HIT Toy Company era!

So I am looking at getting the flip-face James at Boulder Mountain set and it got me in a very nostalgic mood! Lets discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this amazing era of trains!

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HitToys was the best!! Great sets, creative touches, with thoughtful continuity...Such a shame that it only lasted 2 years.

[Super]

I can certainly agree with Mr Muddy about that in the Trackmaster lineage.

BTW... Welcome to BluePlasticTracks Fox.

The engines were very creative too! ex: Murdoch, Emily, THE RC ENGINES!!!, Neville (my boi), and many more!

 

BTW... Welcome to BluePlasticTracks Fox.

Thank you very much!

Hit definitely did do great, constantly pushing out new merch, releasing characters that didn't appear that often in the show, making characters that Tomy/Plarail didn't make. Such a shame that they didn't last much longer.

I only bought one item from HiT toy company, and that was Rheneas and I loved it. The reason I only had one is because in melbourne, Motor Road and Rail lasted until like 2008, way after the release of HiT toys in 2006, and when HiT toys was released, it was right at the end of my interest in Thomas and Friends as a child (of course I'm interested in it now), but you're right about the trains being detailed, and also having releases that Tomy never had like most of the narrow gauge engines. I think this is when it was at its peak, once fisher price took over it started to go downhill from there

Fisher Price did do at least one good thing though and that was painting their eyes. Back to Hit, I love how you could easily swap parts like motors. You could swap flat drive motors from unit to unit.

Back to Hit, I love how you could easily swap parts like motors. You could swap flat drive motors from unit to unit.

The last batch of old type Fisher Price engines (2012-13) relied almost strictly on the flat drive units and didn't even have security screws for them, making them equally replaceable (except for half axles). Not to mention how the whole chassis is now identical for every single engine. I'd say a more notable aspect of the HiT era was it didn't abolish the road system and even made more vehicles for it than TOMY did. Now both companies haven't had them for years and Bertie is just another engine or rolling stock. HiT also had better props and accessories that looked more like what they tried to emulate. Only some destinations didn't look as good as their TOMY counterparts (like Knapford Station and Brendam Docks), but that was only a minor nitpick.