fall inside a hole

EH500 Kintaro (2001)

First written September 20, 2023

The EH500 class of locomotive was developed in the late 90s and entered official service in 2000. EH500 trains were all two-unit trains and replaced pairs of EF65, EF75, and EF79 electric locomotives used to haul long container trains.

In 2001 the EH500 金太郎 or EH500 Kintaro was released in the short-lived 8th generation packaging and featured the two-unit EH500-3 locomotive in the "Kintaro" paint scheme. Kintaro or "golden boy" is a child with superhuman strength from Japanese folklore. Beginning with the EH500-3 depicted here, EH500 series trains were painted with the Kintaro Eco-Power logo.

Like other two-unit Plarail trains like the EH800 the power car is the front unit of the train while the rear unit is a dummy. Both the power and dummy car feature the Japan Freight Railway Company logo on one side and the Kintaro Eco-Power logo on the other side.

The chassis is a late 1990s molding that uses the Thomas-style gearbox. The box refers to this as a "Hi-Power Motor," probably because the Thomas type drive units have more of a reduction and end up slower but generally more powerful than other gearboxes like the new power one. My EH500 Kintaro was produced in April 2001

The original packaging includes a plastic bag around the engine and car and the usual styrofoam partitions. A small trading card is also included.

The card is printed on reasonably thick cardboard but is completely unprinted on the back, showing the bare cardboard. The card says that the EH500 is Japan's largest two in one electric locomotive and that it has the nickname Kintaro.

The plastic bag is taped closed near the end of the train. The tanks on the flatbed are also rubber banded in place.

The engines are nicely molded and painted like other new early 2000s molds as Tomy shifted to focus on more realistic trains and the tank loads also look nice, although they cannot be stacked on top of like the shipping container pieces that also fit on the flatbed. The flatbed molding is the Thailand update of the original curvy Tomy logo original molding.

The EH500 Kintaro was rereleased in 2002 in 9th generation packaging as S-25 EH500 Kintaro and is still available in the current 10th generation box. Another EH500, the EH500-10, was available in 2003's Let's Connect a Lot Kintaro & Freight Car Set.