OK, I can’t sleep, so I pulled out my Thomas the Tank Engine books and…
Well, not quite. Generally, the dramas of the world help make the eyelids droopy, so I surfed past the NY Times and guess who’s on the front page? Thomas! Seems like Mattel purchased the little engine, lock, stock, and barrel and plan to push an expanded and revised version to grow this market.
Now, before you scoff, Thomas is a known money-maker for several of the RR museums, in fact may keep more than one in the black with the crowds of kids that flock to see him do his thing, which I guess is something we all love, running around the track. I can only see this as a net positive, even though it might tend to cast our beloved hobby as an expensive extension of our 4-year old fantasies of choo-choos taking us far away from the tribulations of day-care and kindergarten.
So will there be a glut of new model railroaders from this effort to put a tank engine in every household? Maybe not, but in an age where it is increasingly difficult to have the sort of close interaction with trains that got many of us interested in the hobby – yeah, I know, but we (most of us, anyway) survived hanging out down by the tracks – this may be the sort of thing that safely introduces enough kids to model railroading to sustain the hobby in the future. That’s a good thing, whatever horrors the Mattel marketing folks may impose on Thomas.
No specific word on what role the rail museum visits may play, which may be of most interest to many here. IIRC, Thomas exists in both standard and 3-foot gauge forms already. Here’s my suggestion. How about a giant Thomas theme park, where every ride involves a train ride in some form?[Y]
I haven’t heard what is up with the Thomas and Friends line of trains, but when these trains are being run at shows they are a big draw with the little children. One of my clubs members runs them at the shows in G gauge and O gauge and always has a flock of kids around both of the layouts.
Thanks for the info Mike, As a Train Museum Volunteer I can testify that “Thomas” is a huge boost to our Museum. We get many youngsters who are avid “Thomas” fans who are brought to the Museum by older siblings, parents and grand parents. Admissions, train ride tickets and gift shop merchandise are all impacted in a positive way by “Thomas” and his friends.
Thomas (unpowered) on wooden track was a big factor with our first grandson. I built him a table frame (much better than retail) and bought their 3’ x 4’ (or so) tabletop and the grandson enjoyed that for some time. Now it’s at grandson #2’s house. Grandson #1 kept his train interest via a Bachmann HO set and a 4’ x 6’ layout with EZTrack.
I can’t say I enjoyed the original TV cartoons, but they are for the kids, not me.
I do hope the Thomas wooden track trains continue to do well, with the powered versions as an offshoot.
Any train is better than no train; I’d rather my kids be bothering me about anthropomorphic British steam engines than losing their innocence in the latest xbox/playstation murder simulator.
When Thomas comes to town ckeck out the Big Rig that haules him around,If a truck and trailer like it was made in HO i will get me one and a Thomas Tank and do the same.