fall inside a hole
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Digital Plarail
First written January 2025
Digital Plarail (ミニミニプラレール) and also later Digital Tomica (デジタルトミカ) was a series of computer-simulated Plarail and Tomica building games released by Tomy for Windows 3.1, 95, and later NT in the later 1990s and sold into the early 2000s. The standalone Digital Plarail and Tomica games both cost 3500 yen.
The base games include a few vehicles and a selection of track or road with several train, track, building, and other add-on packs released. Earlier on these came in thin folded cardboard sleeves with later releases having a slim cardboard box around a CD jewel case. Expansions cost 2000 yen each, except the two Thomas the Tank Engine packs which cost 3500 yen.
Later on a combined "DX" version that included both Tomica and Plarail components was released.
Although I have seen it mentioned on old websites, there is not much information about Digital Plarail online these days... I will try and document it here.
Here is a table of the different Digital Plarail and Tomica products. Click the name or covers for more details
| Year | Name | Description | Photo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer 1996 | Digital Plarail | The original Digital Plarail release for Windows 3.1/95 with three trains and a small selection of track and accessories |
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| Later 1996 | Digital Plarail Vehicle Set 01 Shinkansen Edition | The first train pack for Digital Plarail; includes the 400 series Tsubasa, the first MAX, the sharknose Tohoku Joetsu 200 series, the WIN350, and the E2 Hokuriku Shinkansen |
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| Late 1996/early 1997 | Digital Plarail Special Scenery Set 01 Additional Rails & Floor Paper Tool | The first scene set, with half straight rail, crossover points, tunnel, railroad crossing, and line of trees as well as a utility to make your own floorpapers |
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| Early 1997 | Digital Plarail Vehicle Set 02 Limited Express Edition | Second train pack with Boso View Express, Super View Dancer, L Limited Express, Sonic 883 series, and Narita Express limited express trains |
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| April 1997 | Digital Tomica | The initial Digital Tomica game, which could be used standalone or with Digital Plarail |
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| Mid 1997 | Digital Plarail Special Scenery Set 02 Additional Rails & Connection Change Tool | Second scene and track pack with single/double point rails, double track curves and crossover switches, and versions of the classic orange shed and the then-recent double-track mountain tunnel |
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| Mid 1997 | Digital Plarail & Digital Tomica Common Parts Set 01 | Combined Digital Plarail and Tomica scenery set with Tomica Town-esque buildings and road and rail interaction |
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| Later 1997 | Digital Plarail Thomas the Tank Engine Edition Vehicle & Scenery Set | First Thomas the Tank Engine pack with six engines, rolling stock, and a few accessories |
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| Later 1997 | Digital Plarail Thomas the Tank Engine Special Bundle Set | Bundle pack with the original Digital Plarail game and the first Thomas the Tank Engine expansion |
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| Later 1997 | Digital Plarail Vehicle Set 03 Cargo Edition | The third and probably coolest train pack, with D51, EF81, DD51, EF66 and several classic Plarail freight cars |
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| 1998 | Digital Plarail & Tomica DX | Combined Digital Plarail and Tomica rerelease with more colorful interface, NT 4.0 support, and a gold and black D-51 Tomica diecast train |
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| Mid 1998 | Digital Plarail & Tomica DX Thomas the Tank Engine Parts Set 2 | The second Thomas the Tank Engine pack with mostly road vehicles and scenery |
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| Mid 1998 | Digital Plarail & Tomica DX Playing Book | Player's guide for the DX game with included demo CD |
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Digital Plarail (1996)
The initial Digital Plarail release came in 1996 for Japanese-language Windows 3.1 and 95.
The game originally came in a cardboard box with an inner cardboard tray and the disc in a CD jewel case. The files on the disc date as new as July 1996, and it seems to have been released in later 1996. There are at least two pressings of the base game, the original with the disc title 960715_1633 lending itself to a July 1996 mastering date and a later version titled PLARAIL. Both pressings install version 1.1 of the game although there are some differences in the drivers on the discs.
Here is a look at the manual. The cover shows the three trains included in the base game, the Plarail 2-Speed Shinkansen, 2-Speed Nozomi, and Blue Train. Even with all the expansions, you won't be able to make anything quite as impressive as the 1990s Plarail and Motor Tomica in the background...
User precautions (don't scratch the disc or leave it in direct sunlight) and the system requirements, a minimum of a 386, 256 color graphics, 8MB of RAM and 4MB hard disk space... even the recommendation of a 486DX 66Mhz is not all that steep for the mid 1990s. The next page is a table of contents.
Installation instructions. In Windows 95 it will autoplay, but in 3.1 you have to run it from the program manager...
The third icon in the folder it installs will let you uninstall the game from your hard drive.
This page shows the main "track laying" game screen and the player "train running" view.
The areas of interest on the track laying screen include...
- Title bar: Displays the screen you are currently working on
- Menu bar: Contains functions necessary for editing and file operations
- Track name: You can give a name to the track you create
- Floor paper name: You can select the background of the floorpaper (like wallpaper, except you play with Plarail on the floor)
- Toolbar: Frequently used functions in the menu bar can be accessed with a single button. The function of each button is displayed in the message bar when you hover the mouse cursor over it
- Construction screen: This is where you place rails, scenery parts, and trains to create a track
- Message bar: Displays operations and function descriptions in conjunction with mouse cursor position
- Number of parts: Shows the number of parts used to create the track. The maximum number of parts is 356. If the number of parts is zero, the train cannot run or be saved.
The next page shows the menu bar functions. The left cluster of five is related to saving and loading track layouts. The "new" button creates a new layout and asks for the desired track/screen dimension. The green upward arrow loads a layout from the hard drive. The transparent disk drive and arrows overwrites the current layout to the same file, and the disk with downward yellow arrow saves the track as a new file.
The next cluster is related to moving the entire track layout around. The inward cluster of four arrows centers the track layout into the middle of the map. The other arrows move the layout in that direction up against that side of the layout area.
The next two icons open the track parts and train parts menus. Really, they restore the windows from where they sit minimized at the bottom of the construction area, and they can also be recalled from down there.
The angled Nozomi icon is the train running view button, which loads the track layout and accessories in the overhead train running view and starts the selected trains running.
The question mark opens the help menu and shows the game version. The three colors on a monitor starts playing the digitized copy of the 1996 Plarail VHS, which takes up 100mb on the CD compared to the 11mb of actual game data. Apparently, there is an issue with some computers that causes an insufficient memory error to appear when playing this video, and Tomy released a patch on their website, but it doesn't appear to have been archived.
256 different parts can be placed down in one layout.
There is a limit of 16 carriages across all of the trains in the menu.
The Digital Plarail releases included a survey registration card that asks what other computer software the user owns, what model of computer they have, and what computer magazines they subscribe to.
The rear of the jewel case. Only one of the three Shinkansens shown, the E2 Hokuriku, was produced for one of the expansion packs, and you couldn't ever build something like shown in the callout photos...