DuckGWR's Collection

DuckGWR · 2020-11-12T13:45:59+00:00

Hey folks, thought I'd start keeping track of my recent purchases and that some of you might be interested too. Today the first brand new Plarail I've bough...

DuckGWR

EAN 4904810104414
The box for mine appears to have been printed in 1992 before the set (and Henry himself) was released. It seems Tomy printed boxes for items a few months before their release in several cases.

The set name is プラレールきかんしゃヘンリーセツト which unfortunately won't help you much, it translates to Plarail Locomotive Henry Set. The steam cloud above Henry says どんどん走れ。きかんしゃヘンリー! which is basically "Run steadily/rapidly. Locomotive Henry!

Mine was listed as トミープラレールきかんしゃトーマスヘンリーセット, Tomy Plarail Thomas the Tank Engine (lit. Locomotive Thomas) Henry set

MuddyPoppins

Wow Duck!
You are really picking up some real gems, and your collection is growing fantastically!
Very impressive!
Keep up the good work!

DuckGWR

Thanks, Muddy, that honestly means a lot!

Here is the 1996 catalog spliced together from four scans. I assume it is 1996 at least, several items releasing mid year have the month they are set to release

I came home to continue to organize the collection and drop recent purchases off, checked Facebook Marketplace just for fun, and spotted the parts to a set I never thought I would find in the states, the Tomy Mega Set. Released in Australia and apparently the UK although I don't know if I've ever seen someone there actually own it, I don't know how it ended up here.

It is a very large set, large enough I couldn't fit it in a photo.
I didn't get the box with it, but here is what it looks like so you can see how "mega" the set really is

I think the character selection is a little weird but putting less common characters in a set is cool by me. Personally I would have swapped green Bulgy for a third train, but that's just me.
Also in the box was parts to the Thomas and Cranky Deluxe Action set, which was not released over here, and the roundhouse and sheds accessory set, as well as some extra engines. The Mega set was missing a grey road T and some of the small pieces to the Harold, Terrence, windmill, and Plakids house building.

Some of the engines were a little bit... absolutely covered in marker

The bins in my car. I was very happy that all of Knapford station was there, and the yellow crossing gates are both intact as well. I will have to track down or 3D print some of the small pieces that were missing

I have been trying to keep track of what is missing or substituted into my various sets, here is what was missing on this one

And eventually after some work with a wet wipe the engines cleaned up OK

Super

Thanks for those scans of the catalog Duck

Awe...I liked Douglas like that...was different, one of a kind 😃

I didn't recall a Mega set like that one and it has half a Knapford Station which is also quite hard to find in the States. Great finds in the Marketplace. I wouldn't think it will be hard to find the parts you are missing.

DuckGWR

More thrifting and more stuff from Japan-

Early Duck box arrived. There's actually a revision after this with an extra phone number on the back, so I have to track that one down too.

The same box also had a Japan exclusive metallic Take Along Thomas and the (semi) recent version of the steaming Thomas. I really like the stopper piece, the water tower is a little too "toy like" in appearance for me, and I like how you could see the water level in the mid 2000s version, but the pond and grass parts are absolutely wonderful in my opinion.

Went out thrifting and found a nice box of TrackMaster stuff, a second Action Canyon which I will probably sell on, some other misc track and some nice engines - Tomy Terence, the HiT Toys version of the dusty Duncan (There is a Mattel one based on I think a different episode where Duncan also gets dusty), a snow clearing Henry with the logs still rubber banded down, and a Harold hanger, amongst other things

And then just today a boxed Plarail Rollercoaster Mountain set arrived.

As far as I can tell it is complete, I don't see any mention of the flag that sits in the castle tower on the box so it seems that was exclusive to the UK version.

There was going to be several other large Japanese boxes arriving around now, but the snowstorm in the US has delayed them all. Just another excuse to update the thread I suppose.

