MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: ArBee: Polygonal model train

> > Tomy Plarail is a popular model train system for young children produced and
> marketed
> > by Tomy in Japan since 1959. It uses plastic rails and battery-operated locos since
> > 1961. The name comes from the English "Play Rail".
>
> PLAY - In japanese "プレイ" , but Here is "プラ" - Pla,
> means plastic.
>
> The same word in japanese is Gun-pla "ガンプラ", means Gundam
> Plastic models.

I know it's an abbreviation for plastic, but given their earliest Japanese marketing material for the product line features the "Let's Play" slogan (in English text with the rest of the text apart from the Pla-Rail trademark being in Japanese), I think it's hard to argue that it wasn't intentionally chosen for similarity to the English "Play Rail".