To rephrase they did make an American style train, it is far from being available anymore. It came in a high end set so you would start out with enough track to play for hours right out of the box, makes sense to me. And during the time the Amtrak set was released Tomy was the producer of Thomas in the U.S. and stand alone track packs were available. As for the Tomica Hypercity line, for the first year it was for sale in the U.S. it was Toys R Us exclusive and had it caught on, switch track packs were going to be released as evident in the following photo. Switch tracks were also available in the bigger Hypercity sets which were reasonably priced, at this point I don't blame Tomy they have tried!
And yes it was marketed as just another toy I agree, but I sincerely think you overestimate the demand for it in the United States!
![[Image: DSCN2825_zps0aed1ecf.jpg]](http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u496/Gerisati_George/DSCN2825_zps0aed1ecf.jpg)
Please keep in mind I am not trying to be argumentative I am just having a discussion.
(This post was last modified: 05-22-2014, 05:41 PM by Gerisplarail1.)
And yes it was marketed as just another toy I agree, but I sincerely think you overestimate the demand for it in the United States!
![[Image: DSCN2825_zps0aed1ecf.jpg]](http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/Gerisati_George/media/DSCN2825_zps0aed1ecf.jpg.html)
(05-22-2014, 04:56 PM)eilif Wrote: I grant you that what you say is true. However, they do make an american style train, and to only make that train available in a high-end set make sit seem like they could have made a few more intelligent choices in their product selections.
Also, they never gave the selection of trains that would appeal to hobbyists. It was marketed as a toy rather than a "train set". Asside from the auto based playsets which Hot Wheels and Matchbox already have the market nailed down for, it was mostly alot of robot trains and sci-fi'ish stuff that couldn't compete with the mass of sci-fi toys already avaialble here in the USA. Also, for the most recent series, you could buy strait and curved rails, but no switches!
Not that such choices would have gotten them the huge distribution through something like Toys R Us, but the combination train shop and better-toy shop is pretty common out here, and they would have lapped up the opportunity to have access to even a few of the japaneese and european style trains.
Suffice to say, Tomica/Playrail was marketed as just another toy and never given the chance to do what it does best. That is: provide a fairly realistic, mid-level model train experience.
Please keep in mind I am not trying to be argumentative I am just having a discussion.