Super

You sure are lucky at the Thrift Stores duck 🙂

DuckGWR

Some nice big boxes that were delayed by the storm arrived. The first two was part of a joint bid with a friend on Twitter. As discussed... somewhere on here, I don't quite remember which thread, there is a rare line of toys based on Thomas' sister show TUGS, and I managed to find the whole set in a large junk lot containing Plarail and other Thomas toys. One of the characters in particular I believe only four or five others are known by English collectors, although certainly more reside with Japanese collectors.

Top Hat, the one in front, is the rare one. Apparently its been five years since one has been seen for sale. But those have all been bundled up and sent on to the other person involved in the bid.

For the items I kept, first there was a nice collection of Bandai's Departing Now series of Thomas toys, nearly a complete set of the standard gauge engines, just missing Edward (who is unfortunately just about the rarest of the bunch). They are larger then Plarail and have removable driver figures, swappable facial expressions, and are turned on and off by waving a magnetic wand over the engine's cabs.

They match well with the Plarail narrow gauge, although push along narrow gauge engines were made by Bandai (a while before the Plarail ones came out as well). Unfortunately the track system is not great, there is essentially only one direction of turn, if you flip it over it is smooth plastic unlike most rail systems, and a track adaptor is used every time you want to make an "S" bend. It was clearly designed to only be used for simple ovals.

There was also just about every playset as well as the map for Bandai's Thomas Engine Collection Series included, several still in the original box. The playsets are very well detailed and featured, and the incline railway in particular is pretty much fully functional, including loading cars, bringing them up and down, dumping between cars, and taking cars on and off the inclines

And finally the Plarail. There was a nice variety of older Plarail trains. You will have to excuse me for not knowing many of them, I am not familiar with a lot of Japanese commuter trains.

The Thomas is from April 1992, making it the second oldest I own. There was parts and the box lid to a 1992 Basic set (including the token pole and token, which were tucked away safely in a film canister of small accessorise) so I assume it comes from that.

I quite like this rather orange freight car set, as well as the other Plarail freight cars included in the lot. The cattle and mail vans with the animals/parcels inside are some of my favourites.

I quite like this DD51. I believe this flatbed is fairly old as well. I 2as most excited for the round-trip EF66, I have wanted to play with a round trip engine for years and I finally got one.

I believe these two are made to fit an early version of Plakids?

There was also a nice selection of old accessories, the old red bridge which arrived perfectly intact (it even has the green backing cardboard from the bag it was sold in explaining how it goes together). I also was happy to see the old drawbridge with rail connectors arrived with both connectors, I only spotted one of them in the listing

Several other cool items such as the lit signal that attaches to stopper pieces, an engine wash, a film canister containing several "dogbone" track connectors, and a pair of the old ascending tracks with built in supports were also included.

And then just as I was leaving to store stuff away this weekend, another box turned up containing a whole slew of 2000s Plarail boxes. I still prefer the 1990s box style, but I do like the overall box design of these as well, particularly the little cartoon promo art on the bottom

Prior to this I did not have a Tomy Dennis or Harvey, nor the 2000s updated chassis molds for Stepney and Donald. I may have been missing the particular early 2000s white tender connector version of some of the tender engines as well, I don't tend to keep them because they are from the era where the plastic gets sun damaged very easily and turns brittle

Super

Holy smokes....you must have had a ball opening all this stuff....I miss those times :s

I really like those TUGS. How big are they?

Thanks for sharing with us Duck 🙂

DuckGWR

I think now most of what I had bought throughout last summer has nearly all arrived. I have a few more things but they were just shipped a few weeks ago so I don't expect them soon. I do have some more stuff coming from the UK but I am not far off from finally once and for all having all the things I particularly want that I actually have a chance at obtaining.

The TUGS boats are fairly large. For scale there is a train carrying barge in the series, here he is with a Plarail coach on top

Super

Yes, they are bigger than I expected. Too bad they don't float as it would be fun to add a R/C motor to them. Thanks Duck 🙂

DalaGStanator

Frank is (almost) perfectly scaled for Plarail? The coach towers over him exactly like the rolling stock in the show, and the "head" looks too small by only about a centimeter.

