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More Talkative Thomas Set (2004)

First written October 15, 2024

The Plarail More Talkative Thomas Set (もっとおしゃべりトーマスセット) is a Thomas-series Plarail set released on September 30, 2004 featuring the new More Talkative Thomas, starting the second generation of Plarail talking Thomas trains.

The set includes an oval of track and the interactive water tower and coal loader destination.

Set contents

Quantity	Item	Photo
3 pieces	More Talkative Thomas with powered Annie and long Clarabel
5	R-01 Straight Rail
1	R-02 Half Straight Rail
8	R-03 Curve Rail
5 pieces	Water Tower and Coal Loader

This set comes with the More Talkative Thomas, the second-generation talking Plarail Thomas after the Talking Thomas/Talk 'n Action series. Thomas holds the speaker and electronics for the talking feature and is pushed by Annie. Thomas has some additional or changed details over the standard Thomas like molded whistles and a different face.

Thomas is unpowered and holds the talking mechanism. His filler caps function as two buttons, with a switch hanging down that gets hit by a cam in the chassis so the electronics can tell when Thomas is rolling or stationary. I'm not sure if the AAA batteries I tried were too worn-out or if there is a problem inside I haven't seen, but I couldn't get my Thomas to talk when I got this set out to photograph. There isn't any visible corrosion, so hopefully whatever specialized IC Tomy used to store the talking data hasn't died... (update: I have since found a second Talking Thomas in my collection, which can be seen and heard below)

Annie contains a similar setup to the intermediate powered car included with Harvey the year prior. Annie takes one C battery and uses the standard Thomas-type drive unit. Clarabel is longer to match Annie's length, and these cars were later adapted and used for the Sound Steam Thomas the Tank Engine as well.

The battery situation is explained in a single-sided paper leaflet included in the set that also shows how to assemble the water tower accessories.

The water tower and coal loader is nicely detailed with several accessory pieces including a ladder that is often missing because it falls out so easily. The base has several protrusions to hold the feet of PlaKid figures.

The stopper in the track is located under the coal hopper so that it can properly stop the powered Annie that pushes the unpowered second-generation talking Thomas included in the set. This works well with the Talking Thomas, lining up the spout with his filler cap and the chute with his coal bunker pretty closely. This means the stopper is in the wrong place for most Plarail Thomas trains, stopping most of the tender-drive engines too far back still, although some like the Sound Steam Thomas the Tank Engine and More Talkative Percy work perfectly.

The lever on the left raises and lowers the spout of the water tower. Spinning the knob either raises or lowers the coal chute while shaking the hopper, continuing to shake after the chute has finished moving. When Thomas is turned on and lined up, lowering the pipe causes him to take on water and gulp it down or take on coal when the coal hopper is lowered. Click the GIFs above to hear what Thomas has to say.

The layout is obviously very basic, but it has some extra straight rails to extend the oval a bit. Other than the neat interactive features of the coal hopper and water tower, there are no other accessories in the set, and it is pretty clear that the focus is the talking Thomas... I suppose I ought to get mine talking again then.

December 2024

While going through my collection of loose Thomas Plarail trains, I came across a second one of these More Talkative Thomases and its talking features actually work! Click the gif above for a longer video showing more of the talking features, as well as the additions above showing the water tower in action.

Set name	More Talkative Thomas Set もっとおしゃべりトーマスセット	Release period	2004, Japan
Train rating		Track rating
Accessory rating		Overall
Notes:

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