TOMY TRAIN

Video review here! https://youtu.be/JP6ujKxgMeY

Toy train sets are about as ubiquitous as a toy as they get, since the introductions of railways in the early 19th century, toy manufacturers have made toy trains and train sets. These have varied from the very basic such as brio to the ultra realistic and heavily detailed Hornby railway system. There's no other way of putting it, children love train sets and will continue to do so. Train sets however are quite complex, track has to be laid just right, tight corners will cause trains to derail, the connections between track can be particularly fiddly for young hands. Detailed sets can be fragile, the way children play and the way adult collectors play are completely different. Whereas adults will want to realistically replicate line lay outs and operation such as goods yards and sidings, children just want to see trains moving around and at speed. Japanese company Tomy realised this and what they developed was the fantastic Tomy Train range, a train set that they could actually play and interact with.



Looking at the old box here, you can see that they went all out to send this message “the first train for little hands.” Bright bold primary colours are used for most of the pieces, and the box displays all the aspects of the set that the child could interact with, points systems, display boards, level crossings, train wash, there was a lot to entertain a kid here! The box windows show the train clearly and the figures all happy and smiling, more on both of these soon. 



Going back to 1959, Tomy invented the plarail track, pronounced Play Rail, a plastic rail system for their then hand operated train sets, these sets would be replaced with battery operated trains in 1961.

 The design of this was so good that it’s barely changed to present day. Similar to brio and the tabs on a jigsaw, the track pieces have a simple connection, just push the piece of track down onto another. Making this as easy as possible was a genius move in my opinion, didn’t you hate having to have your dad help out setting something up as a kid? I know I did, it took the experience away from me, I wanted to set things up my own way, having to deal with wires and plugs, fiddly connections, it was never fun. Having plarail track as a system, there was very little room for error, score one for Tomy!



The box comes with a suggested layout but really you’re able to flex your creativity here to build whatever track you like, the pieces allow for this and setting up a custom layout is very easy.

 

Lets examine the engines and other vehicles. With this Tomy Train 4 set, the train is made to look like the British Intercity 125 train, in fact, the box says on the back “Intercity train”. A number of trains featured in the line were based on real life locomotives, Santa Fe, Am-Trak and….the Disneyland express? Ok, that’s a stretch, but Tomy knew children would want steam engines too. They all have this almost chibi style distortion of their proportion which personally, I really like. The trains are powered by a single AA battery, this is underneath the train shell which just clips into place. There’s a little lever on the rear of the train that switches it on and off, big enough and noticeable enough for small children. A neat feature to the engines is this pin on the underside, certain track segments can be elevated to active this pin, it shifts the gears in the train to reverse, simple but clever. The rear wheels have rubber tires for traction and the trains don’t just have to be used on the track, you can just set them going on the floor. The rear wheels also have cog teeth to them, this helps them climb inclines to bridges, again another really nice thought. In fact, coming back to the track, there’s a number of ingenious innovations to manipulate the engine whilst it’s running. 


Brake points simply lift the engine up so it’s wheels spin in the air, if you want to simulate the train stopping at a station or for a points change. Speaking of points, changing them couldn’t be simpler, just move the little red portion to change the direction. 

Included with this set is the automatic changer, as the train passes, this red tab is caught by the underside of the engine and changes the points. This is entirely optional, you’re able to change the points to whichever position you’d like but how innovative to create a way that does it automatically without batteries!



All the trains and carriages have magnetic couplers, tomy clearly went out of their way to make this as easy as possible for children. All the carriage have this bare black base to them and the body clips into place. The majority of coaches will have the roof open to allow passengers to be easily put inside to ride. 



This storage container carriage is a little different than the others. It has a magnet in the top of the lid and can be used in conjunction with the dockyard crane, another really well designed toy.  No batteries here again, the winch mechanism is these two buttons, up and down, you press the button and bit by bit, the winch is lowered. 

When down on the container, the magnets connect and you can unload cargo from the trains. Missing here sadly is an open yellow hopper, it had wooden logs that you could use the crane with, the logs would click into the winch.

 Included with this set is a shuttle bus for the main station which isn’t battery powered like the trains. Instead, it has a simple spring driven motor, you push down on the driver and letting go sends the bus on it’s way. 



The level crossing is weighted so that the barriers are raised when the train isn’t passing. When the train approaches, the weight of the carriages cause the blue slopes to push in and the barriers to fall, a simple mechanism but adds a nice sense of realism.

 

Another thing that adds a sense of realism to the toy is the train wash, an aspect of railways no-one gives much thought to, the foam brushes turn as the train goes through, it has one of the direction switches built into it so you can have your engine going back and forth if it’s particularly dirty, like most British trains are…







 

As mentioned before, the trains have the ability to climb inclines and these slope track segments have small teeth along the inner lip to help the train drive itself up. From there, you can use standard track to create your bridges using these red supports that the track simply rests on. These yellow bridge segments push into place on the studs on the top of the supports. 

