Plarail

[Takahama Trainwatcher]

We've run a mega Plarail layout (whole day affair) around the house for my nephew. All the trains ran using NiMH batteries, though at various speeds as many trains were second hand. No issues in them running. Some trains used AA, some AAA and some even used C (we put AA into a C sized adaptor and that ran fine). Always 1 battery per locomotive. (No experience with the remote control unit.)

Edited May 7 by Takahama Trainwatcher

[Kamome]

3 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Also it’s one AA battery per train, not two, correct? It’s been a long time since I last played with plarail.

Some of the older chassis use a C or D battery. I’m sure a couple of my kids freight locos, EF66 and EH500 use a C sized battery. All other chassis use a single AA. Also some of the sound cars use 2xAAA iirc.

We generally used rechargeables as things tended to get left running when kids found something else to do. Also I “upgraded” our shinkansen with Tamiya Mini 4wd motors so they fly around the track but burn through batteries. The only other issue with that is the stop tracks no longer can stop the trains. 😂

Edited May 7 by Kamome

[cteno4]

Thanks great info. Hoping the kids there will enjoy the trains and can have fun setting up new layouts all the time.

 

jeff

[Nanahyaku]

Just recently got back to this hobby after a literal decade, and now as a young adult. It's kind of sad that I have to head to Japan itself to get any sort of fair pricing, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the sake of my childhood self.

I've been planning to get the N700S twins, as well as a long Doctor Yellow set to complete my trio of the 700 series. (hopefully immigration won't grill me too much 🤫)

It's nice to still find an active Japanese rail forum in this day and age, much less an active thread talking about Plarail of all things.

Thank you for this little oasis of childhood joy! 🚅🚄

[MeTheSwede]

On 5/7/2024 at 11:52 PM, cteno4 said:

May have found a general answer to using the 1.2v ni-nh batteries.

 

 

To get the maximum performance out of Plarail trains, you shouldn't use 1.2v batteries.  😉

 

 

 

 

Now this will surely caught the attention of the kids. No risk that they will get bored during the time the train is running.

 

 

Some improved propulsion methods seems to have a somewhat detrimental effect on the longevity of the rolling stock though.

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Ok I’m starting the modifications for the kids… hmmm maybe model rocket engines…

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

Rocket powered Plarail? I'm in 😄

 

[Zeether]

I think you'd have to use different materials than plastic for that since the exhaust would melt it 😆

[cteno4]

No, that’s part of the overall effect! Getting it to stay in the track at the curves will be the challenge!

 

one birthday in grad school at Berkeley a fellow student gave me a little Estes mosquito rocket to build as they knew I loved to make thing and use to shoot off rockets (and made them in grad school from nitrocellulose, but that’s another story). It was a little feather weight rumble recovery rocket, no parachute or streamer. He also gave me a pack of motors that fit the main tube size not looking at the instructions where you only use tiny motors in these and there is a smaller rocket tube fit inside the main body tube. I made it and painted it and it sat in my desk for months and late one night (a beer or two may have been involved waiting for a gel to end) Tom (who gave me the rocket) asks why I haven't shot the rocket off. I said well no clear place around here to do it we would loose it, the motors we have for this are like 10x what is sposta use so it will just disappear, and we would probably have the cops on us. I sat there thinking how could we shoot it off and not loose it and it came to me why not shoot it on a wire horizontally!
 

