Toby is a steam tram that used to run a small branch line carrying passengers in his coach Henrietta and later worked moving trucks to and from the quarry. The Plarail release includes Henrietta and a troublesome truck.
The prototype Toby used in some promotional material has a slightly different face and what looks like a painted 7.
Plarail Toby (プラレールトビー) was released on Jun 19, 1997 and was the eighth engine in the Thomas series of Plarail sets, trains, and accessories. The three-pack release includes Toby the tram and Henrietta the coach as well as a Troublesome Truck. The Thomas series engines continued to use the sixth generation style Plarail boxes even after regular releases transitioned to three-windows seventh generation packaging in 1994. As Toby uses a C battery and is similar to regular Plarail trains, he is largely compatible with the Plarail system and no notes on the back of the box are made about any accessories he does not work with.
Toby comes with his coach Henrietta, which is a new tooling on the Annie and Clarabel chassis, and a "sad" faced troublesome truck.
From their introduction into the early 2000s these Tobys had darker roofs in line with greys across other Thomas Plarail items.
Toby uses the Thomas-type drive unit with a C battery. Early examples from 1997 to 1999 or so use the older truck chassis. Henrietta is made up of a central carriage with front and rear inserts.
I have three 1997 print run Toby boxes, the most interesting of which was seemingly owned by a so-called Plarail maniac. The inner box flap is marked with the store, price, and date when it was bought, and the original receipt was tucked inside the box.
In 1998 as part of the Tomica World range Toby was released with the catalogue number 7441. This is out of place compared with the Plarail order, and puts Toby in between Thomas and Henry - I wonder if Edward was initially planned as item #7441 but it was changed to Toby (perhaps because he was cheaper to produce, or because he offered more variety with Thomas and Gordon, two other more popular blue engines, already in the range).
Like the Plarail Tobys of the period, the grey roofs are darker. This example dates to 1999.
These chassis have some additional battery information around the front contact. 1998 examples used the old truck chassis while 1999 examples, like this one, have the additional plastic ring. Later Tomica World Henriettas would use the transition chassis.
New print runs of boxes from 1999 onwards included the new Tomy website URL and slightly different phone number information on the back.
Toby was released in new blue and red Tomica World packaging for Europe in later 2000 or 2001, with a blue Motorized Road & Rail three-pack releasing in the United States in 2001.
In 2003 the Thomas Plarail range was revamped and the main cast of characters received updated detailing. Toby, however, went largely unchanged. These release come in an updated T series box.
In 2003 new licensing info Tobys began being sold in Europe in blue Thomas Motor Road & Rail packaging. In 2005 the Toby three-packs were sold in the United States at Toys R Us. The European release got a new box in 2005 used until the Tomy TrackMaster box in 2008.
In 2004 Toby was exported to the United States in individual plastic-box hangtag packaging.
In 2004 a Toby Value Pack was released in a hanging plastic box with Toby, Henrietta, troublesome truck, and brake van.
In 2005 in the United States Toby was sold with two half straight rails.
In 2012 Toby was rereleased in Japan in new CGI-style packaging as TS-11 Plarail Toby (TS-11 プラレールトビー). Other than the new packaging and otherwise using up-to-date toolings, these Tobys remain mostly unchanged from their 1990s counterparts.