Plarail TOMY Thomas NEW RELEASES

Here we go again:

"Plarail is dead" 😱
"R.I.P. Plarail 1992-2022." 😱
"Plarail! You were the Chosen One! It was said you would destroy AEG, not join it!" 😱

So that the prophets of doom don't get too excited, it should be emphasized that this is definitely a side line of Plarail Thomas products. Look at the green overpass in the Loop Set: there's no way a normal Plarail vehicle could go over it (too steep, too pointy, a normal Plarail train would get stuck on top). Not to mention the loop itself. The Japanese are just releasing some AEG products on the market at the right time: their AEG TV series is about to start, so there will be a need for it.


Let's remember this Plarail Thomas & Friends product:




Has it become a standard Plarail Thomas product? No. Rather, it is just one of the incidental items in the Tomy product line, intended for a narrow, but significant, target group of users (in this case: children from 1.5 years old).

It will be the same with AEG line. And no, Plarail is not dead. As we see in the advertisement for the Map Set, Tomy highlights the fact that regular Plarail Thomas & Friends trains can run on that set. Why would they emphasize such a thing if they intend to abolish them? 

Oh ye, prophets of doom, you may sleep peacefully.

As for the actual appearance of the Tomy AEG vehicles, they look bad. 



The wheels (on motorized engines) are terrible, only half of the middle wheel is visible, and the whole vehicle looks ugly, squashed, and flattened; they are squashed like TM2 engines were. 

Sides = mostly stickers. (Do customers have to apply them themselves?) 
In the case of Thomas, the entire side is one big sticker. Even the window! A very oddly cut window, I might add...



Faces are OK for the AEG, but in terms of design, it's a complete flop. They can't even be compared to the Mattel models, which really look like the characters from the TV series.

I have to admit, though, that I like Tomy's idea of how to combine these two sets: