wheel holder clip is now glued in place as well.
In 2000 Diesel 10 was released in red and gold Thomas and the Magic Railroad Tomica World packaging for the European market. Being similar in production period, there are no differences between these Diesel 10s and Japanese-market Plarail Diesel 10s from the same time.
In 2003 the Thomas Plarail range was revamped with a new style of boxes and Diesel 10 was rereleased as T-18 Plarail Diesel 10 with the same style of mustard trucks.
Other than updated logos on the trucks, these Diesel 10s are mostly unchanged. At some point in early-mid 2004, the CE mark was added to the body shell tooling.
In 2003 updated Diesel 10s were exported in blue Thomas Motor Road & Rail packaging for the European market. A new box style was introduced in 2005 and used until 2008. Diesel was also included in the 2008 U.K. Tomy TrackMaster range.
In 2005 Diesel 10 was released with a grey sad troublesome truck and four curve rails in the United States.
Diesel 10 was rereleased in the refreshed 2012 Thomas Plarail range on May 29th, 2012 in a new CGI box. The particular box shown here is a 2014 print run example, signified by the ST-14 mark on the rear.
Other than some slight variances in the plastic color, these Diesel 10s and trucks are pretty much unchanged from their early 2000s iterations externally. At some point the CE mark was flattened out of the inside of the body shell tooling.