Continuation of BigLobe Plarail Museum

Though it can run upside down, I'm not sure whether you have piers that height top connect the rails from ground level to that level of the upside down plate garter. The plate garter was intended to have a pier in the middle after each plate garter. But due to the shape, it can be laid out without a pier in the middle of 2 garter plates. You have 2, that is really a nice part of the collection along with that brown viaduct.

[Super]

I do love bridges.

Update Phantom Gem 12: プラレールえほん①「どっちがはやい」　Plarail picture book ① "Which is faster"

The interior of the picture book has a product catalogue! It is revealed the ぼくじょうふみきり Ranch Railroad Crossing was also released as a single item, it was long thought that it was exclusive to the D51ぼくじょうふみきりセット D51 Ranch Set.

Oh look, the "Big Tunnel" for just ¥350!

[Super]

Get in your Time Machine Mr No

Phantom Gem 65: ハイウェイぜんじどうふみきりセット　Fully Automatic Plastic Highway Railroad Crossing Set

This one is already in a long time ago:



I'm talking about this one:




Actually, anything that comes with the plastic highway is already a phantom gem, but this one is the 2nd generation fully automatic railroad crossing. A car as big as a child's palm, plastic highway that existed before the introduction of Plaroad, bicycle bell in the railroad crossing, definitely is a rarity of 100 points out of 100 points. Plastic highway is outdated in such a way that normal Plaroad tracks can't even fit the connectors. (I do have some plastic highway parts, but that is from the New International Airport Set so it is a green road slope, not the blue roads.) The red car or the yellow bus are the only vehicles that are able to trigger the bicycle bell and the stop mechanism for the roads. The same C12 used to power the rotary snowplough is included. The box is quite special in such a way that blue and green side flaps are printed, different colours are hardly ever seen in other boxes of the same production year. I still haven't found the G-nn code for this so it is hard to tell when it was manufactured, it is last known to be manufactured around 1974-1975 (1 year only).

[Super]

Love these sets.

Phantom Gem 65: ちょうとっきゅうひかりごうニューセット　Super Express Hikari New Set

I will introduce it in our team's perspective, and my personal opinions different from the rest of the gems above:

Our emergency response and research team has confirm it as a true phantom gem of Plarail today. Research has been conducted for 2 weeks but no traces of the set were found in the internet archives, social media, official catalogues (both local and foreign versions). The only source is Yahoo Auctions sold by the user "resuperg2", making him the only person in the world to ever obtain this set. Our team and a friendly warehouse owner has joined forces to bid on this item. Auction bid time auto extended for nearly 1 hour and finally ended at 44500 yen. I remember sitting down at the same spot with the warehouse owner beside me to compete for this item. We also declared a bid war on social media in an attempt to raise the overall bid price and market value of the set. But there were only 2 bidders who bid more than 13000 yen for this set, so I guess the set was not very known to general collectors. Nevertheless I give my highest salutations to this seller.

Now on to the research details:
- Set is categorised as a Basic Set, something similar as the D-51きゅうこうれっしゃこうかセット. Quite a bland set with no advertised layout plans. Pamphlet is either absent during manufacture period or lost.
- Set has Merry-Go-Round mark, with G-nn code of (G-19, Month 10, Year 1970), but the Merry-Go-Round mark was discontinued in (G-22, 1974), source according to team leader: http://nayuho.hatenablog.jp/entry/2020/04/11/072414 . You can say that the set was only manufactured for around 4 years or less on paper. However the 2nd generation red white Hikari-Go has ended production in early 1973 to prepare transition to blue white Hikari-Go, so it can be safely assumed that the true manufacture period was short lived for only 2 years.
- Set has 8 curves, 4 straight rails, 2 old slopes, 6 overhead bars, 3 trees, 2 signals and 1 whole formation of: Standard Product 2nd Generation Hikari-Go. (It does not have any piers or risers, good grief TOMY...)
- The original ribbon is made of soft paper cardboard, stating the set's name, TOMY logo, TOMY slogan and the Merry-Go-Round mark.
- Inner tray is plastic, just like the D-51きゅうこうれっしゃこうかセット. The base is cardboard, where the plastic tray is mounted on top. Quite flimsy so care is needed when placing it upright.

I'm happy to say that I am the final caretaker of this set, will receive it within a week from our laboratory. Very excited to make a YouTube video for this set. I wonder what will happen if the owner of the Plarail Museum sees this set for the first time, will he get a double trauma like last time where the ちかてつふくせんセット was finally found in 2009 after more than 30 years of research was spent?



A standard product 2nd generation Hikari-Go will look like this:

[Super]

Something I find very curious in the Layout pictured on the box. They show a vintage white Pier used over a blue rail as if to indicate that a train can pass through under it which is really impossible on a straight rail let alone on a curve.

Very good observation, hahahahaha.
I'm surprised that Super's old brain could still spot mind tricks. I'm very impressed.

This set, different from the one above has the similar layout.