fall inside a hole

JR Kyushu Sonic 883 (1995)

First written April 11, 2024

The 883 series trains entered operations on JR Kyushu express lines beginning with the "Sonic" train in April 1995. In the summer of 1995 Tomy released the JR Kyushu Sonic 883 (JR九州ソニック883) in seventh generation packaging with a two-speed new power gearbox.

I have a fairly early Sonic 883 series from July 1995, around when the train was first released. I quite like the color scheme and the shape of the sides of the body, in particular the middle car, although I can't say that the ends of the train are my favorite design. The silver is not fully reflective but it is metallic and it looks nice. I really like the designs on the stickers on the middle car.

The power and tail cars use the Tsubasa chassis and thus examples produced after 1997 have the early plastic connection gimmick molding feature added to the tooling.

7461 Silver Streak (Tomica World) (late 1990s)

The silver-and-blue 883 series was exported under the Tomica World range as item 7461 "Silver Streak" in the red style of Tomica World boxes.

Being first produced in the later 1990s (Tomica World production seems to range from late 1997 to late 2003), the Silver Streak I have uses the updated connection gimmick-equipped chassis (although this was never an advertised feature for this train in Japan or in Tomica World at all). Interestingly, it also uses the older single-split coupling style, while the earlier Japanese-market one uses the modern style.

There is no real change to the external look of the trains when playing, so I can make a nice four-car train.

In 2003 the Sonic 883 series became S-17 JR Kyushu Sonic 883. In 2005 an updated S-17 JR Kyushu Sonic 883 was released in the real train's updated all-blue livery, which remained in the range until 2019. S-17 became a speed-changing Maglev pack, but the all-blue 883 series was later reintroduced as S-56 JR Kyushu 883 series Sonic in 2021. Other Sonic-service trains have also been released at different times.