I wonder how they incorporate the much smaller Minis into the “One Gauge To Rule Them All” concept? Speaking from parental experience, it could get expensive and tight for space with three different track systems and two different gauges. The problem is that they kept simplifying and changing mechanical designs in a scattershot fashion. If you were buying the various Thomas lines in this era, it would get frustrating to realize that older and newer lines weren’t compatible.
Just using the Take N Play/Adventures line as an example, they changed the track design and the couplers in such a way that the older and newer systems didn’t work together. There were allegedly adapters offered but I never saw them online or at store front retail. The Wooden Railway also got a track redesign that made them incompatible with older Thomas and other brands of track, like Brio. The whole “natural wood” aesthetic of that redesign was also awful. So bad in fact that the traveling Thomas museum exhibit continued using the older, more realistic looking products after the new designs came out!
And I understand that Mattel/FP is making toys that are sold to parents of young kids for fairly cheap at Walmart and Target. They aren’t in the business of making detailed collectibles for discriminating adult collectors. By the time your kid is old enough to say “Hey, wait a minute... these kinda suck” he’ll be begging for Legos or playing Roblox on his iPad. But even with that, Mattel has mishandled the toy lines and the Thomas media property pretty badly. It has turned stale and become excessively self-conscious instead of fun and dynamic. I’m not sure how much cross brand compatibility can alter that.
Just using the Take N Play/Adventures line as an example, they changed the track design and the couplers in such a way that the older and newer systems didn’t work together. There were allegedly adapters offered but I never saw them online or at store front retail. The Wooden Railway also got a track redesign that made them incompatible with older Thomas and other brands of track, like Brio. The whole “natural wood” aesthetic of that redesign was also awful. So bad in fact that the traveling Thomas museum exhibit continued using the older, more realistic looking products after the new designs came out!
And I understand that Mattel/FP is making toys that are sold to parents of young kids for fairly cheap at Walmart and Target. They aren’t in the business of making detailed collectibles for discriminating adult collectors. By the time your kid is old enough to say “Hey, wait a minute... these kinda suck” he’ll be begging for Legos or playing Roblox on his iPad. But even with that, Mattel has mishandled the toy lines and the Thomas media property pretty badly. It has turned stale and become excessively self-conscious instead of fun and dynamic. I’m not sure how much cross brand compatibility can alter that.
![[-]](https://www.blueplastictracks.org/images/collapse.png)