Decibels of the Thomas Type Motors

Spot on OTR, the gears are always engaged, so you don't get the free-wheeling you do with Tomy trains, so I can see why they set them up the way they do as Tomy's are aimed at kiddies after all. But there again with HO/OO models you don't generally get free-wheeling loco's unless its a tender drive model in which case the main loco is just a dummy wheel set effectively.

Makes you wonder if Mattel went for the same arrangement knowing that kids will try to freewheel them if the batteries are flat or whatever and that this will potentially break the mechanism thus requiring a re-purchase