TrainDad

With “grand­par­ents” writ­ten all over it, the Thomas Track Rider set and acces­sories are about the best toys a Thomas fan could get. The ride-on battery-powered toy comes with a 6-foot cir­cle of track. Of course, if you have $250 to spare for the train, you might as well spend a lit­tle extra to get things like the track expan­sion set, Annie and Clara­bel add-on car, and the bridge and cross­ing expan­sion set. Oh, and another site sells a tun­nel and track expan­sion set. Your lit­tle engi­neer dri­ves the train by push­ing a but­ton — a prob­lem for chil­dren that are too lit­tle, since it only dri­ves as long as you hold it in. It also can’t hold up to very wig­gly chil­dren, since they can tip it over or make it jump the tracks. I think it’s ideal for ages 3–5.

Not a big Thomas fan? That’s okay! The man­u­fac­turer, Peg Perego, has made a John Deere train — and it’s much cheaper, to boot — as well as a Santa Fe Express and another Santa Fe Express with caboose. These sets also have a figure-8 expan­sion track set available.

If that’s all too rich for your blood, you can always step back to the Thomas Pop-Up with Annie and Clara­bel for $45 or, if that’s too pricey, just the Thomas Pop-Up by itself for $19.72.

Track­Mas­ter prod­ucts are hit­ting the shelves every­where, and I’m excited at the changes. The prod­uct line is improv­ing in numer­ous ways.

It’s all about track

You can never have too much track! HiT finally got it, and they are fill­ing the need with the Back­pack of Track and the Track Expan­sion Pack. Both are just packed full, lots and lots o’ track. Good stuff!

I noticed that the pack­ag­ing says “requires assem­bly.” Well, duh!

One of the Geo­T­rax advan­tages is their fan­tas­tic sys­tem of ele­vated track, and Track­Mas­ter is try­ing to com­pete. Every track set comes with a num­ber of ris­ers and ele­vated pieces. Unfor­tu­nately, these still use the same sys­tem as the old blue track. It’s not a sta­ble or sturdy as Geo­T­rax and really doesn’t allow for com­plex multi-level designs. Sim­i­larly, they have con­tin­ued to use the same bridge sys­tems — wimpy. Over­all, though, huge improve­ments here.

Remote con­trol

The cen­ter­piece of the Track­Mas­ter makeover is Thomas at Tid­mouth Sheds. This set even gets its own adver­tis­ing video! It’s a beau­ti­ful round­house and turntable, and of course that remote con­trol — they’ve learned some­thing from Geo­T­rax. If this is the future of Thomas toys, I like where it is going.

More rolling stock, bet­ter detail

Numer­ous trucks and track sets are now avail­able. I’m pleased to see both a focus on new rolling stock — these cars are what make up a real train, after all — and on much bet­ter detailing.

Lots of sets for the grandparents

And aunts, uncles, sib­lings… prod­ucts like these are easy gift options, and always hav­ing “one more set” out there to add to the col­lec­tion is good. Track­Mas­ter hits the ground run­ning. The prod­uct line has only been avail­able for a few weeks, but look at what is already available:

• Thomas at Tid­mouth Sheds
• Hard at Work at Brend­ham Docks
• Sodor Lum­ber Yard
• Thomas at the Station
• Sodor Cop­per Mine
• Birth­day Celebration
• Sodor Adven­ture Set

More activ­i­ties, bet­ter prices, and flexibility

Most of those sets con­tain a build­ing or fac­tory that is a good toy by itself; many have func­tion­ing parts that inter­est­ing. These are much more use­ful toys than the old Tomy sets! Sets can be had for as lit­tle as $15, which is bet­ter than past offers. And all sets come with adapters to con­nect them to the old blue track, so you aren’t aban­don­ing your cur­rent system.

All things con­sid­ered, HiT has made some huge steps to close up the gap with Geo­T­rax. They still have some weak­nesses, such as the lousy cou­pling sys­tem, but over­all this is a greatly improved line of products.

