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Plarail Everyone's Choice Revival Trio (2000)
First written June 26, 2025Expanded and updated July 2026
Volume 5 of the Plarail Fan Club Plarail Poppo magazine featured a poll to choose popular trains amongst Plarail fans as part of Plarail's 40th anniversary in 1999 and on March 23, 2000 the Everyone's Choice Revival Trio (みんなが選んだ復活トリオ) was released. The pack includes two 103 series commuter trains - the two colors of Tokyo commuter line not previously released in the Revival! Electric Plastic Train Trio - and a 457 series Tokiwa express train. The official names of the three included trains are the 457 Series (Tokiwa) 457系(ときわ), 103 Series (Canary) 103系(カナリア), and 103 Series (Emerald Green) 103系(エメラルドグリーン).
I have three copies of this pack - originally, I bought an unused general sale type, but did not want to open it all the way, so I later found an open general sale pack. More recently I found an unopened Fan Club release, as shown below.
1000 of these sets were offered as a mail-order item to Plarail Fan Club members. This edition included three train ticket cards as well as a Plarail Fan Club membership card. These cards can be seen in the Plarail Museum. The tickets are dated March 23, 2000, the date of the pack's release.
The Tokiwa 457 series was originally sold from 1979 to 1984 or so but had not appeared in the new power era up to this point. The intermediate and tail car toolings were updated with axleboxes and the rood is now painted grey, a common change between old and new power trains that did span the adoption of new power in 1987.
The end cars have nicely picked-out lights and headmark stickers that read "急行" Express and "ときわ" Tokiwa like the original. Like the other trains in the pack, it was manufactured in February 2000 and has extra strips of plastic covering parts of the battery contacts.
The Tokiwa 457 series was previously commercialized during the old-power era as the EC10 Express Train, where it was the only two-speed friction-drive train. It would have been neat if the Express Train in this set had a two-speed new power gearbox, but all three trains are single speed.
The Emerald Green and Canary yellow 103 series trains are based on the older Electric Trains, and are similar to the other reissued Electric Trains from the Revival! Electric Plastic Train Trio from 1999.
I quite like the yellow train with red wheels, its a very nice pairing.
Both trains use a single-speed new power gearbox and were produced in February 2000. The intermediate and rear cars are the same, so additional sets can be connected for longer trains, and they have painted details like the previous Plastic Train revival trio.
Emerald green was not specifically represented in the original train lineup, although a Yamanote-style green was, and a yellow Electric Train was also produced in the old power era.
It is neat that alongside the Revival! Electric Plastic Train Trio the five colors of 103 series that serviced Tokyo can be united.