fall inside a hole

Subway Train (1976)

First written March 21, 2024

In 1975 during the last era of liftoff box tops the Chikatetsu Silver Train was released with a fresh tooling that seems to have been an early adopter of the milky white plastic gearbox. The following year the "Subway Train" (地下鉄電車) was released in the "train" box style. The Subway Train is silver (in most iterations, silver-plated plastic) with green accenting, with a wraparound green sticker adding the head and tail lights to the end cars. Another sticker fills in the front and rear windows, with later versions explicitly depicting a subway train on the Chiyoda Line on the Tokyo Metro. The molding of the train itself resembles the Eidan 6000 series trains which entered service in 1971. Earlier releases use plastic old power gearboxes and have drivers as part of the windshield stickers. In 1987 the first new power Subway Train was rereleased with the green stripe carried all the way down the car bodies, which I think is almost the best all-around release for its retention of the shiny silver body shells and simplistic stickers of the 1970s and 80s Subway Trains with the addition of superior tractive power as well as the rather nice continuation of the green stripe traveling down the car's bodys, with the main downside being the loss of the driver on the window sticker.

Subway Train (1994)

In 1994 with the introduction of seventh generation boxes the Subway Train was rereleased for the last time. These late Subway Trains do not have the silver plating applied and are just a silvery-grey plastic which is not nearly as flashy as their earlier counterparts but I still do enjoy the look of it. The front window sticker does not have a driver, just some window glare. The text above the window reads 代々木上原01S, referring to Yoyogi-Uehara Station in Tokyo.

My seventh generation Subway Train was produced in May 1997 and is in okay condition with some worse-for-wear stickers. It is fairly clear that this is an older tooling, with different construction methods for the intermediate and tail cars as well as a somewhat odd (although I must say, rather interesting looking - I like the way the rear of the chassis hangs low and covers more of the powered rear wheels) power car chassis that was updated for the new power gearbox with the 1987 rerelease. It does appear that the intermediate car tooling is descended from the mid 1980s radio control version. The pantograph is simply clipped into place.

This style of subway train was discontinued when the range was revamped around 2003. During the 1990s the amount of different commuter subway lines that Plarail offered toys of expanded dramatically and with the modernization of the range the relatively old Subway Train was not kept around. In fact, it seems at some point during this iteration's lifespan a Plarail sticker book contained stickers to cover the headlights and green stripes on the Subway Train into yellow or orange to represent the Hanzomon and Yurakucho lines - I found this blog post (archived) showing these stickers as well as additional modifications to make the 6000 series look more like an 8000 series train. I do think it is cool that Tomy kept the train in the range for as long as they did, even though it was showing its age by the time of its last rerelease. The real 6000 series trains actually outlasted the Plarail train by more than a decade, staying in regular use until spring 2017 on some lines. The original 6000 series prototype car is apparently still used for training operations, and some trains were still in use in Indonesia at least as recently as 2020.