My Grandson is totally taken by the Thomas craze and watches the shows, has a set of wooden track to play with his trains, and drives us all crazy at the dealers tables at the train shows.
I am taken by the detail in the models on the TV show. Can anyone tell me what scale the models are made to? My personal guess is that it is not any of the popular scales we are familiar with but a “special for the show” scale.
Thank you for listening. [:)]
I think that several scales were used for different shots.
My boys loved Thomas, but by about 4 years of age began to tire of him[:(] We had many $$ tied up in wooden track and accessories and found we were able to signigicantly extend the life of the toy by getting some more realistic locomotives and freight cars. The boys are now 5 and 7 and will still create room filling layouts for the Whittle shortline trains www.woodentrain.com while they never play with the Thomas trains themselves. Anyway, just a thought.
There was an item in MR several years ago about the TV show, and I think it showed that the trains were fairly large, G scale or even larger. The eyes in the engines were operated by radio control.
Bachmann has a set out in HO scale that contains Thomas, Annie & Clarabel, a loop of EZ track and a power pack. Great starter layout for a little one. There are quite a few other cars and accessories available.
Bob Boudreau
Got a Grand son here that Loves anything to do with Thomas! We got the Thomas, Annie, and Claribel for him to run on my layout. He seems to like them enough.
I hear that the Large Engine “Gordon” will be out for this set later this year. Now THAT could be a nice cross over piece from Toys to Model Railroading.
I have seriously thought about doing a Model Layout with my Grandson to incorperate some of the aspects of the Isle of Sodor. The Engine House and a few other locations would really be nice.
Good Luck and enjoy that Grand Son!
Chris
My wife bought the bachman thomas
I dial it up under “00” and put it all the way to 99 other wise the little junker will hiccup on my large turnouts
The “Thomas the Tank Engine” shows use No 1 gauge track (the same as G scale) and use German Maerklin mechanisms. The models are slightly over scale for the Gauge. In some of the models, locomotives with outside cylinders, the distinctive cylinders of the Maerklin model of the Prussian P8 4-6-0 can be seen.
I believe that they have larger models for the “close -ups” where people, such as the “Fat Controller” can be seen, to make the animation and photography easier.
In England, a larger range of “Thomas” models are made by Hornby, but these aren’t sold in the USA owing to Bachmann having exclusive rights for sale in the USA. These could be purchased through the internet from UK dealers. Models of Gordon, Henry, Oliver, Duck and Toby are available as well as others. The Hornby models, however, do not have moving eyes, at least to date. So far these are all DC, I believe.
Peter
My 6 year old also loves Thomas. Yes we spent way to much on the wooden Thomas sets, but he has built some amazing layouts.
Now Santa brought all the HO thomas, he calls it breakable Thomas and is very careful with it. We have the Thomas set, the Percy set, added James and Cranky the crane. All the eyes move. They are fun and he loves them. Not the highest quality, but at this level, he doesn’t know or care. We have a temp layout in the living room for all the Thomas, and are building a big layout in the garage.
You can run them DCC, which make the wiring for a larger layout and multi train control very easy, but it takes a little work. Let me know and I will send you the website on how to convert Thomas to DCC control.
Most of all , Enjoy and have fun. [:D]
Tim
My wife and I have a little one on the way. We just bought a Lionel Thomas the Tank with Anni and Clarri and put it up on a shelf around the nursery. They’ve got an expansion set coming soon with about 4 more cars I think. This one is in 3 rail O scale but I know thats not what your question was. I’m surprised about how strong that little engine pulls. I’ve got about 10 old Lionel cars behind it right now just to see what it would pull and it’s trucking right along.
I am sure that some of the more distant action shots in the Thomas shows were of much smaller scale models. On the larger models, the faces were interchangable, so that they could quickly change the expression while filming.
The O version and the G version have interchangable faces. HO by bachmann doesn’t. But the eyes move.
