Tomy Thomas & Friends Views

• General Goods

Several companies have made models of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends characters, as a result of the TV Series. The Ertl Company, produced an extensive range of die-cast and plastic models; Learning Curve produce the Take Along Thomas and Friends range of travel Thomas playsets; and, more recently, Tomy has introduced a range of die-cast models too.

Take-n-Play Thomas & Friends (formerly Take Along Thomas & Friends) is a series of die-cast 'Thomas' models made by Learning Curve and designed for preschool children. The models have superseded the Ertl die-cast models range, which has now been discontinued. The two ranges are incompatible as the new models use special 'two-way' magnets instead of the hook-and-loop couplers provided on the Ertl models.

Thomas Motor Road & Rail is a battery-operated system that was introduced by Tomy in March 1992.[11] It was based on the Plarail system introduced in Japan in 1959 and made into an electric toy train system in October 1961.[11] As such the toy line is compatible with other Tomy Tomica Road & Rail sets, known as Plarail system in Japan and Tomica World outside of Japan. The engines run on a plastic blue track, and the roadway vehicles run on a dark gray road. Thomas Tomica Road & Rail is not compatible with most other brands of model railway. It does though have a similar gauge to the wooden toy train systems so that rolling stock may run on both systems to some degree. Choo Choo Track & Toy Co. for example offers track adapters to connect the wooden tracks with similar gauge such as the blue plastic tracks from Motor Road and Rail with the dove tail connectors and the tan tracks from TrackMaster.[12]

In 2007, HIT Entertainment's subsidiary HIT Toys picked up the license to produce the Tomy range formerly known as Thomas & Friends Road & Rail System. The TrackMaster engines are compatible with Tomy's Motor Rail and Road merchandise. TrackMaster's light brown coloured track is easily connected to existing blue track from TOMY by track adapters, which were included in every set until new releases after 2008. An innovation in this range is the special face-changing engines that are included in some sets. In 2010, the rights were put under the ownership of Fisher Price.