Super wrote
Too bad they don't float as it would be fun to add a R/C motor to them.

The TV models didn't float either, but were instead mounted on wheeled chassis that were pulled by string under the water (which looked more realistic on screen). The only RC components were the eye mechanisms, rotating wheelhouses and a few other features. These toys have their own wheels, so it should be relatively simple to open them and install motors and batteries.

Super

Might be more difficult if they aren't balanced and sealed as I assume they might be quite top heavy. Then again adding a battery pack, motors and R/C components in the bottom of the Hull may created the ballast needed.

DuckGWR

Been a bit, due for an update-

Imported some more stuff from the UK, I'm down to I think just two sets I am still interested in that were (as far as I know) UK exclusives.

I started the haul to complete my Talk n Action set, which surprisingly came down to a UK James.

I have also come to believe that the US (and I assume Australian, although it makes more sense over there) Holiday Sets all come with UK language Thomases. Both that I have owned are, and the box mentions Thomas' UK phrases ("I'm Thomas! Here we go!") and not his US ones.

From my friend Ryan on Twitter came his previous 16 custom, which he has already remade an improved version of for himself. I also grabbed another Knapford and some variations like the UK Tomy chocolate Percy (I have the US HiT one but not the Japanese Plarail one) and the TrackMaster close shave Duck

A selection of the Plarail magnetic couplers which were in the UK for reasons unknown, as well as a UK Big Loader box, were also bought

Some Plarail sets arrived, the Thomas and Percy Knapford Station set (Which, fun fact, has different paint on the roof - only the outward facing roof canopys are painted green)

What would a Japanese haul from me be without more Yujin engines...

And the usually rather expensive snowplow set all arrived. The snowplow has turned yellow and I suspect trying to remove it would snap it right off. The Thomas body shell also dates later then it should, I will have to swap it, although the chassis looks correct based on the lamp iron paint (there was more overpaint onto the running board in the early 2000s).

I didn't get a great photo of all the sets I picked up, but they were the Thomas and Cranky Deluxe Action set (the normal release, not the Salty or Diesel 10 versions), the Thomas and Terrence Deluxe Action Set, the Sodor Quarry Loader set, and the MR&R style box Basic set. I checked the contents and completed them to the best of my ability. There was also some Busy Bee James, mostly for friends in the US who wanted them, and a second Tomica World boxed Gordon in nicer shape then my previous one. (There was also a boxed TW Lady, not pictured)

For fun I broke out all the Knapfords and Knapford sections I have, you can spot the Plarail set release with the different roof painting in the back of the fourth row. My main goal was to end up with three of the regular releases - six base sections total, to situate in a two by three configuration to match the six platform Knapford seen in the TV series, with a decent length to it. Two sets I own have half sections of Knapford, the Thomas and Percy Plarail set and the Mega Set. You can also spot boxed Percy and James in the corner, both are box revisions I did not previously own.
The other two Knapford platforms I ended up with extra in a lot I bought which also contained most of an Adventure set as well as a regular Tomica World Super Deluxe Set. This set is massive, big enough to run three trains and a car on with no chance of collision, and plenty of switches and track changing if that's your style.

Unfortunately most of the original vehicles are missing.

I spotted this US Jet Engine Thomas complete on US eBay for a surprisingly uninflated price (the jet engine was corroded, which probably explains it). I've never had the international version of the Jet Engine face before, so I snapped it up. Was thankful to see that it was the correct chassis with faster motor, and I cheated in getting the jet working by just swapping it for one I already owned.

From Japan the dark green fruit car arrived (I realised when organizing my trucks recently I actually have two loose already, maybe I should have passed on this one lol). I didn't expect the box so be so long for some reason.

