Thomas the Tank Engine is the Titular Tank Engine from the hit 81-year-old Multimedia Franchise Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. The 3rd generation of this series is here now, and after the divisiveness of its second (All Engines Go!), there's one burning question on everyone's mind... is it any good?
Well, there's no way to tell with regard to any actual media, given there's been nothing shown of it. But we sure do have these toys of the characters who may or may not be in it! So, let's take a look at the flagship version of the main character for this new era.
The new Thomas is very similar to the Classic Thomas that was released last year, but sports the Easy Connect system's magnetic connectors rather than the Plarail-derived hooks and loops of the Trackmaster era. While this has been a controversial change, I do think it was the right one to make. The majority of toy trains on the market for kids nowadays are wooden ones with magnetic connectors, so making the motorized and metal toys capable of cross-playing with them is in the toyline's best interests for the survival. It's not like it's a problem that can be solved by reviving Thomas Wooden Railway for a third time, either, because that line flopped on account of just becoming far too expensive to cut it compared to other wooden trains. Meanwhile, the motorized and metal trains are more detailed and are more affordable, so giving them compatible magnets and track sizes makes them far more competitive within this space. It's a smart choice and one I will continue to defend.
Easy Connect Thomas has better sculpted detailing than Metal Collection Classic Thomas, and manages to correct a lot of issues that toy had. The slanting on the sides of the body has been fixed, the cab roof is now a separate piece of plastic and achieves greater depth than the bald-looking printed black roof, and the lamp on the running board is sculpted to much more closely resemble what the lamp actually looks like! However, there are a few areas where this Thomas fails to do better than his predecessor.
Firstly, Metal Collection Classic Thomas uses a gold piece of plastic to represent Thomas' whistle, whereas Easy Connect Thomas just has them as part of the cab sculpt, with no paint applications or anything to pick them out. I don't think it would have been hard to implement a similar plastic whistle into this design, and it would've improved the toy greatly to have that little splash of gold right there. I do have to wonder if the parts budget for the Easy Connect basic engines is lower than it was for Metal Collection's basic engines, because the excellent use of plastic parts for color separation on specific details has been massively reduced...
The other issue is that, from a side profile, Easy Connect Thomas looks somewhat strange, like he's been stretched vertically. His running board does ride slightly higher than Metal Collection Classic Thomas, but I don't think that's where the issue comes from, because he looks perfectly fine from the front view. It's just that side view, where there's this huge gap between the tops of his wheels and the bottom of the running board. Examining the toys more closely, the standard-size wheels for Easy Connect engines are roughly 1mm smaller in diameter than the standard-size wheels for Metal Collection engines, and I think that size difference is responsible for this gap.
I think that while Metal Collection Classic Thomas benefits from having a more 'filled out' side profile, the proportions of Easy Connect Thomas are better on the whole, since Classic Thomas has the issue of looking kind of hideous from a front view with how far the wheels and siderods stick out. Classic Thomas also has that issue where his front axle doesn't line up with his splasher, and that will never not bother me... I understand why it was designed this way, since the ideal position for the front axle is where the screw into the smokebox has to go, but still sucks...
In terms of play, Easy Connect Thomas is a winner. It's pretty difficult to mess up the playability push-along diecast toy train (at least, when it comes to one as simple as Thomas, tender engines may be another story), so I tend not to talk about this very extensively when reviewing these toys, but it has to be said that performance-wise he's perfect. Since he still fits the same gauge as past motorized and wooden toylines, he can play on those track systems with ease. His wheelbase is slightly narrower than the past diecasts who fit on these kinds of tracks, so there may be some specialty pieces he'll foul, but in the majority of situations he'll be perfectly fine.
It's time to talk about the face now. It's all anybody really wants to talk about with regards to this toyline and... Well, in the Bell Station review, I said that I'd come around on this face when I saw it in person. But, when I got my hands on the metal Thomas and got him out of the packaging, I didn't feel quite as positively, which was really confusing.
Comparing the two now, it seems that the copy of the face used on the plastic clones of the metal engines has slightly shallower features, and uses more white around the eye printing. It's kind of incredible that such minute differences can make this big a difference to what is ostensibly the same sculpt across two toys. The metal version of Thomas looks tired to me. He's got much more emphasized eyelids than I'm used to, and that combined the forced-looking smile makes him seem like he's putting on a cheery act for the kids at home, but inside he just wants to end it all. Meanwhile, the plastic version *actually* looks like the sociable, cheeky, and bold engine he's intended to be.
It feels weird to call the cheapo plastic clone the superior version of this toy... mostly because it isn't, the metal body and its actual tampograph printing feels a lot better than the inkjet printing on the plastic body... but the face difference alone makes the plastic version compelling to me. I think once I have a spare copy of Thomas, I'm going to drill that one apart and replace its face with the one from the spare plastic Thomas I have. That'll be my definitive Easy Connect Thomas.
On the whole, while Easy Connect Thomas has some issues, I would say he's perfectly okay. He manages to avoid a lot of the pitfalls suffered by the Metal Collection Classic Thomas, and while there is room to improve on this design, I don't think anybody in the actual target demographic for this toy is going to be left terribly wanting thanks to how playable it is. I'd say he's like, a 3 out of 5, if you want me to give some kind of objective numerical score. Which may sound bad if you're American Educational System-pilled, but on my personal scale you don't need to worry unless a toy dips down to a 2 or a 1. He clears the bar, to put it simply.
UP NEXT: the little green caterpillar returns, and this time, with metal
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