Thomas the Tankshun
Let me start by saying that Noah has never seen a single five minute episode of “Thomas the Tank Engine”.
Never.
Not one DVD
and has never placed his hands on someone else’s models or tracks.
That is why I am amazed that he has told anyone who will listen (including his ride - in car ‘Rocket) that for his birthday he will be getting some “Thomas the Tankshun” trains and he will also be having a Thomas cake.
To back this unfamiliar and apparently out of the blue, idea up, yesterday he was perusing the bumper toy catalogue from Big W.
When he came to the pages with the Thomas merchandise he stopped and there he stayed for, oh, at least half an hour.
Half an hour in a toddler’s day is a long time, my friends.
He rattled (pardon the pun) on to me and the sick girl about all the different trains and the tracks and the helicopter. All of which I have absolutely no idea about.
I don’t know their names or what they are.
I am a mere mortal in the world of boy toys.
The only character I know in the whole outfit is The Fat Controller.
Heh, heh, what can I say?
I guess I can relate.
Ahem…
Anyway, the trains…and the catalogue…
were poured over by the boy and he declared once again that those were his gift of choice for his third birthday, which is still five months away.
Soon he pottered off and I thought that I had heard the last of the “Tankshun” talk.
At morning naptime, I changed him and he was chortling on to me about how much better the Big Red Car was in comparison to the Big Red Boat when I spotted a crumpled piece of paper under his pillow.
I looked closer to discover that my sweet, Thomas obsessed, son had ripped the four pages of train catalogue out of it’s cover and had placed his ‘precious’ securely with his bedding.
My gorgeous boy. He makes my heart so light.
Of course, we, as the parents of the obsessed will indulge him.
There’s just one thing…
I need the low down on Thomas and his friends.
Anyone got any information on the train?
Come on, spill it.
So I am not totally clueless, come November.
LOL! We are TV-less so I am just a clueless about all things Thomas the Tankshun, sorry. Isn’t it just amazing how much kids pick up on?!
My kids are catalogue shoppers, too. At 3.5 Miss F spends her half hours looking at shoes.
J and F’s birthday is in November, too. Great month
I don’t have any idea anymore, not since it stopped showing on ABC!
James is equally Thomas obsessed!! “Off Ank Gine” as he calls him (meaning Thomas the Tank Engine) is one of his favourites! He has ONE duplo set of Thomas that my dear friend in the states sent him, and ONE DVD which he gets to watch maybe once a month - once a fortnight if he is REALLY lucky! But he too will pour over toy magazines as well and once asked me to cut out a picture of a track set up on a special table and he carried it around for weeks telling anyone who would listen that he was going to bring it home. His Thomas duplo set often has to sleep on the little table next to his cot - set up just so - if I put the cars in the wrong order I am sternly told “Off Ank Gine NOT WORKING mummy” and he will re arrange it! I will stop now - this comment is becoming a book - but we can email each other and swap thoughts on all things Thomas…
PS. You can get little books about each of the different characters in Big W or Kmart for about $2.95 if that would help you bridge the gap until his birthday!
LOL, that’s so cute! We’ve got one DVD, and a few books, but that’s it.
Mollie used to call him Thomas the Tankshun too! Weird.
Basically, there’s Thomas. And the Fat Controller.
Oh, that wasn’t really very helpful, was it?
Come on, it was a really, really long time ago.
There’s not a lot to it, there are some trains, with names. They push and pull cargo and passengers. One of them is always cranky (think ‘Oscar the Grouch’). I don’t remember a helicopter. The stories usually have some weird kind of moral, like ‘isn’t it loovely (pommy accent) when we all work together?’
I think one of them may have been called James. I think they all had different colours. Thomas was blue (obviously), but there was also a red one and a green one. Or I could be imagining that. And it used to be narrated by Ringo Starr.
I think you should follow Lilprecious’s advice and do your homework.
And sleeping with the pages under his pillow? Is too adorable for words. I love that child.
BTW: Where is Weekly Winners???
Awwwwww so sweet! Sleeping with the pages under his pillow… that’s just to cute for words. You’ve got a wonderful lil guy there.
Thomas the Tank Engine written by Rev. Awdry is based on the Manx Electric Railway that still operates on the Isle of Mann (so Noah has some old school family history linking in there) …
There are the trains, Percy, Henry, Gordon, James (and of course Thomas) … James likes to think he is mr fancy pants. then the helicopter, Bertie the bus - to get the kiddies used to the idea of trackwork. Mavis is a chick and she is diesel rather than steam (I never liked the fact that Thomas’ carriages were female, it seemed sexist that they couldn’t get anywhere unless Thomas took them) but anyway I always liked Toby as he was a little alternative …
Talk to my mum as my little brother was way down with Thomas, so much so that a pavolvian response was created as it was the only time we were allowed to have chips - if you missed chippy time when Thomas was on then tough, no chips for you, if Thomas wasn’t on … 4.15 I believe it was then nope not allowed the chips.
