Christmas is coming...

[Super]

How does the 485 look running under the tree?

How does the 485 look running under the tree?

To tell the truth, I haven't even built the layout yet

I've been so busy today with my birthday (trip to the movies) that I didn't have time, but tomorrow, you bet 😁

[Super]

Happy Birthday P-Man

Ask, and you shall recieve

https://youtube.com/shorts/tJQCe4HZNt0

https://youtube.com/shorts/1JcMJGJkiek

Both the Super Hikari, and the Tomica Express 485 Series, on the newly relocated layout

The Super Hikari was most impressive considering how clogged it was when it arrived - For a model that's [if i've got this right] 35 years old, it's one of the fastest i've got! I'm guessing maybe it was fitted with a higher-speed motor than usual, but who knows, bottom line is, it runs superbly now it's been cleaned and had new tyres to replace the fossilised ones LOL

The 485 was, as predicted, basically mint condition, and runs brilliantly, nice and smooth with a good speed on the Hi setting.

While I was filming I took the opportunity to get some photos too







First off, the long-awaited family reunion Here's all 4 in the evolutionary line from the 100 Series to the 300X, together at last!

















And now some comparitive shots of the 'Tomica Express' [Japanese] and the 'Tomy Express' [Export] 485 Series models - They appear to be based on identical moulds [not really a big surprise] except for one small detail; The 'Tomica Express' still carries it's 'JNR' markings on the front of each driving car, whereas the 'Tomy Express' does not. I assume this was due to the latter being based on the real-world Kamome Express sets which from all the pictures i've seen, had their JNR markings removed.

[Super]

They look great P-Man

Well, I hope everyone had a merry christmas, I certainly did

Since I'm likely to be busy with some very important personal work [working towards an important job opportunity] in the coming months, I admit i'll probably be going quiet for a while again soon - But, when i've got time I'll still check in  Even if my new job comes off, my collection is going nowhere  

Still, can't help but pop this one in here, as I admit I snared rather a neat and slightly rare bargain










I found this, an unusual export version of the Tomica R/C Car Carrier - It carries a different colour scheme to any of the 3 variants I have seen, but from what I can tell this was sold from the early 1990's through to the early 2000's in Japan, with this version turning up in the early 1990's here in the UK.

The reason I can tell this one's from the early 1990's, as opposed to later? Because this one's tied into the original 'Tomica World', not the Tomica World we are all more familiar with. According to the Tomica Wiki [so take this with a pinch of salt], these are referred to as Tomica 'T-Series' to differentiate them from the Tomica World we all know. Maybe they do have more subscribers than Pewdiepie [if you know, you know ]

It's probably been covered on here before, but I'll just put the history in here anyway.

At some point in the late 1980's, the line of Tomica cars sold within the UK and Europe rebranded from 'Pocket Cars' to 'Tomica World' or in the case of single cars, just 'Tomica'. This coincided with a release of a variety of re-badged Tomica playsets that had all [for the most part] seen release in Japan, all of which carried the 'Tomica World' branding.



Most of the playsets were re-branded with British company names attached to the stickers [I believe the marketing and design was handled by TOMY UK for this reason, for example the classic 'Tomica Tower' carpark set became the 'NCP Car Park' set, after NCP Car Parks, the UK's biggest private parking operator. Later sets were handled in much the same manner, except that they were re-packages of the original Tomica Town connectable building/pavements system, with sets like an Esso petrol station [virtually identical to it's Japanese release], a Toyota dealership, construction site and a road-pack with unique reprints of the cardboard road that carried British road markings rather than the typical Japanese. 








In any case, I picked this lorry up because aside from the fact it can carry a nice large potion of my Tomica collection [instead of keeping them in a box ], the actual driving controls fascinate me. Instead of the typical R/C system of having a directional stick/sticks/control pad and a speed control trigger, this controller has one big red button, and that's it. The button has a surround that makes it look like it should have more buttons or possibly directional controls, but nope, apparently not.

On the cab of the lorry is a flashing red 'warning' light for both decoration, and controlling the thing - Each section of the light corresponds to one of 4 directions; Forward, Reverse, Left Turn Right Turn. Pretty obviously, you wait for the light to light up the direction you want, and then press the big red button to drive the lorry in that direction. Now the thing is, to me [and my limited experience of R/C driving], this sounds like a seriously complicated and potentially difficult system to master due to the [seeming] inability to turn in reverse or change direction quickly, but what do I know? I guess I'll get to find out soon enough.

Interestingly, the trailer disconnects, and has an auto-couple mechanism meaning that part of the 'challenge for driving this unit is detaching and loading the trailer, then steering the cab to couple to the trailer and then drive off. Also, according to the Japanese box only [but it's the same model so I'm sure it'll work], one can load Motor/BO Tomica models onto it too; In a way, I guess this is possibly one of the only 'T-Series' Tomica World accessories that is also compatible with the later, better known Tomica World, even if not advertised on the export box

[Super]

Thats neat P-Man. So no steering in reverse, that was the part I would have liked to see as backing up that trailer into a space would have been fun.

Well this is the thing, I don't actually know how it steers, I'm guessing based on the limited description on the box that there's no reverse steering, yet until I get it out and read the manual, I actually won't know for sure. 

Another guess I have is that reverse steering will be possible, but only in one direction. Here's why.



Look closely at the light column, and you'll notice the order of lights [from left to right] is Left-turn, Reverse, Forward, Right-turn. This has me thinking that maybe each turn direction is in a different direction [i.e, Left is a Reverse Turn, Right is a Forward Turn]. Only problem with this logic is that of course that means it would be impossible to make a normal left, or reverse right turn, making driving more tricky still as it would involve longer routes to account for unusual turns.

My next theory is that potentially the direction last driven in will decide the turn direction. For example, if you drive the lorry in reverse, then change to a turn, it will turn in reverse, or if it was going forwards, then the turn will be forward. This would assume the lorry has the capability to remember it's last driven direction. 

In theory this could be achieved by an electronic gearbox, so perhaps it kicks into a 'forward' gear when Forward is selected, then 'reverse' when Reverse is selected, and only changes gear on a direction change, not on a turn. Most basic RC vehicles don't use gearboxes to change direction, rather they just reverse the electronic polarity to run the motor in reverse, but since this is TOMY and we all know how much they love a complex mechanism, I'd be willing to bet an electronic gearbox might have been their solution.

EDIT - So I found the precious 10 seconds of footage of one of these things in use attached to another one of those Plarail/Tomica promotional VHS tapes avaliable to view on YouTube, and in conclusion, I don't still know with any certainty exactly how it steers and if it can reverse steer, but it does appear from the video that the steering direction is forward-only, as the only time it is shown steering, it moves forward. As said, we shall see, there was little footage shown and for all I know there may be a reverse steer function they just elected not to show.