the ones you are talking about are the 30 22 2820 ones and yes they are longer and have little tabs that were supposed to hold the track better. If you buy add on packs of track they come with 30 20 4400's. Most of the inventories for the plastic add on pack shows the wrong ones that came with them. You can see them in the DB pictures having the 30 20 4400's. They both are system x but yes the longer ones would not fit well on say a floor as the tabs would get in the way of cliping all the way down. Both work to hold the plastic tracks.
I am looking at
set versions and found this interesting post from Rasputin three years ago. It makes sense but contradicts other sources of information, so I am quite confused.
Sets 4384 to 4390 inclusive are sets of add-on plastic track.
Collector shows two versions of each. Version 1 (of each) has the longer connectors 30222820 and Version 2 has the short ones 30204400. The dates when the two versions were available are given as 1997-1998 for version 1 and 1988- (to present day) for version 2. To begin with, these dates seem wrong, with V2 being produced earlier than V1. Also, the sets available today (e.g. as shown on playmobil.de) are pictured with the
long connectors, i.e. Version 1. Rasputin said (in the quote above) that the sets of tracks come with the
short connectors.Both sorts of connectors are available from DS (including a pack of 12 (?) of the longer sort available as 30511540).
So are the dates in Collector wrong? Are the pictures the wrong way round too? Any help appreciated.
I am not a 'train enthusiast' but I am trying to get to grip with set versions. Something here doesn't add up. (Mind you, I have a long list of errors I have found in
Collector, so this might be another to add to the list!)