The studs are quite prevalent on the Tomy Train series and are used for holding the figures in place and also assembling certain structures. If you’re curious, yes, they absolutely support lego bricks and figures, I can’t think this was purely coincidental. Whatever the case may be, it’s nice to have the option there of having lego minifigs riding around the trains and on the stations. To me, lego figures are a bit more in scale to the trains but that’s not discounting the Tomy figures.



The figures are simple in their design, but have a wonderful charm to them. All of them have the same face, it’s just body colours and hair that change them. These feel solid and really robust, good as they would see a lot of play. Some of the figures have small magnets fitted to their feet, more about that shortly.

 

Tomy had a number of accessory packs and extensions for their sets. This traffic light clicks into one of the stop/start track segments and the light will change accordingly. It’s powered by 2 AA and surprisingly still works, this isn’t an LED it’s a tiny bulb that slides between the two coloured windows. 



More impressive still is this talking train station. The voice for this thing is deeply ingrained on my mind, this thing has been lurking in my attic for twenty plus years but I still know exactly how it will sound. Hmm, maybe the battery is a little flat, this sounds slow? Wrong! This little white slider in the battery compartment allows you to change the speed and pitch, what a great idea! I love the fact Tomy went as far to make a station that replicates station announcements. 



The branch stations that come with the set are a simple one piece which you can attach seats, signs, barriers too to make them look a bit more interesting but the transport terminal has some really wonderful play features. As mentioned before, the feet of the figures have small magnets, if you position them on this platform you’ll feel the magnet pull the figures into place. Manipulating these levers on the front cause the figures to move around the platform on their own seemingly as if by magic!

 The escalator  at the side is too magnetically operated, it will latch and stay in place but placing a figure on it magnetically releases the latch and the escalator rises up. 

On the station is a destination board, love the fact that it’s got Manchester in particular but rather fantastic that it’s all British destinations, makes me wonder if different countries got different places? 

On the rear to this little display, pull the lever, a bell rings and the time rotates round to the next train arrival. Such things really bring these sets to life. 



I’d be lying if I said I brought this down from the attic and everything worked perfectly. To be perfectly honest, of all the things that I’ve brought down and inspected so far, this is the toy that’s required the most amount of attention. None of the engines were working and the talking station had gone quiet. 



First, the engines. Putting fresh batteries into them did nothing so I decided to take them apart. Testing the motor on its own revealed that amazingly it was still working. The cogs in both engines though were worn and in places had cracks that were causing to cog to slip rather than turn on the spindles. A small touch of superglue fixed this. I then proceeded to put a small dab of engine oil into this small slot here to keep the motor running happy. Greasing the cogs also helped with them turning and performing correctly, though this red train is still a lot noisier than the inter city. The rubber tires that the trains use for grip on the tracks had perished too and were a hard ring of rubber that was slipping around the wheel and giving no traction. Fortunately, Tomy STILL makes replacements! I carefully peeled off the old and fitted the replacements, good as new!

The station ended up being the biggest surprise. I felt certain that it would have a small circuit inside with the sounds programmed on and that the board would need some cleaning and attention. What I found inside was really rather amazing. It’s a small record player, or more accurately, a gramophone player. 

Pressing the button moves the stylus to the intended track on the record, i’m not sure how exactly this works but this cone acts as the amplifier for the sound. I’d always wondered why it sounded slightly crackly, i figured a poor speaker. Why it had stopped working was a very simple fix, the belt from the motor to the disc had simply slipped off, I put this on and fixed it back together and voila! I’m simply amazed by the ingenuity of this toy.

Aforementioned, this is the 4th set Tomy came out with, but there were a number of sets before and after. It wasn’t soon after the introduction of Thomas the Tank Engine on our screens that Tomy started to put out Thomas themed sets. I was a big fan of Thomas as kid, i had books, die cast vehicles, VHS tapes, bedspread, even wallpaper! but I never owned any of these sets, for some reason they passed me by. 

Tomy stopped production of the Train system in 1998 but reworked the toy into the Tomica world series, which incorporated cars as well as trains. This line is still going very strong, with the Thomas line being a popular seller as well as Chuggington too. The plarail system is still being used for the track and amazingly is compatible with the old track, new sets have light blue track for the trains and grey for cars and trucks. The trains differ slightly, the couplers are no longer magnetic, they have this hook and loop system which, if i’m honest, isn’t as easy on small hands. The drive wheels have lost the cogs too them so the new trains won’t work on the old slope inclines. But old trains will work on the new track! Fantastic! 



On the front of the box of my set is clearly boasted the What Toy award winners badge 88-89 and it’s rightly deserved. These are fantastic toys. They’re charming, they’re engaging for young children, they’re brightly coloured, easy to set up, easy to run and above everything else, they’re hugely entertaining. I remember taking my sets to my nan’s house for the six week holidays and setting them up on her living room carpet, the Christmas I got these I set up a huge layout in the living room, these hold such warm childhood memories for me. Tomy Train and Tomica world have a surprisingly large community for them, www.blueplastictracks.com being the centre hub for the following. These are a great introduction to train sets for young children, Tomica world sets can still be found in toy shops but if you’re after vintage sets like this, eBay and second hand sites are probably your best option, just be prepared to do some repairs.