Just Who are the Thomas Manufactuers

What adds to the problem is that a lot of people, including on this forum, misuse and interchange the names of the toy ranges and companies.

The Tomica World and Thomas Motor Road and Rail ranges often get referred to as the Tomy range even though Tomy has produced many other Thomas & Friends toys. I think this stems from how the US Thomas Motorized Road and Rail range doesn't have a logo and clear branding on the packaging compared to Europe. The Tomy Trains range with the dark blue tracks did have a number of different names in the 80s and 90s, but that range is so old now that there shouldn't be much confusion with that. Granted, while Motor Road and Rail is typically talked about because it has more products (although the Capsule Plarail and Tomica ranges are quite big), I don't think I'm the only one who enjoyed other Tomy Thomas toys such as the Push 'n' Go engines and Thomas Big Loader when I was younger. I think the typical response to that is that Motor Road and Rail is too long to say (but you can abbreviate it like Tomy do?) and "you know what I mean". It's even funnier when you consider that Tomy have also sold the Take Along and Wooden Railway ranges at one point. 

"Tomy/TrackMaster" makes even less sense of a term when Tomy released HiT Toy Company's Thomas TrackMaster range in Europe. I've seen people not understand why the Tomy logo appears with TrackMaster on the boxes. Combining the production years of the Thomas range as 1992-2007 also ignores the differences between the ranges across each territory.

Another thing is that people often use the names of toy ranges as if they are a company. "I wish TrackMaster would make..." "Plarail is releasing a Picture Book Thomas." Plarail is not a company and does not make anything. Takara Tomy makes and is releasing Plarail toys. Fisher-Price made TrackMaster.

I may not have answered your question yet but it's worth noting that it can get confusing and inconsistent for newcomers due to things like these. Plus it can be hard to find the information.

Wow!!!  Great essay and I think we are getting there, but we aren't there yet.  I see this question on the same lines as, "what is the true map of Sodor".  Can we arrive at an answer as to who made what, when and where.  But I really do like the effort you put into your position, great work!!! 😁