fall inside a hole

Plarail Expo Twilight Express (2010)

First written October 30, 2024

Starting in 2001 Tomy began selling event limited Plarail trains at Plarail Expo events in Japan. These trains were usually either a special color or livery that was not otherwise available or a limited and updated reissue of an older train no longer in the usual Plarail lineup. The Twilight Express was first sold as a regular three-car train based heavily on the Blue Train in 1991, remaining in the regular range until the 2003 range refresh, with this Expo limited version appearing for sale in 2010. The Twilight Express was a sleeper express service that began in 1989 and ran regularly until 2015.

This is a nice style of box with a mix of focus on the real train as well as its Plarail version. This box is part of the initial 2010 production run - I am not sure how many later runs, if any, were done, but it is apparently still listed as a current product in the Plarail Museum as of 2024, so there might still be some of these hanging around for sale at particular events...

The locomotive in this set is an EF 81 with Twilight Express headmark. This releases' tooling represents, as far as I am aware, the latest evolution of the EF65 tooling from the Blue Train with a single speed new power gearbox.

The cars are 24 series cars with nice sticker details like the tail mark and coach emblem as well as painted tail indicators and JR marks on the side of the rear car.