A Tomy Bulk Buy

I got this lot for 30aud (21USD). I was disappointed to find the engines had all been opened and naturally don't work. There is however 4 trucks with faces and cargos, several other carriages and enough track and accessories that i decided to keep it although i may not have bothered with the lot otherwise. One of the thomas is smoky one with the water tower.




Bocos chasis and switch are snapped so i removed the switch so he could free roll to play with. I already have 5 working engines and others with more realistic chances to fix than these. I let my young daughter play with me so dont mind most of my collection is a bit beat up. Thinking of getting her favourite Rosie as a new plarail next rather than puzzling over used engines. We almost have enough to make some little videos soon.

I assume you tried the "thwack" approach with no luck? I've managed to get so many "broken" trains to work simply by hitting the motor casing with the handle of a screwdriver. The busy as a bee james might be a little different, as it seems those wires connected to the tender inevitably get severed. And of course, if the motors are just kaput, it's always doable to swap the motor and casing from a functioning thomas.

That's a very good deal for some very good and useful parts

@confusedanddelayed. Have not heard about the 'thwack' method will have to extract some of my motors and try it. Nothing to lose!

[Super]

Hi Rich.gamble

Oh yes, once the whack works for you, you will always use it. I use the handle of a screw drive like confusedanddelayed does.

And I'll just add that you often don't even need to remove the motors from the train. Just stick a good battery in, flip it to the on position and give it some taps. This way you'll know as soon as it kicks over. The tender-powered engines can be trickier because unless you want to remove the front chasis that houses the motor, you are limited to just giving it an open handed smack (of course you need to be careful that you don't jostle it hard enough to risk severing the wires connecting the tender).

Just tried to whack a couple of engines and success! Got Terrence and my new snow plough Thomas to work. Looks like I am setting up the log track this weekend that is my most mint set so glad it is of use now! Really appreciate your time to help me. Going to have so much fun with them now and still more to try whack later.

Nice! It’s a great feeling when you get a train working again (whether it’s using the thwack or having to do some heavier tinkering).

[Super]

Fantastic Rich......on with the "Whack Attack"

Yep got two more thomas and bumble bee james from the pic above to run with the whack trick. James is very slow though..
I have to get more batteries to try smokey tom too. I also have a thomas that talks perfectly but has a broken gear still a bit scared to open that one up.