Top 5 Selling Thomas & Friends Toys - March 2010

In this Top 5 article, I bring you the top 5 selling Thomas & Friends toys.


It says something about the popularity of the Thomas Wooden Railway system over the above systems, as all top 5 products are from the Thomas Wooden Railway.

I am hoping to soon provide a summary and comparison between the various Thomas & Friends systems. It can be confusing when first entering the world of Thomas and finding such a wide range of different, yet similar, toy systems.

I am hoping that these Top 5 articles will become a regular on Collecting Thomas.

#1 - Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Water Tower Figure 8 Set

The Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Water Tower Figure 8 Set is recommended to anybody looking at starting with the Thomas Wooden Railway system.

I wrote a review of the Water Tower Figure 8 Set in a previous article.

The set includes all you need to start, including sufficient track to build a number of different layouts, a Thomas train and corresponding cargo car. The water tower compliments the set, and features a water level that changes as you raise and lower the water spout.

#2 - Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Percy The Small Engine

Everybody's second favourite engine, Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Percy The Small Engine is a must have for any collection.

It is similar in size to Thomas, but only features 2 sets of wheels, where Thomas has 3.




#3 - Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Sodor Gift Pack with Henrietta


A great way to quickly build a collection of trains is the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Sodor Gift Pack with Henrietta. The set includes the following trains and accessories:

• Henrietta (available only in this set)
• Fred (available only in this set)
• Oliver
• Toby
• Bertie

It is worth noting that Oliver, Fred and Henrietta are now discontinued, and are near impossible to buy separately.


#4 - Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Gordon The Big Express Engine


Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Gordon The Big Express Engine, is the fastest and most powerful engine on the Island of Sodor (until Spencer visits !) 

Gordon's face is more serious that the other engines, but this is reflected by his more serious personality in the TV series.

#5 - Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Henry the Green Engine

Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Henry the Green Engine is a kind and gentle engine, however is also a fast and powerful one. He is similar in size to Gordon and includes a slightly different shaped tender.

Collecting Thomas Stores

We added a number of new Stores to Collecting Thomas. They hopefully compliment the content on Collecting Thomas, by bringing the best products and prices across a wide range of Thomas & Friends products. We have teamed up with Amazon to bring you these store.

• Toy & Game Store
• Book Store
• Video Store

I hope you find the Stores a valuable addition to Collecting Thomas. If you have any comments, or wish to provide feedback to us, please send us an email feedback [at] collectingthomas [dot] com.

HIT Entertainment Facing Financial Troubles

As reported in the UK press, HIT Entertainment, the owner of Thomas the Tank Engine is at risk of breaching bank covenants in the next week. It appears that the owner of HIT Entertainment, Apex Partners (a UK-based private equity firm) has experience substantial losses in the last year.

There are also rumors circulating the Internet that Disney may be interested in acquiring the Thomas the Tank Engine brands.

Read more at the Daily Telegraph Web site.

Download Thomas & Friends Activity Sheets

Here is a great money saving tip. Thomas & Friends activity books, such as those that allow your child to colour in images of Thomas, or join the dots to reveal their favourite engine can be quite expensive. They also tend to have a short shelf life, as once your child has completed a page, there is no way to start that page again. Egmont, the publishers of the Thomas Library series of books have made available a number of downloadable activity sheets. As they are in black-and-white, you do not need access to a colour printer, and you can print a few copies of each over your lunch break (obviously with permission from your employer!)

The Thomas & Friends activity sheets can be downloaded here. These are highly recommended for any Thomas fan.

Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Water Tower Figure 8 Set

The Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Water Tower Figure 8 Set is one of the most popular selling Thomas & Friends sets, and is highly recommended for anybody looking to purchase their first Thomas & Friends set.

With the growing number of different types of Thomas & Friends train systems (such as Wooden Railway, Take Along, etc.), it can be very hard to know which one to initially choose. I will be covering each of the different systems as part of another article, but I do recommend that whatever system you do choose, you should stay with that system. Most of the components are not compatible between systems, and it can become expensive if have to buy for multiple systems.

The Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Water Tower Figure 8 Set was my son's first Thomas & Friends toy set. We have since added a number of additional engines and the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Figure 8 Set Expansion Pack. The expansion set allows you to expand the Water Tower set to a number of other layouts. It includes a booklet showing a number of additional layouts, but I have found that the combination of both sets provides enough track to build a lot more different layouts.

 

Included Parts

The Water Tower set includes all the parts needed to start your Thomas & Friends collection.

• Track to make the figure 8 layout
• Bridge, as shown to the left
• Water Tower that includes simulated water as you move the water spout up and down
• Thomas train and cargo car with cargo
• Fat controller
• Stop sign
• Railway crossing sign
• Tree

Overall, I highly recommend the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Water Tower Figure 8 Set. It is ideal as a starter set for those looking at beginning with the Wooden Railway.