David was a Thomas fan but I have forgotten . How cute is Noah !Thanks for the ideas too.
We have avoided that obsession, thankfully.
I do know Thomas says “Peep Peep!”
He is a darling boy!
I like Thomas. Gordon is the bossy train umm and that’s all I can remember for the moment hehehe..
David liked Thomas but he saved his obsession for the wiggles.. Can you imagine the fun he had yelling “wake up Jeff” to his dad every morning lol
I might have some Thomas stuff here I will have a look..
Oh and boys are just born knowing that stuff. It is a sort of osmosis. I gave up being anti-toy guns when dave started chewing his toast into a gun shape and shooting his sister *sigh*
xxx kim
The big nosed dude from the Beatles used to do the voice over.
I’m all out.
You better hope I never get past immigration there, I’m so going to run away with him.
Oh, how cute is that?? I can just see him clutching the pages under his pillow
We had a Thomas the Train Party for Kyle too - he and Noah would get on famously! Oddly enough, I don’t know a thing about them either. We have one DVD, but Kyle’s only watched it a couple of times because of his bossy, TV-monopolizing sister
He mostly just loves anything with wheels and can spend hours lying on the floor pushing his Thomas engine back and forth mumbling ” Oooooo Thomas… Oooooo Chhhhrain… woo, woo! shugga shugga… Oooo Thomas…”
So, we just did a train cake, dressed him in overalls with a bandanna and a conductors hat and got him a few of the wooden Thomas engines with a wooden train track carry box. I’m still clueless and he could care less - lol!
Not much help, am I?
How much do you want to know and how long have you got?
Minnie is also a ‘Thopos’ fan (Percy is her favourite). There are about 20 different trains and carriages and trucks. Visit the Thomas website for pictures of all of them (as I type this she is asking for Thopos).
Word of warning - all the trains are pretty overpriced - some of the wooden track is about 16.00 for 4 bits and trains can be between 10 - 20.00 each. We have 2 trains that were 2.00 each at Coles and the Ikea train track. They don’t really run on it but Minnie is happy. Keep in mind that some of the trains and tracks are different sizes - you can end up with trains that don’t run on your track if you have the wider guage track, for example. You can get starter sets on sale for under 100.00 (as I am sure the Big W has).
Sometimes I have no idea how they find out about things, just no idea…
Check out your local library for the dvd’s, there’s gazillions of them.
Ringo Starr narrates each episode and it’s actually soothing listening to his voice (finally he used his vocal powers for GOOD!)
Ah Glenn is also a thomas Fan, We have a stack of trains etc here. I bought him a 5 pack of DVD’s for christmas that was only $25 & is the orginal stories told by Ringo Star. Each DVD would easily have over an hour of episodes on it.
Thomas is on daily here. Glenn knows how to put it into the DVD player so he will happily watch the same disc days on end.
My oldest grandson used to have Thomas and friends. Every engine and carriage available at the time and plenty of track as well. He could name every one of them and tell you what it did. He was two. It must be a two-year-old thing. Go to the website to see all the engines and their names. There is a helicopter too, but I don’t remember his name.
Hi
What a lovely story your little fella sounds great.
The helicopter is called Harold and Thomas pulls 2 coaches Annie & Clarabel.
There are loads of engines but the oldest characters are along with Thomas the number 1 engine as he’s called are:
James
Edward
Henry
Gordon
Percy
Oliver
Devious Diesel
Bertie the Bus
Bulgy the Double Decker
Toby the tram
Donald & Douglas who are scottish twins.
I could go on but i’m starting to sound like a Thomas geek:-0
Any way they have lots of adventures on the Island of Sodor with The Fat Contoller Sir Topham Hatt.
I hope this helps
As the mother of the girl who was “the only girl not to have a my little pony” - now the girl who owns a room ful of the paraphenalia - be very careful of the can of worms being opened.
lol - my BIL bought all the stuff for his son off ebay - but son was not allowed to indulge too much as it became a bit of BIL’s obsession, I think.
I do not think one Thomas dvd will spoil him - it may, however, make a certain tune cause you to wince in pain for the rest of your life.
Probably what you need to know if you’re going to delve into the world of Thomas Toys is that there are a number of different TYPES of sets. So if you’re going down the road of a set, make sure you know what one you’re “collecting”.
We went the route of the blue plastic set (I think there are a couple of different plastic sets - one with grey tracks and one with blue) because it was cheaper. We bought a set that had tracks and thomas as well as Bertie (and the road for Bertie) and Harold the Helicopter. However, our son was older when he got into Thomas and that set is all mechanised vehicles.
If I was to do my time over again I would possibly go the route of the wooden set. The trains all connect together by magnet (so good for little fingers) and the trains aren’t battery operated (not sure if you CAN get battery operated but the one I bought for my nephew wasn’t). MY SIL bought her 2 year old a basic wooden set (round with Thomas I think) and then has said to the family that they’re collecting the wooden thomas set if anyone would like gift ideas for her son.
Train sets are so timeless in my opinion and make for a great toy for any age.