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.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Skarloey 1 // Aug 9, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Any word if there will be a connector available to connect the blue Tomy to the Trackmaster. I guess we will have to go ebay or internationally to get the cool new sets such as Knapford Station .
2 Traindad // Aug 11, 2007 at 8:26 am
I’m doubtful there will be a connector. It looks to me like they are trying to make this completely separate.
3 thomasfan36 // Aug 16, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Actually I just picked up the remote control set for my son (Thomas at Tidmouth Sheds). There were two track adapters included in the pack so they are compatible with TOMY track.
4 traindad // Aug 20, 2007 at 4:20 pm
I think that’s great news. I think the Trackmaster series will do much better than the TOMY, but there are a lot of us that have a large amount of blue track sitting around!
5 Skarloey 1 // Aug 24, 2007 at 2:44 pm
TF36,
I picked up a Fearless Freddie, the brochure stated that all sets include 2 adapters, good news! How is that TS set? We are looking at that set for a XMAS gift.
6 Susan // Oct 1, 2007 at 8:54 am
Hello,
I have a question. We have Geotrax, which my son loves. Do you know if this new Thomas track is compatible with Geotrax ( we can connect them together and run trains on both?)
Thank you.
7 Bethany // Oct 2, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Hi, Susan,
I’m married to traindad, does that make me trainmom?
The Thomas Trackmaster cannot connect with Fisher Price GeoTrax, as much as we would all love for it to do so. The Tomy/Trackmaster trains don’t run on GeoTrax; it is close, but the wheels aren’t the same distance apart for the two.
As was noted above, at least the Trackmaster track seems to come with an adapter or two to connect it to the “old” Tomy blue track. This doesn’t help you if you only have GeoTrax, of course. (We bought a big set of Tomy before we found a deal on GeoTrax. We like GeoTrax much better.)
Fisher Price, please come out with a Thomas train! =)
8 Aussie Paul // Aug 1, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Hi,
I’m being thrust into the world of Thomas by my 2 year old who is obsessed w trains and Thomas. I’d like to by him a big set for his B-day, but don’t know which one.
I have one wooden track set, but it’s a knock-off and is low chinese quality. I have some “real” wodent Thomas trains, but was considering switching to the plastic tracks. the Tomy one seems the most popular one to me, but I also see a lot of the “Take Along” brand ones. Which one do I buy? Does nayone know if the 2 are compatible?
Thanks!
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