fall inside a hole

L Limited Express (1976)

(First written September 26, 2023)

The L Limited Express was the name given to some limited express trains run by JNR beginning in 1972. The L Limited Express typically had unreserved seats like a regular express train (and unlike regular limited express trains) and was an effort to popularize limited express services. By the late 1970s more than 30 Limited Express services ran across Japan, but as the Shinkansen and regular express services expanded in the 1990s the difference between L Limited and regular express trains diminished, and in 2002 JR East began rescheduling L Limited trains as Limited Express trains, with other companies phasing out the L Limited name over the next 15 years. By 2018 no trains ran under the L Limited name.

The L Limited Express was first released individually in 1976 in fourth generation packaging. The entire train is very nicely molded with separately fitted silvery-grey pantographs, vents, and cabs. The use of stickers is simple but very effective. End cars of the train have つばめ stickers and "Tubame," presumably an odd Romanization of tsubame, on the front. The つばめ (Tsubame or Swallow) line between Tokyo and Kobe station first opened in 1930 and became a limited express service linking up with the Shinkansen when it opened in 1964. In 1972 it was rerouted again and became an L Limited Express. 581 and 583 series trains serviced the lines as represented here in Plarail.

The power car uses the metal rim-drive gearbox of the older rim-drive era with a front power switch that is bent up nicely to hug the front of the chassis. The original rim-drive tires were intact but dry rotted and wrapping them in a layer of heat-shrink tubing as well as replacing the wheel's tires got the engine running nicely again. This L Limited Express comes from a 1977 Basic No.3 Set.

 

The underside of the shell shows how the vents and roofs are held in place by melting part of the plastic. It is marked with Japan on the underside of the roof. The bottom of the chassis is marked made in Japan and has the old boy-and-girl Tomy logo.

By this time in the later 70s the nearly-modern version of the coupling system with only a split in the outer rim of the loop coupling was in use while the wheel supports remained the relatively fragile type. The screw in the tail car screws into the vent in the middle of the car and sandwiches the rest of the body shell to the chassis. The chassis are marked Japan.

L Limited Express (1978)

In 1978 the L Limited Express was reissued in the new 5th generation packaging, initially with the metal old-power gearbox but the new more robust "insert" chassis design. A somewhat beaten-up copy of the Basic No.3 Set I have dating from around 1980 has this metal gearbox new chassis configuration.

This L Limited still has the older mix of coupling plastic that turns more yellowy. This particular example is also missing its headlight stickers and is decently playworn.

During this generation the L Limited was updated to use the plastic rim-drive gearbox still as EC-03 L Limited Express in the 5th generation "EC" boxes. This happened at some point in the earlier 1980s - examples circa 1980 still use the metal gearbox, and circa 1984 the radio control version used the plastic gearbox.

The power car chassis between the two metal gearbox variants are the same, as are the "insert" type chassis cars (regardless of which gearbox type they came with). My plastic gearbox L Limited Express comes from the 1986 Rail Road Level Crossing Set and is thus one of the later old power L Limiteds produced before the transition to new power. The power switches are left sticking straight out on these and other later rim-drive power cars.

In 1984 the L Limited Express was one of the trains represented in Plarail's first range of radio control trains. After this point, the intermediate car tooling continued to have the molding features for the receiver stored in the intermediate car, with the tail car chassis having remnants from the antennae holders added in.

In 1987 the L Limited Express was released with a single speed new power gearbox, with a two-speed version coming later. The new power L Limited Express has the cab and vents molded into a single larger roof section that is clipped into the body, rendering the cab and vents in silvery-grey as before as well as the rest of the top of the train body, which I think looks rather nice. The Tsubame L Limited Express was last sold as S-24 485 Series L Limited Express in 9th generation packaging. Later 485 series trains had similar features to the 583 series trains and the molding evolved over the years, with the later versions having updated detailing and grey wheels. Plarail has also released a few other colorations of the L Limited Express representing other services like the Asama line in the Hokuriku Shinkansen Asama Opening Commemorative Set as well as other 485 series trains like the red Kamome Express trains from the mid to late 1990s.