Thomas and Friends Toys

Wilbert Awdry was born in 1911 and was to become famous during his lifetime. He became a minister and was called Reverend Awdry, but this is not the reason for his fame. Instead, he invented a small wooden toy call Thomas who was a train. Thomas the Tank Engine became more famous than Reverend Awdry could have imagined. Reverend Awdry built model railways and designed and invented the first Thomas wooden toy in 1943.

Thomas the Train

The Railway Series of books written by Awdry was based on stories he told his children. The book series features Thomas the train specifically as the leading engine but many other steam engine characters were added to the Thomas stories as the years went by. The famous blue colored wooden toy train is iconic and is beautiful in its simplicity and design.

The spin off from the Reverend Awdry books is vast and immeasurable. Because Thomas is a simple train toy and easy to make (for some parents with woodwork skills), Thomas remains hugely popular with children and parents alike. The TV series has helped but literally thousands of birthday cakes for young children have featured some aspect of the Thomas train phenomenon. Other notable spin offs apart from the Thomas The Train cakes are TV series, movies, play table, track, pictures and, of course, the Thomas the Tank toys themselves.

Old fashioned wooden toys are great fun, great value and last forever. Thomas & Friends provide young children with the tactile toys they need to develop their dexterity. Toys such as the Thomas trains, or toys that involve building blocks and jigsaws, are great for a child’s imaginative development.

Great value wooden Thomas train for only $3

It is reassuring in these times that cheap quality toys are still available for the hard pressed parent. The Thomas Wooden Railway is very popular with wooden engines costing as little as $3 each it is not too expensive to provide a range of different friends for young Thomas fans.

Many older fans exist too and Hornby in association with the UK’s Royal Mail provides an excellent model of Thomas for scale model enthusiasts. It is a limited edition locomotive as shown and costs about $110. The Bachmann Train set featuring Thomas the Train with Annie and Clarabel (HO Scale) is considerably cheaper at just $65.

Bachmann Trains have an award-winning line of model railroad trains, carriages and accessories. The company has been in existence for nearly 180 years and has more than 50 different Thomas the Train engine friends including the popular engines like Percy, Gordon, Daisy, Toby, Henry and James. You can also buy Bertie the Bus, Sir Topham Hatt and Cranky the Crane as well as Cattle Wagons and Mail cars.

Day of the Diesels DVD and Blu-ray

Rev. Awdry wrote more than 25 books in the Thomas series and introduced new engines as friends for Thomas as time went by. The first story written more than 65 years ago was called The Three Railway Engines. Thomas, unlike his author, continues to live on today and the latest movie is called Day of the Diesels and it introduces more new engines to the Thomas & Friends family. The new fire fighting engines are called Flynn and Belle who join the ever growing toy collection of Thomas’s friends and are sure to feature on Christmas toy lists this year.