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Plarail Splatter & Plarail Dodge (2001)

First written July 31st, 2024

Splatter and Dodge are two diesels that act as Diesel 10's "henchmen" in the first Thomas the Tank Engine movie Thomas and the Magic Railroad. Splatter and Dodge were first released in unpowered form in the Lady and Diesel 10 Chasing Set in September 2000 and in a three-pack with both engines powered in December 2001.

Splatter & Dodge (Plarail set variant, unpowered) (2000)

The first Plarail release of Splatter and Dodge came in September 2000 in the Lady and Diesel 10 Chasing Set. Both Splatter and Dodge were included as unpowered pull-along vehicles.

The chassis have the old curvy Tomy logo and are marked with the Magic Railroad Company. There are blanking sections put in over where the power switch would be on the Diesel tooling that these engines share. The body shells have a one-way clip that snaps them pretty much permanently into the upper portion of the chassis.

A similar Dodge was included with the Talking Diesel 10 in 2001, where Splatter served as the battery compartment.

7456 Splatter & Dodge (Tomica World) (2001)

In 2001 the motorized Splatter and Dodge three-pack was released in red and blue 2001 Tomica World packaging for the European market. Splatter and Dodge were never released in the United States by Tomy, although the European market got new Thomas Motor Road & Rail boxes for the three-pack in 2003 and 2005, with Splatter and Dodge also appearing in the Tomy TrackMaster range in 2008. The contents of the three pack are covered in the Plarail releases below.

Plarail Splatter & Plarail Dodge (2001)

Plarail Splatter & Plarail Dodge (プラレールスプラッター&プラレールドッヂ) were released in a three-pack on December 28, 2001 for the Thomas series of Plarail trains. The three pack includes both diesels with powered chassis and a works car with hook couplings on both sides to couple the two trains back to back. Interestingly, based on the ST-0 mark on the back of the box, Tomy pre-printed these boxes in 2000 but did not begin to use them until late December of 2001.

Splatter and Dodge are both based off of the same class of diesel locomotive as Diesel and share his tooling. Although they are similar, the two engines do have different faces (Dodge's mouth is more open).

The van in this pack is the same tooling as the van used in the Donald and Douglas Snowplow Train Set with a hook coupling on both sides to connect the two trains back to back.

The example shown here are December 2002 production examples and were probably some of the last Splatter and Dodges put into old-style boxes.

T-20 Plarail Splatter & Plarail Dodge (2003)

In 2003 new packaging came into use for the Plarail Thomas range. Splatter and Dodge were released as T-20 Plarail Splatter and Plarail Dodge in 2003, remaining mostly unchanged from their earlier releases.

In the early 2000s the CE and do-not-dispose marks were added to the Diesel tooling, therefore also appearing on later Splatter and Dodges like this November 2009 pair. Splatter and Dodge were removed from the Plarail Thomas lineup in 2012 when the range was reformatted to fit the CGI era of the television series.