The Thomas and Busy Freight Cars Set is a fairly large Plarail Thomas set first released in 2001 featuring an oval of track with yard to hold the wide array of freight cars included in the set. This set also featured the first alternate expression for the "regular" Thomas as well as being the first release of a Plarail Thomas with white running board details. The set was rereleased in 2004 after the range had been refreshed and was also exported to Australia under the Tomica World range, with some copies of this release also being imported and sold in Korea. This set is similar to the regular Plarail Railway Yard Set Full of Freight Cars set also released in 2001.
The Thomas and Busy Freight Cars Set (トーマスとにぎやか貨車セット) was released for the Thomas Plarail series of toys on May 17, 2001. The set includes many variations like new colors of troublesome truck, the first Thomas face variant, a new express coach, and several other new pieces of rolling stock as well as a nice square layout with sidings to store the trucks.
Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
---|---|---|
1 | Thomas the Tank Engine (old logo chassis, angry face) |
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1 | S.C. Ruffy ("repaired" variant) |
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1 | Red troublesome truck with "happy" face |
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1 | Green troublesome truck with "angry" face |
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1 | Brown troublesome truck with "sad" face |
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1 | Tanker (white with face) |
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1 | Express Coach (red) |
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3 | Flatbed |
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2 pieces | Breakdown train |
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1 | Trevor |
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1 | Caroline |
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1 | Terence |
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2 | Apple load |
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2 | Fish load |
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2 | Barrel load |
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2 | Tree load |
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8 | R-01 Straight Rail |
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3 | R-02 Half Straight Rail | |
7 | R-03 Curve Rail |
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1 pair | R-11 Turnout Rail |
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1 | R-17 New Point Machine |
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3 | Buffers (orange) |
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1 | Buffers (red) |
The Thomas in these early copies of the set are the first Thomases with the updated white running board and red boiler stripes. These copies of the set still use the old curvy logo chassis. Thomas has a nice new annoyed face tooling, with regular Thomases also starting to use plastic faces in 2001. These Thomases also still use stickered side detail, with the "regular" 2003 Thomas having side graphics printed directly on the plastic.
There is a nice wide variety of trucks in this set. Several new types of Troublesome Truck load were introduced as well as some color variants of different trucks. A tanker with a face sticker is also included.
The first release of a red express coach is in this set, as well as a slightly bluer variant of the breakdown train.
Also included are three lighter green flatbeds with spring-loaded sides that hold Trevor, Terence, and Caroline. The small character toys all existed as part of previous Thomas Plarail accessories, but the flatbed was new for this set (and very common as a result).
Trucks, flatbeds, and other rolling stock are all their late 1990s or early 2000s revisions.
Track in earlier copies of the set is late 1990s toolings. The set makes up a nice oval layout.
All set up, the trucks can be arranged in different ways in the sidings or Thomas can pull them all. Some different configurations are shown throughout this page.
In 2003 the Thomas and Freight Cars Set was released in Australia at Kmart stores as part of the Tomica World range, with some copies like the one shown here getting Korean stickers over parts of the boxes for sale in Korea as the 토마스 작동기차 차량기지 Thomas Operating Train Depot set. This box was based closely on the Plarail version, using many of the same promotional pictures and layout. The front of the box calls Terence Trevor and a few of the characters on the back are also misnamed. Contents of these sets resemble those in later copies of of the Japanese release of this set.
Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
---|---|---|
1 | Thomas the Tank Engine (new logo chassis, angry face) |
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1 | S.C. Ruffy ("repaired" variant) |
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1 | Red troublesome truck with "happy" face |
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1 | Green troublesome truck with "angry" face |
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1 | Brown troublesome truck with "sad" face |
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1 | Tanker (white with face) |
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1 | Express Coach (red) |
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3 | Flatbed |
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2 pieces | Breakdown train |
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1 | Trevor |
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1 | Caroline |
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1 | Terence |
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2 | Apple load |
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2 | Fish load |
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2 | Barrel load |
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2 | Tree load |
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8 | R-01 Straight Rail |
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3 | R-02 Half Straight Rail | |
7 | R-03 Curve Rail |
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1 pair | R-11 Turnout Rail |
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1 | R-17 New Point Machine |
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3 | Buffers (orange) |
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1 | Buffers (red) |
Like the Japanese 2004 rerelease, these sets have the updated logo Thomas chassis with angry face and stickered sides. The "V" suffix on the production sticker was used on many export Thomas trains.
The trucks in these sets have updated logo toolings like the 2004 Plarail rerelease shown below.
These later sets have the new Tomy logo in the track tooling. Although only released in Australia (and later Korea), it is cool that the nice set components like the red coach, tanker, and trucks with loads were released outside of Japan.
In 2004 the Thomas and Busy Freight Cars Set (トーマスとにぎやか貨車セット) was rereleased for the Thomas Plarail in new updated packaging to match the revised Thomas the Tank Engine range. Set components were updated with new licensing information. The example shown here is in a 2005 print run box.
Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
---|---|---|
1 | Thomas the Tank Engine (new logo chassis, angry face) |
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1 | S.C. Ruffy ("repaired" variant) |
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1 | Red troublesome truck with "happy" face |
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1 | Green troublesome truck with "angry" face |
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1 | Brown troublesome truck with "sad" face |
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1 | Tanker (white with face) |
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1 | Express Coach (red) |
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3 | Flatbed |
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2 pieces | Breakdown train |
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1 | Trevor |
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1 | Caroline |
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1 | Terence |
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2 | Apple load |
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2 | Fish load |
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2 | Barrel load |
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2 | Tree load |
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8 | R-01 Straight Rail |
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3 | R-02 Half Straight Rail | |
7 | R-03 Curve Rail |
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1 pair | R-11 Turnout Rail |
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1 | R-17 New Point Machine |
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3 | Buffers (orange) |
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1 | Buffers (red) |
These later sets use the new Tomy logo Thomas chassis with updated licensing information, with the body shells still using stickers instead of the new printed style.
Many of the trucks have updated chassis with new licensing information.
These later sets have the new Tomy logo in the track tooling. The wide selection of trucks and the small additional characters and cargo loads offer many different play scenes and train combinations. This set is also perfect for expanding it any way - more track will make Thomas's big haul even harder, accessories will fill out the yard into a real railway, and more trains can share the load (and add their own rolling stock to the yard).
Set name | Thomas and Busy Freight Cars Set トーマスとにぎやか貨車セット Thomas and Freight Cars Set |
Release period | 2001-2003, 2004-~2006, Japan 2002-~2005, Australia |
Train rating |
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Accessory rating |
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Notes: | Price | 4200 yen (2003) 4410 yen (2004) (with 5% tex) |