Christmas is coming...

Tree layout time!

It's basically become an annual thing for me to crack out the Plarail and get a loop round the tree now, so here's this year's effort 😆







The choice of rolling stock was Mum's, I laid out a few and apparently the JR Kyushu 485 Series ('Tomy Express' Tomica World export model) was the most Christmassy because, get this, it's red 🤪

Legit had several JNR steam locos out (y'know, kinda makes sense as steam trains seem to be a popular Christmas aesthetic) but nah, 485 Series 😆 

Anyway lol, good to finally have the gear back out, it's been a long time since I felt like enjoying running a layout again but i'm back and very glad to be 😁

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Very festive looking tree P-Man 😃
Your choice of train color was exactly why I searched out and chose the same 485 series but one with a red and green livery for an under tree layout along with white track and risers but I can't find pictures of it..

Oh nice

If I recall, wasn't that recolour [and 2-car variant no less] an exclusive in a set that came with the deluxe 'New Town Station'?



It was basically the Japanese equivalent to the 'Tomy Express' recolour although this one was a unique livery [I think?] that wasn't already carried by anything in the JNR/JR fleet, whereas the 'Tomy Express' recolour was literally just different stickers on the existing red/black JR Kyushu Kamome Express model.

What always puzzled me about this model though was why it was 2-car only - It seems very odd to not include the middle trailer of the 485 not least because that coach is the one with the pantographs, meaning if we're strictly talking realism, this train's going nowhere very fast without any means to collect electric current  Even putting that aside, to me it just looks oddly short without it's middle trailer, but that's perhaps because I'm more used to the 3-car configuration

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I completely agree P-Man 👍

There aren't many of the two car releases that are missing the middle coach that I agree with. Off the top of my head there was one that had the front and rear engine that I agreed with was a track maintenance set that was a model of the real one. It may have been a First Try set or My Town but my memory might be playing tricks on me. It may not be either of these but I am pretty sure it comes in the same style box as the First Try and My Town sets

What was that I said about a 'unique' repaint?

Yep it looks like it was actually an unusual re-stickering of the front and rear cars of the 'Kirishima & Hyuga' 485 Series limited express unit, meaning it really is the Japanese equivalent to the TW Kamome repaint, in that it's an actual JR livery but with 'Tomy' stickers added to create a custom train.

Personally I find it more bizzare they did this in Japan where unlike the export markets who wouldn't have probably noticed the livery, there was every chance this model would have been sold in the regions where this train ran - Makes you wonder if anyone at the time noticed and was similarly baffled by Tomy appropriating a real JR limited-express livery to make their own custom train lol

But, maybe there could be a modern equivalent to this practice, if TakaraTomy wanted to try?






I guess we can dream, right lol

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Ahhh...hear it is, the Plarail Electric Inspection Vehicle released as a Limited Edition to the Plarail Fan Club in 2001. I used to have a picture of the real one but can't locate it.

That's awesome, moreso when you realise that in real life, the JR 193-00 Series that this is a model of had, you guessed it, only 2 cars! This one ran in eastern Japan including the Tokyo area under both the JNR and JR systems, being built in the early 1980's specifically for the role.



Honestly, attention to detail like this is why I love Plarail so much, they could have just released it with the middle trailer in the correct colours and had done with it so all they had to do was recolour the stock 485 model, but no, they made sure it was the correct 2-car configuration. 



And since we're on the subject of slightly obscure JNR/JR inspection trains, here's the other 193 Series unit that was built, the 193-50 Series. This was rebuilt from the unique JNR 495 Series which itself was a test-train used for more or less the same purposes as the 193 within central Japan. This was built in the 1960's making it the older of the pair, and had dual-voltage equipment initially but this was removed when it was converted into the 193-50.

This one had a squared-off cab which to me makes it resemble many of the classic JR locomotives like the EF65, especially with it's blue/yellow colour scheme making it look quite similar to some of those units. Both were retired by the early 2000's and neither has been preserved [one set survived in semi-preservation before scrapping in 2013].

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Thanks for the info and the pictures P-Man. Do you know if Plarail made one of those 495 Series Maintenance units?

Thanks for the info and the pictures P-Man. Do you know if Plarail made one of those  495 Series Maintenance units?

It doesn't look like it from the research i've done - The only model appearing on Google was a singular N-scale release by 'Micro-Ace' of the 495 Series from roughly the time the unit was last in semi-regular service [late 1980's-early 1990's].



[For what it's worth, the other Japanese notation referring to this unit was 'KuMoYa 495' which is the name the Micro-Ace model was sold under]

Can't say that surprises me all that much as this one was apparently a unique one-of-a-kind unit that operated in a very limited area of Central Japan under the JNR and later JR, whereas the 193-00 Series ran in and around Tokyo for a much longer period of time [retired in 2003 whereas the 495 retired in 1998], so the 193-00 probably had more immediate recognition? 

That said, the 193-00 also had the benefit of being visually very similar to the 485 Series which as we know TOMY already had a mould of, so one can surmise it was probably easier for them to make a repaint of an existing mould for a limited-run special edition than to make an entirely brand-new custom mould for a limited run of a very obscure train....

Then again, that's all conjecture, who knows, TOMY might surprise us one day and drop a special-edition 495 into our midst, who knows


[MINOR EDIT - So it turns out there's 2 versions of the Plarail 193-00! I searched 'Plarail KuMoYa' thinking maybe that would show if they made a 495 already, and wouldn't you know it, while there was no 495, there was a JNR brown/cream paint version of the 193-00, which was it's original colour scheme prior to getting the yellow/blue. Either way, kinda wild that an already rare and obscure variant of the Plarail 485 has variants of it's own ]

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I am always amazed to learn of something I have not seen or heard of before. I don't think I have ever seen the brown/cream version of 193 before, I have seen that box in listings but not the 2 piece train in that livery. Thanks for sharing this bit of information. 😃