And then finally, seems a bit ironic that the ten year old set which I think holds a lot more value then the similarly themed "Thomas with the new character and a station" set would arrive right when the Kenji set was released. I mean really, this set has two motorized engines, a station with some actual dimension to it, trees, a siding with shed, and full size stopper. The only thing I'll mark it down for is not having anything for the engines to pull around their little loop.

And I am forever rearranging, but I finally moved in a second big plastic shelf to separate out the Plarail and international release stuff. Also organized my Wooden Railway toys and some new Departing Now things which arrived, like the roundhouse building.

Super

I don't think I have ever noticed that about those Knapford Stations before with the unpainted dome sections. I always thought the sections were identical so they can be placed on the pillars in any order. Wonder which set the unpainted one is from.

Aren't the magnetic couplings plentiful in the UK because they were on the Vintage, original, Tomy train sets that are abundant there?

Have you already had the engineering study done for raising the ceiling in your basement...soon you are going to have too. 😃

DuckGWR

Yes, the Tomy Train stuff is more plentiful there, but these are definitely the Plarail version. The molding is slightly different on the "loop" replacement couplings...

(TT left, Plarail right)
But more obviously the Plarail "hook" replacements have the added screw to let them rotate back and forth

The Tomy Train cars rotate where they are connected to the body and are identical on both ends, there is no "hook" replacement because the connections on both ends look like "loop" coupling connections

The odd coupling out on the bottom is the head of a hook replacement unscrewed from the part which snaps in in place of the regular hook and then screwed into a normal loop coupling, effectively converting it from a hook replacement to a loop replacement. Must have run out of loop replacements but had an extra hook replacement.

The Knapford roofs with only the outer ends painted come from the Thomas and Percy Knapford Station set. Unlike the UK release, the Mega set, and (I believe) the 2000s Japanese release, instead of three identical roof sections, you get two sections with one side painted to use on the ends and one section with no painted sides to put in the middle

Super

Of course you are right about those Plarail magnetic couplings. Thanks Duck 🙂

Mister No

So many Knapfords! Great!! I have 2 Knapford Stations (and I made three stations on my layout out of them)... I really like these stations, and would love to see your Knapfords (as 6 platforms Knapford Station, as in the tv show) on your layout in action, Duck! That would be neat!

TheDiamondDalek

That's an awesome collection! Well done on acquiring all of that!

DuckGWR

Smaller update before I am bombarded with packages this week by the looks of my delivery updates (I shipped out everything I had sticking around in Jauce and Buyee with a portion of my tax return)

Picked up this boxed Water Tower and Coal Loader and a nearly complete Thomas' Big Race set from the UK. I have at least two spare of the road/rail tunnel the Big Race set was missing.

I also grabbed some Hornby Thomas items from the UK, and these cheap Tomy Trains Thomases with a HiT Harold and helipad.

From Japan I got a mixed lot with several Japanese diecast and plastic Thomas toys from varying ranges, as well as a loose and incomplete 1999 reissue freight cars set (with a nice March '99 Thomas, don't have too many of the six wheel painted face Thomases), but more interestingly there was a whole haul of Yujin Thomas and Percys. This kid must have REALLY liked the candy that they came with.

And while I was home on Friday I set up this little layout using mostly old made in Japan rails (a bit of newer stuff snuck in, but I tried to be as faithful as my pieces allowed.). I got out most of my favourite regular Plarail locomotives and grabbed some Tomy Trains reversers to have some fun with my Round Trip EF66.

The bar on my EF66 does not seem very skilled at picking up hooks so I temporarily fit it with a magnetic coupling and ran it with some wagons I also fit them too. Had some fun running different trains around.
Large things to come! And I'll finally have all the stuff I bought close to a year ago (or over in some cases) in my hands

FlyingKipper

Looks like lot of space for them to run! It sounds like you have a magnificent collection and a fair amount of patience to boot. Do you post anything on Youtube - runners or reviews?

« Previous Page Next Page »