Yep, first time I out right (but lovingly) refused to buy a Thomas toy for my son! This was a major downgrade from the previous Wooden Railway line and worst still is that they redesigned the track to use proprietary connections, making them incompatible with other wooden rail sets and the earlier Thomas line.
An interesting little aside.... The Minnesota Childrens Museum has a traveling Thomas exhibit that has made it our “local” Children’s Museum twice in the past two years. It gets major support from Mattel, of course, and features a large Wooden Railway layout for the kids to play with. There was not a single piece of the “new and improved” wooden line on this year’s layout! I was surprised since pieces constantly get broken, lost and stolen or simply wear out from constant use. Yet, Mattel had continued to supply the older stuff.
Another observation is that, since the demise of Toys R Us here in the US, none of the other Big Box retailers seem to support the line. I suspect the high price point and lack of display space account for much of this and it may be different in other parts of the country. Still, as far as I can tell, it’s pretty much a dead toy line right now.
An interesting little aside.... The Minnesota Childrens Museum has a traveling Thomas exhibit that has made it our “local” Children’s Museum twice in the past two years. It gets major support from Mattel, of course, and features a large Wooden Railway layout for the kids to play with. There was not a single piece of the “new and improved” wooden line on this year’s layout! I was surprised since pieces constantly get broken, lost and stolen or simply wear out from constant use. Yet, Mattel had continued to supply the older stuff.
Another observation is that, since the demise of Toys R Us here in the US, none of the other Big Box retailers seem to support the line. I suspect the high price point and lack of display space account for much of this and it may be different in other parts of the country. Still, as far as I can tell, it’s pretty much a dead toy line right now.