We went to the stock room and found a spool of like 20g copper wire. We went up to the roof and erected the poles that folded down on the corners of the roof (we were never sure what these were used for but like 7’ tall when folded into the upright position and pinned in place) and strung the wire about 200’ the length of the building from one end to the other. I attached the rocket to the wire and we lit the fuse. We’ll let me tell you with the big motor and without the motor thrust having to lift the weight of the rocket against gravity and the very little friction it had going down the wire it was to the other end of the building in less than an eye blink! We had draped some pieces of cheesecloth around the far end to try and stop the rocket in a light net, but this plan failed. Plan B for the rocket with plenty of thrust and momentum at this point was to completely rip off the two epoxied tubes attached to the rocket that held it to the wire. But this violence ended up on turning the rocket into a flaming pin wheel still with forward momentum, but now slower and very spectacular flaming pinwheel. This proceed across the street and into the chemistry building, which unfortunately had the 60s design element of each lab having a 6’ wide external patio, which usually held bikes of grad students to keep them from cutting the lab up. Our now flaming pin wheel hit one of these and then proceeded to bounce around on the patio behind the railing and among the bikes there in a spectacular display of fireworks for a couple of seconds! At this point Tom and I have the same vision flashing through out head of the chem building in flames and us in handcuffs! But the motor ended finally and smoke cleared and no fire, thanks to all cement, metal and glass construction. But it could have put us at war with the chem department and they had way better materials for making projectiles and fuel than the molecular biology department. 
 

new rule, never do rocketry late at night after a couple of beers.
 

Never got busted, but one of the other grad students came up to me the next day and asked if I was shooting thing off the roof the previous night. Apparently she was on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle getting a ride home on the road between the two building and saw the whole thing. She said she figured it would be Jeff… 

 

jeff

[Zeether]

Ha, quite a story.

 

They've been doing more of the Shinkalion stuff for Plarail as of recent and having seen a few episodes of the first anime I am super tempted to grab one. The robot transformation is genius with the way it works.

[arkh]

I got a few of the new Shinkalion: Change the World toys recently and now I really want to get some Plarail tracks and trains since they are compatible. Does anyone have any particular recommendations for getting started? It looks like they have decently priced starter sets for tracks and then I'm looking at getting some of the motorized shinkansen (E5, E6, and E7) that I'm hoping will be able to attach to the Shinkalion stuff. But it seems like there's endless variations of the starter sets and the actual Plarail trains so it's hard to decide what to get.

Edited yesterday at 06:34 AM by arkh

[cteno4]

For the homeless kids shelter I got these sets as it seemed like a good variety of track and each has a train. One is the remote control version.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204410135446

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235285420960

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BWM2R143/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

hoping they can do 2 good sized loops if they want or a giant one or 3 smaller ones.

 

jeff

[arkh]

Thanks cteno4! The last set was one of the main ones that I was looking at but those first two also seem nice. I'm not sure if I want to go all-in on Plarail as I more just wanted to be able to run the Shinkalion models I have. I don't necessarily want to collect more Plarail models outside of those but, like with n-gauge, it's such a slippery slope. Especially seeing things like those remote control options really make me want to try out more than just a small sample.

[Kamome]

There are a number of innovative ideas in Pura-rail. Also, they get the latest trains first, 36+3, Tobu Spacia and now even E8. I even quite like the Real Class EF66 blue train, although the prices are a bit high. 

 

The 3 way autopoint (turnout)  is quite a nice option, essentially it switches tracks 1,2,3 consecutively as trains pass over a switch on the incoming track.  Great for multiple train management. I gave my kids a crash course (pun intended) in effective signalling and train control for a 3 platform station and a passing loop. Think we had up to 5 trains running, all of which converged onto a single track section.  The groove that flicks the switch is under the motor car, on SLs this is usually under the tender so the loco goes one way and the tender another. Lots of fun-filled stress and inevitable collisions. 

 

The station we have is a city station from a few years ago with working safety gates and station announcements which was awesome. Had one shinkansen elevated platform, 2 regular platforms and room for a passing in track under the elevated section. 

 

One word of caution with using Shinkalion toys on Pura-rail, some of the earlier versions used standard sized pura-rail wheels, ideal. We also had some of the later ones (Whichever the series where when they combined with other passenger trains - something “liner”) Some of these used smaller removable bogie wheels which would not run on the track quite as well. Not sure what the newer ones are like as my kids have grown out of the series, although they won’t part with the toys. Must be the 4th generation or so by now.