Plarail TOMY Thomas NEW RELEASES

@Ffar
What are " Little Westerners "

The "Little Western" is actually the Arlesburgh Branch Line, aka Duck's Branch Line. Its nickname comes from the fact that the originals of its engines, Duck and Oliver, were in real life Great Western Railway engines, and the line uses GWR liveries.

I would still like to know if that special chassis can be swapped with other shells 

Well, we might have an answer to that question now. In THIS video, starting at about 4:23, we can see a common commuter train (JR Tokai 313) changing direction on the special tracks from the Sushi Train Set.

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@Chrisjo
Thanks Dr Chris, in some strange (selfish) way I was hoping it meant that there were some Western Style Steam engines I didn't know about.


@Mr No

Thanks for the video Mr No. It indeed looks like it but I am surprised that the Shinkansen Chassis with its pointed nose fit in this commuter as I didn't know that. I am also surprised at how well the middle and rear car handle being 'pushed' without much skewing but that may be due to this middle car having more weight than normal due to it looks to have a sound chassis. What say you?

Yeah, I don't think a three-car-train would look good going backwards on anything more than a short straight line... But, if it really works, there are some nice railcars (Sakura Tram, first car of Hakone Tozan Railway, Hiei railcar, etc.) that use that type of chassis. I would probably use them for such operation.

2022 will be the 30th Anniversary of Plarail Thomas, hopefully we'll be able to get new Plarail Thomas Merch by then.

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@Mr No
Then the new chassis/motors are truly universal for Plarail.

Well, for most of them, I guess. There are exceptions: new Shin-Keisei trains came with the old 1-speed C-battery motor:

I wonder what Plarail is planning for the 30th Anniversary of the Thomas range?

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I wonder too T-Boy

I'm still hoping for a Pla-Rail Sonny, maybe we'll get one for the 30th anniversary, maybe we won't, who knows.