I sup­pose it’s pretty nor­mal to make a train out of card­board boxes, but this time Jonathan and I got a lit­tle bit car­ried away. We’ve been col­lect­ing big dia­per boxes for about as long as he’s been alive; they are a handy size, very sturdy, and have nice “han­dles” cut in the sides. We decided they would make a great train.

We found some pho­tos of a steam engine (the orig­i­nal Polar Express, Pere Mar­quette No. 1225) and printed them out, then adhered them to the sides of the box. At Jonathan’s request (read: demand!), we added a smoke­stack and the very impor­tant cow catcher. Just the right size hole cut in the top allows him to climb in and be the engineer.

A few more prints turned another box into a ten­der, then more for a hop­per car and a tank car, and we had a nice lit­tle freight unit going. I have to admit to a spe­cial advan­tage: the abil­ity to print onto adhesive-backed vinyl, in essence mak­ing giant stickers.

Unwrapped dia­per boxes make up the rest of the train now, along with a wire rack and a hand-held sweeper. (Any­thing makes a train, when cou­pled to some­thing else!) One morn­ing I went down­stairs to find that he had loaded each box up with stuffed ani­mal pas­sen­gers. He’s had a great time play­ing with it. Ah, these are the days!

We vis­ited the NC Trans­porta­tion Museum this week­end, and were delighted with the spec­tac­u­lar facil­ity, impres­sive col­lec­tion, and the low cost to expe­ri­ence it all.

Nes­tled on main street in this lit­tle town out­side of Char­lotte, the NC Trans­porta­tion Museum is a hid­den gem with the goal of becom­ing a pre­mier des­ti­na­tion. It is located in the for­mer South­ern Rail­way loco­mo­tive repair facil­i­ties, and their dis­plays are cen­tered around a won­der­ful round­house and turntable. The first happy sur­prise is that there is no cost to enter the museum: it is free. Yup, F-R-double-E. Gotta like that.

Most peo­ple start their visit with a ride on the train. Prices are bet­ter than rea­son­able: $6 for adults, $5 for kids and seniors, and kids under three are free. Their col­lec­tion of loco­mo­tives is large enough that they rotate their motive power monthly; check their web site to see what will be dri­ving at the time of your visit. Of par­tic­u­lar note is that you can take a ride in the cab for only $10, first come-first served. That sin­gle thing might be the most impres­sive ele­ment of the whole place.

The train departs from their (beau­ti­ful) depot to the round­house. It stops to let peo­ple unload, then heads back. Tick­ets are needed for this out­go­ing leg of the ride, but not for the trip back. Thus, clever plan­ning can get you sev­eral rides for one low cost. I’d sug­gest rid­ing out, tour­ing the round­house, then rid­ing back; then, take a walk­ing tour through the gift shop and var­i­ous dis­plays in mechanic’s build­ings, which will drop you out right back at the round­house; hop on the train again for a free ride back.

The round­house is home to an impres­sive col­lec­tion of heavy metal. On the steam side there is a Shay, two 2–8-0 Con­sol­i­da­tions, a 4–6-0 “ten-wheeler,” a 2–10-0 deca­pod, a cou­ple Porters, a saddle-tanker, and a fire­less. All are in good con­di­tion, and sev­eral are (more or less) oper­a­tional. The diesel side has too many to list, includ­ing an E-3, E-8, FP-7, Amtrak F-40, GP-9, GP-30, Fairbanks-Morse H-12–44, and a Bald­win AS-416. Notable inclu­sions are three major pas­sen­ger engines: two of the clas­sic South­ern green-and-white E– and F– series, and the unmis­tak­able pur­ple and white of the Atlantic Coast Line. The South­ern engines are reg­u­larly used to run the pas­sen­ger routes, along with sev­eral other diesels. Sadly, no steam is cur­rently used.

Also inside the round­house are the museum work­shops. At any given time there will be a dozen engines and cars in the shop being worked on. Easy access lets you watch the work happen.

While at the round­house, hop onto the turntable for a ride. It does cost an extra buck, but they give you quite a few spins.

