Just received a new Walthers flyer in the mail. Who ever did this one decided that trains was trains, and so we have cute little Thomas, and his buddies on the same page as hulking 2-6-6-6 Alleghenies. And Thomas passenger cars mixed in with the heavy weight passenger cars of yore. And Troublesome Truck #2 facing off with Thrall 3 bay covered hoppers and Gunderson well cars.
Even dyed-in-the-wool absolute-prototype modelers have grandsons - or, in my case, three great-grandsons - who are Thomas fanatics. And Walthers probably has a lot of Thomas inventory left over from Christmas…
Those sale flyers contail things the dealer wants to move (as in, `Out the door…') not necessarily things individual modelers want.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Or sons… although my 8 year old now declares that Thomas is “stupid”, and so a large collection pf Thomas stuff sits quietly in a Sterilite bin, looking for a new home. Although I could have grandsons someday!
Fast forward two decades or so:
“Dad, do you still have all that Thomas the Tank Engine stuff…”
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Thomas and Friends are cute and have caught a lot of children´s fascination. But whether they are the right entry into the hobby of model railroading I have my doubts. Children learn pretty quickly, that real trains are very much different and that Thomas is not riding the rails in scale 1:1. If you are lucky, you can “graduate” them to the world of model railroading, but I am afraid that in most cases Thomas will end up in the described bin.
In my youth days, there was hardly a boy who did not have a train set. In most cases, it was a Marklin set, which grew to a little empire over the years. Christmas and birthdays saw additions, so the interest was kept alive. In those days, trains were still the predominant mode of travel, so the kids were re-enacting what they saw in real life. That changed in the late 1960´s, as motorization grew in my country - subsequently causing a loss of interest in trains and model trains. Marklin and other makers tried to battle this development by introducing inexpensive, entry-level train sets composed of “fantasy” locos and rolling stock. There may be folks around who remember Marklin´s infamous “Alpha Train” set, which completely failed in the market. This was no way to attract the younger generation to the hobby of model railroading. Incidentally, Marklin is right now repeating the same mistake by marketing a cheaply made, battery-operated train set. I bet, that a kid´s interest runs out the moment the batteries are dead!
IMHO, Thomas is what it is, a toy for kids to play with for a short period of time, but don´t expect it to be the entrance into a life long hobby.
Makes one wonder who is advising Walthers on how to build their catalogues. I guess their hope is that we will look at every page, just to see what might pop out that interests us.
As far as Thomas goes with regard to modeling, I will not run him for myself but I will likely have one or two Thomas locomotives and a few cars available to run if ever I have age appropriate guests. I think the key thing is to be able to bond with the youngsters by giving them a memorable experience, and perhaps distract them away from their electronic games for a little while.
I have to admit that I am not too far removed from Thomas The Train because I have installed sound and lights in a Hogwart’s Express, and I will run that train as an excursion whenever the mood strikes![C):-)]
Dave
I’Ve bought Thomas for my grand daughter, she is now three years old.
But I’ve installed an Zimo MX648 sound decoder and LX 10 x 15 speaker.
Running with sound is great for the girl.
Wolfgang
Gidday, A different perspective from a different country, New Zealand never had the rail infrastructure as in Europe nor the population to support it. Even if you lived near the tracks there just was not the activity.
I was bought up in the early '60s with the “Railway Series Books”, Thomas appearing in in the second of the series originally in 1946. The books, i guess where not inexpensive but due to import tariffs and restrictions at the time “train sets” were. I was extremely lucky in that my English grandmother sent me a clockwork O gauge Hornby set as a Christmas present.
When my boy was young his grandmother bought him the series for birthday presents so I got to read him the books for his bedtime stories just as my Dad had done for me, in fact he liked them so much that I got to know the stories by memory reading them so often to him. I did the same for my daughter, who tells me that she also enjoyed them. By this time the television series had started and My young fellow was glued to the TV while Thomas was on.
To be fair my boy is now hard out studying at university now so I can’t claim that Thomas has got him into model railroading but, hmmmmmmmm, Ulrich you’ve got me thinking, was it Thomas by himself, or a combination of childhood memories that got me into the hobby??? [*-)] [:D]
Cheers,the Bear.
Mr. Bear,
we all have our own experiences and memories. When I was a lad, my father took my elder brother and me to the train station on weekends, getting us out of the way for the weekend cleaning my mom and my sister had to do. A visit to the train station was a spectacular affair in those days - plenty of steam. My dad taught us how to distinguish the different locos by the sound of their exhaust. Now and then, we were invited to the cab by a friendly engineer. It was a natural that each one of us was given “his” train set once we were old enough. In my case that was 7 years of age.
I did the same thing with my son, but failed to attract him to the hobby. Of course, he had his own train set, starting out at the age of three with a Playmobil train set like the one below:
Later I attempted to graduate him to LGB, as I was building a live steam garden layout in those days. But I failed - the bug never really caught on [sigh] I doubt that I would have done a better job with Thomas.