Tim
The Hornby models are all to OO and should be easy enough to fit DCC to - you might need to resort to some insulating tape to deal with motors that are designed to pick up through the frame though it can be done - one of the magazines over here ran a “how to” about fitting DCC to Thomas, as they mentioned the chassis is shared with a few of Hornby’s other 0-6-0 locos (and is pretty good - I have a GWR 2721 class pannier tank based on the same chassis that’s a great runner even at low speeds). I would guess that Duck and the assorted 0-6-0 diesels they’ve now introduced use the same setup. Some of these models are pieces of history (Hornby used older models with added faces to produce the range - Duck is based on the old Triang GWR 57XX class pannier tank, Gordon is their old LNER A1/A3 class loco). www.ehattons.com have most of these listed - just beware Bill/Ben and Toby, these are rather over-scale and tend to “collect” scenery as they move around the layout! A pity really as a decent model of both prototypes (they’re based on real locos) would be very welcome - there’d be scope for both the “Thomas” version and a more detailed model using the same shell and chassis for the scale market.
My grandson is still into Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends. He’s eight! Our family room is full of a roomsized wooden Thomas layout right now. He also has the Bachmann HO Thomas. I installed a DZ123 decoder and Thomas happily pulls Anne and Clarabel around the BRVRR.
I thought, once, of recreating the Island of Sodor in HO scale when the kid was younger. I decided against it, because I thought the boy would outgrow Thomas. Wrong again! Someone on the Atlas Forum was building such a layout at one time.
Percy and James are available in HO, and there was an announcement on the Bachmann web site a few weeks ago, about several new engines and new rolling stock to be added to the HO collection in 2005.
I’ll bet you can’t count the number of Thomas the Tank Engines you have seen, in all scales, at train shows and MRR clubs. Try to get tickets to see and ride “Thomas” when the 1:1 scale, steamer visits your area. If you don’t call within hours of the announcement, you are out of luck! Thomas is universally popular with kids, and some grownups, too. He will be around for a long time.
My two nephews, 5 and 4, have full chest filled wih Thomas’ wooden railstuff. They combine it with Brio. They have so much of that stuff, that on sundays they start building a huge layout, and by the time they feel is finished is already bedtime. Great Toy!
They also have some battery operated die cast locos, specially made to run on the wooden tracks. My layout have become their holy grail of toys, but they still don’t understand why my locos and cars look so old and filthy!! He he he
Thomas is cool. I remember watching the shows when my son was younger. Each episode, in addition to having trains, has a great lesson for kids to learn.
I don’t mean to hi-jack SP4449’s thread here as long as were talking about Thomas and Friends…
What is the deal with being a “USEFULL” engine? I’ve watched the show a handfull of times and the sort of stress on that “USEFULL” part in each one. What is that all about? Really?
Very early on in the original Thomas books, upon which many of the shows are based, the “Fat Controller” would praise the engines, Thomas in particular for being, “A really useful engine”. This was often at the end of the story in which Thomas, or other engine had been particularly helpful. The thing to remember is that throughout the Thomas stories, there is an undercurrent of fear that Diesels are going to take over and replace the steam engines, as was happening in England when the books were written. So the steamers were often re-assured about how useful they actually were.
I met Christopher Audrey once, the son of the Rev Audrey. The books were written based on the stories his dad told him when he was a young boy. I think he is close to 70, so that tells you when they were written.
HI Guys
Besides what was mentioned already
Thomas and James are avaiable in N scale
Made by tomix
On ebay right now
65 dollars apeice or combo price if you buy both
Shipped from Japan 15 dollars shipping
Rich
Will be starting a layout as soon as oldest daughter finishes building her house
will have thomas and a few others for grandaughters to play and poppop too
YAY THOMAS!
I’m 15, and I still love it. You ever wonder how they get the steam that comes out of the cylinders? I saw that they had a smoke generator between the rails. Do you suppose they film it with a camera that speeds it up?
Matthew
Thank you Simon. You have to be careful with cartoons and things that you entertain your kids with these days what with the “Post Cards from Buster” controversy, “Teletubbys” and some of the things I’ve seen on “Barney” that I don’t agree with or approve of. I’m glad to know that Rev. Audry wasn’t a Socialist or anything dumb like that. Boy I miss sitting 2 feet from the TV with a Coke and watching something that was just fun like Sesame Street and The Muppet Show [V] .
The original books are really delightful, with fantastic illustration. A few years ago, the complete works came out in a compilation with all the illustration reproduced http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0517187868/qid=1108644905/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-7788443-3108915
If you don’t have these first versions, I encourage you to get them and share them with your kids and grandchildren. They have a timeless innocence about them. Plus, you learn things that you don’t get off the TV. For example, did you know that James was black, not red when he came to the island of Sodor?