Although these days I'm more into N Gauge scale models I still have a fondness for these models and the Tomy track wins hands down in terms of quality, availability second hand on eBay etc... Of course it doesn't have some of the silly 'one trick pony' stunt parts that you get with trackmaster 1 & 2, but that sort of thing soon gets old. I'd far rather have the variety of track pieces you can get with Tomy that allows you to make some stupendous and nearly real life type layouts.
The main thing to consider though is not so much which track do you want to use, but rather what type of trains you want to run. If you are only into the Thomas range then of course you can go with any system and use appropriate model trains (assuming you don't want to modify anything). However if you like the Japanese Shinkansen's and suburban type trains as well as Thomas then you have no real choice but to go Tomy or get these trains running on the Trackmaster tracks. Myself I love 'real world' trains so its a no brainer, go with Tomy as it gives me the best tracks and the range of trains I want. There are also decades worth of trains that have been made and unlike Trackmaster all Tomy trains will run on any Tomy track new or old. Again you can pick up the Tomy engines relatively cheaply on eBay or wherever you shop.
The last thing to bear in mind is the mechanism's and realism of the trains, even if you only want Thomas models the Trackmaster trains are for the most part woefully inadequate in comparison to the Tomy equivalents. The mechanisms in the Tomy models are more reliable, quieter, easier to fix if they do break and in some cases share spare parts. In comparison the Trackmaster trains are noisy, unreliable and aesthetically pretty grotty. The latest versions (revolution?!?) are so bad that they are all basically the same body just in different colours with different stickers, totally pathetic. FP seem to have done as much as they can to kill off Thomas by constantly dumbing down the range to save a cent or two here and there. I'd far rather pay more and if the worst comes to the worst import Tomy models from Japan, they'll be running long after the FP stuff has gone to the shunting yard in the sky...
The main thing to consider though is not so much which track do you want to use, but rather what type of trains you want to run. If you are only into the Thomas range then of course you can go with any system and use appropriate model trains (assuming you don't want to modify anything). However if you like the Japanese Shinkansen's and suburban type trains as well as Thomas then you have no real choice but to go Tomy or get these trains running on the Trackmaster tracks. Myself I love 'real world' trains so its a no brainer, go with Tomy as it gives me the best tracks and the range of trains I want. There are also decades worth of trains that have been made and unlike Trackmaster all Tomy trains will run on any Tomy track new or old. Again you can pick up the Tomy engines relatively cheaply on eBay or wherever you shop.
The last thing to bear in mind is the mechanism's and realism of the trains, even if you only want Thomas models the Trackmaster trains are for the most part woefully inadequate in comparison to the Tomy equivalents. The mechanisms in the Tomy models are more reliable, quieter, easier to fix if they do break and in some cases share spare parts. In comparison the Trackmaster trains are noisy, unreliable and aesthetically pretty grotty. The latest versions (revolution?!?) are so bad that they are all basically the same body just in different colours with different stickers, totally pathetic. FP seem to have done as much as they can to kill off Thomas by constantly dumbing down the range to save a cent or two here and there. I'd far rather pay more and if the worst comes to the worst import Tomy models from Japan, they'll be running long after the FP stuff has gone to the shunting yard in the sky...
Happily collecting things all my life... 
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