Mattel Being Mattel

Sigh! In that timeline I would most certainly have Etienne and Philip, without "that tab on the underside that prevents them from being compatible with Tomy Blue track"* and the horrible spiky wheels!

What on earth are they doing? Here's a couple official pictures of the new "Thomas, Annie & Clarabel" trainset:



They made great faces of Annie and Clarabel, and then they put those nice bodies on those wheels! 
It's even worse when you look at it from this perspective:


What is this? It looks like a military vehicle or something like that. They completely ruined the look of the train. And, of course, with that "tab" on the bottom of the engine they made it useless for blue tracks. 

And why are they doing all this? Supposedly so the trains could run better on their impossible and ridiculous layouts (extremely steep slopes, silly walking bridges, jumping, flying etc.). And what's worse, even with those spiky wheels and everything, - those crazy sets with crazy features still don't always work as intended (trains derailing, can't manage uphill or such); many Youtube videos prove that. 


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*© Muddy