Between the round­house and the sta­tion are long work­shop build­ings that house nice col­lec­tions of auto­mo­biles, a few planes, and a gift shop. We ran out of time to see more than a glimpse of the main auto collection.

A major devel­op­ment is in the works as they con­vert the enor­mous back­shop into a new dis­play space. It looks good so far, but has a long way to go.

There is much more to see and expe­ri­ence. The entire col­lec­tion of equip­ment is enor­mous: 13 pages long, in the lat­est list. Much of it is in fine cos­metic con­di­tion. There are many nor­mal pieces — box­cars and the like — but there are also some unique items. One par­tic­u­larly fas­ci­nat­ing exam­ple is a one-of-a-kind mon­ster machine built by the Nor­folk South­ern to drive the tracks while scoop­ing up bal­last, clean­ing it, and spread­ing it back out.

Across the street is a great model rail­road shop and a small restau­rant with good burg­ers, dogs, and ice cream.

Give it a try. This is a museum that won’t disappoint!

More news is com­ing out about the new HIT Enter­tain­ment Track­mas­ter Thomas & Friends Rail­way sys­tem. HIT has estab­lished ThomasTrackmaster.com as the online home for the prod­uct line. Amazon.com is now car­ry­ing a long list of new Track­mas­ter prod­ucts includ­ing sev­eral large sets and a track expan­sion pack. HIT has now re-released vir­tu­ally every TOMY engine and car made. They have also released a remote-control Thomas, with a con­troller that looks like an exact clone of a Geo­T­rax remote. The prod­ucts are being sold at Wal­mart, K-Mart, Tar­get, Toys-r-Us and Kay­bee Toys, as well as through the nor­mal online retailers.

HIT enter­tain­ment is spec­tac­u­larly good at mar­ket­ing (read: sell­ing), so I expect the Track­mas­ter line to get far more expo­sure than TOMY did. The cur­rent sets are using the same low-quality acces­sories (bridges, etc.), but I wouldn’t be sur­prised if they didn’t upgrade and improve over time.

Visit your friendly neigh­bor­hood Wal­Mart and you’ll likely find that the stan­dard Tomy Thomas Road and Rail items are rapidly being replaced by some­thing new: the Thomas & Friends Track­Mas­ter Rail­way Sys­tem. At first glance, you prob­a­bly wouldn’t even notice: the pack­ag­ing is iden­ti­cal to Tomy except for a red band on the left side. Since it’s a Thomas prod­uct, they have to make it as con­fus­ing as pos­si­ble: the pack­ag­ing is so sim­i­lar that most peo­ple would buy this think­ing it is Tomy. And the prod­uct inside looks sus­pi­ciously like Tomy. But it’s not: it’s from HiT, the giant licens­ing com­pany. At least, that’s what the pack­ag­ing says. And it also clearly says that it is not com­pat­i­ble with any other Thomas prod­ucts. Upon closer exam­i­na­tion, how­ever, the bot­tom of the engine is boldly stamped with the Tomy name. And a lit­tle test­ing showed that the engine is, in fact, com­pletely com­pat­i­ble with the old Tomy sets. So what’s dif­fer­ent? The track.

The track is dra­mat­i­cally improved. It is a sin­gle thick, molded plas­tic form very rem­i­nis­cent of the “fat track” that comes with some Take Along sets. Sure enough, not only does the new engine run on the old track, but the old engines run on the new track as well. The whole thing is just a com­pli­cated dis­guise for a track replacement.

My assump­tion is that HiT bought out the licens­ing rights, but then turned around and had Tomy do the man­u­fac­tur­ing anyway.

One note of inter­est… the new track has a new con­nec­tor sys­tem, one that is extremely sim­i­lar to the Take Along fat track con­nec­tors. There’s a prob­lem with this: I think it infringes on the track patent held by Fisher-Price for Geo­T­rax. If you look at the back of any Geo­T­rax track, you’ll find a patent num­ber. Research it, and you will see that it cov­ers a few basic tech­niques for con­nect­ing track. The first one of those seems to describe the Track­Mas­ter sys­tem exactly. Maybe noth­ing will come of it, but I think FP could have a case if they wanted it.