My “little one” is now 25 and has just finished his master´s exam in computer engineering (straight A exam!, guess who is a proud father). He is still not into trains, but model building, and has developed a much better understanding for his crazy father´s hobby.
I am building an HO layout at the History Center in Anderson Indiana. One of the items that I have is a Thomas and two passenger cars in addition to all of the other rail cars and locos. They’re in the yard ready to roll if some one young shows an interest in them.
Bottom line? Walthers knows exactly what they are doing.
Perhaps. Had I been doing that flyer, I would have put the all Thomas stuff all on one page, rather than scattered thruout the catalog. You sort of expect “like” stuff to be cataloged together. It’s perfectly reasonable for Walther’s to offer Thomas stuff, a lot of us will have Thomas on our layouts when we have a suitable audience, children or grandchilden.
Thomas items have been a regular in the Walthers flyer fo rsome time; before this they had been listed in the train set section.
As far as the 1:1 Thomas goes, he does exist. Just ask any kid who has been to a Day Out with Thomas event. This is from Boothbay Railway Village a couple of years ago
Strictly speaking, this 2 foot gage Thomas is a scale model of the “real” standard gage Thomas
[(-D] [(-D] [(-D] [(-D] [(-D] [(-D]
They have a REAL ( a tank engine runs under it’s own power ) Thomas the Tank at the Strasburg RR
Only difference is it has outside cylinders where The Bachman is like the mythical with an unseen inside cylinder
I had to get one and even have some Strasburg Overland Cars just like it pulls
You can see the Strasburg version in my sig
and my You Tube version here
All too familiar statement from those who had the Lionel sets from the prewar and postwar eras.
Thankfully, this hasen’t happened to me yet (I’m only 17, however) and don’t expect it to happen anytime soon.
Gidday Sir Madog, while you may have “failed” on the model railway front, I’d have to say that your good lady and yourself certainly pointed your little one" on the right track of life, besides he’s young, you just never know.
The topic has probably been done to death else where but here’s a link to the prototype loco that Thomas was drawn from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LB%26SCR_E2_class
I’d thought my younger brother had got down on this for his children but after about 40 years of being stored in my parents garage it has recently resurfaced.
Not sure what “The Advertising Standards Authority” would have to say, nowadays regarding the difference between what was on the cover of the box and what was inside, but it gave hours of fun to two young boys. [:D]
Cheers, the Bear.
Some of you folks may not like this, but that 1:1 scale Thomas is nothing else than a “real” steam loco in the guise of a child book character. That´s not to be mistaken as “reality”.
A lot of railroad museums that has a “A day out with Thomas” calls 'im Thomas the bank engine because he draws in the crowds.
Did you know some of those “real” Thomas engines are being pushed by a diesel?
I read that in Trains magazine.
You are right about the Thomas draw, the 6 days of Thomas is the largest event at Boothbay RR Village every year. The first year, thay had to buy an additional passenger car from Eadyville so they would have enough seats. This spring, they are reworking the downgrade track to reduce the grade. Our old 2 foot equipment does not have air brakes, so the conductors have to crank the brake wheels on the passenger cars and we have to run a second locomotive on the rear for additional braking. They would not be spending that kind of money unless they seen a return on the investment.
http://s139.photobucket.com/albums/q301/ggpaine/Boothbay%20Railroad/Day%20Out%20with%20Thomas/?action=view¤t=10-08-06DayOutWithThomas.mp4
Diesels?? Heavens NO!! Steam is the only way to go [swg]. The sponsoring organization uses whatever motive power that have available. The funny thing is the 2ft Thomas has an air compressor inside for the whistle and smoke unit. Passing by, it sounds like a diesel.
And a word from our sponsor, tickets are available now
http://www.railwayvillage.org/main.html
Strasburg Railroad has a real workign steam Thomas, converted from a Porter tank loco. The only real discrepency is their Thomas has outside cylinders, but it’s a working steam loco that actually pulls the train without the use of any diesels or other locos to move it along.
I believe they made more than one,a ctually, and they often travel to other tourist railroads to do the Day Out with Thomas events. Last time I was there I did the shop tour and they were prepping one for a trip to some other railroad. Thomas gets carried on a lowboy trailer (the shame, riding on a truck) and to meet clearance requirements the stack and I think the cab are dismantled for shipping.
And while Thomas and friends may be somewhat caricatures, they ARE all representitives of actual classes of locos from England. Really it’s only the faces that have bene added. That’s why so many of them are available in model form - the real locos are available as models, add a face and bright colors and you have Thomas. Same with the coaches, freight cars, and brake vans. Leave off the faces and they are actual scale models.
–Randy
The illustrations in the original Thomas books are based on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LB%26SCR_E2_class The Hornby Thomas is based on this class of locomotive. The Bachmann loco sold in the US is a model of the more cartoonish Thomas of the TV show and more recent books. http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/events/thomas.html for real steam version.