fall inside a hole

40th Anniversary Plarail Limited Edition (1999)

First written April 9, 2024

In 1999 as part of their celebration of the 40th anniversary of Plarail Tomy released updated versions of the 1959 Plastic Train, the first Plarail train, and the 1961 Electric Plastic Train, the first battery-powered Plarail, as the 40th Anniversary Plarail Limited Edition Set (プラレール 40th アニバーサリーセット subtitle 40周年記念限定セット). The box has a nice design incorporating the Hikari-Go logo as well as the 40th Anniversary mark. It seems to convey a quality product and it shows the contents and information about the toy and its history well. The set first released in late July 1999 at a price of 3,200 yen. The upper inner box flap shows a timeline of some different Plarail releases. The mentioned events are:

A note at the bottom right mentions that not all vehicles shown in the chronology are currently on sale.

Inside the box are the two powered trains and their wagons. The Plastic Train has its full compliment of box car, well wagon, tanker, and log car while the Electric Plastic Train sports the tanker and well wagon it sometimes came with in sets of the 1960s. The contents of the box are well-packed and somewhat hard to get out to be honest, but I suppose the intention was still that you could just throw the box away if you wanted to play with these like regular Plarails.

The plastic train I think looks very nice, with bright colors and shiny plastic. The cars are somewhat basic but they are meant to represent the basic late 50s and 60s style Plarail cars, and do a decent job at it. The little steam engine is actually powered, something that the original one was not, with the trade-off that the box van is permanently attached as it holds the C battery the locomotive takes.

Early Plastic Train Set in the 1990 Plarail Catalogue

The back of the box says of the Plastic Train: The "Plastic Train" that appeared in 1959 (Showa 34) can be said to be the origin of Plarail, and was a five-car train. Although it was not called Plarail at that time, the specifications of the rail parts and the connection play have been inherited by Today's Plarail vehicles. The "Plastic Train" differed greatly from today's Plarail in that it was rolled by hand rather than by motor power. Furthermore, this Plastic Train was an original design that was not modeled after an actual vehicles. There was also a color variation with the train color being yellow. Production ended in 1969 (Showa 44). The yellow variant of the locomotive mentioned on the box was also reproduced in the earlier, larger Plarail Club exclusive 40th anniversary set.

It may or may not be immediately obvious, but the Plastic Train is based on the new power Mickey Poppo, with some giveaways on the tooling for the box car matching the Mickey Poppo tender and a version of the chassis still being used. These trains were all produced in mid 1999 and sold throughout the rest of the year.

The Electric Plastic Train was originally adapted from a German clockwork train and this reprint is fairly close to the original other than the updated chassis. The back of the box says of the Electric Plastic Train: The "Electric Plastic Train" released in 1961 (Showa 36) was a three-car train, including the first motor-powered vehicle in the series, and ran on a single C battery. The three-car train system which runs on C batteries has been inherited by current Plarail vehicles. Like the "Plastic train," this "Electric Plastic train" is also a vehicle with an original design. There was also a red color variation of the train. Production ended in 1966 (Showa 41). Like the Plastic Train, the red version of the Electric Plastic Train mentioned here was included in the Plarail 40th Anniversary Album.

The Electric Plastic Train uses a Thomas-style gearbox with a C battery and a white power switch with admittedly a kind of odd looking blob of hot glue over the contact point between the gearbox and contact strip in the chassis. It seems a little weird to put this on a nice anniversary product, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. I otherwise like this little chassis and reproduction as a whole.

The two tankers and well wagons are obviously very similar but they do have different color wheels. The chassis are adapted from the short freight cars, and the logs can be loaded into any of the open wagons. The logs have no regional mark but do have a slot mark and seem to be out of the standard Thailand log toolings, as they have the same small scoring marks as other 90s Thailand-made logs. The box car stands out nicely (even if it must always be coupled behind the Plastic Train) and the log car is also pretty neat, if not a little fragile like the originals. Reproductions of the yellow versions of these cars are included in the Plarail 40th Anniversary Album, which can be seen in the Plarail Museum.

Included in the unused copy of this pack that I bought some time in 2021 were the original compatibility notice and survey card.

The Electric Plastic Train reissue tooling was used a few more times as Plarail Expo giveaways as well as in the Plarail 45th Anniversary Set. For the 60th anniversary of Plarail in 2019 Tomy made a Reissued Plastic Train that was free-rolling like the original with a separate powered box car.