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Tomy Train Thomas the Tank Engine Trains

First written May 3, 2024
Reformatted Spring 2026

With the success of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends on television and Tomy becoming interested in producing Thomas the Tank Engine toys in the early 1990s a range of Thomas characters and sets compatible with the Tomy Train standard was established. Trains used uniquely colored or arranged wheels but the configuration of the driving wheels and gearbox internals was the same. Thomas, Annie, and Clarabel released first in late 1992. 1994 and 1995 brought new characters and the only new Tomy Train products in the United States those years. In Europe the Tomy Train range was revamped in 1996 as Tomy Trains.

1333 Thomas the Tank Engine Accessory Set (1992)

Going on sale in the U.K. and Europe in late 1992, Thomas and his two coaches Annie and Clarabel as well as a Sir Topham Hatt figure were released as a train pack.

Annie and Clarabel use regular red wheels but are new toolings for the coaches themselves, but they are really just large blocks with stickers - it would have been cooler, especially considering Tomy already had an open carriage designed for the range, for Annie and Clarabel to have been able to fit the Tomy Trains figures as passengers.

Thomas has blue wheels, the first Tomy Train engine to not use the standard red. Like Plarail and regular Tomy Trains engines after the early 90s, Tomy Train engines are marked with a production sticker with the number representing the last digit of the year and the letter's position in the alphabet corresponding with the number of the month in the year (October 1994, in the case of J4).

It is a nice detail that Clarabel's sticker includes her guard's compartment, something that some Clarabel toys miss like the Plarail version released earlier in 1992 (usually because she and Annie share a common tooling to save on production, which is indeed the case here, the stickers just make it easier to depict them than molded open windows).

1343 Percy and the Troublesome Trucks Accessory Set (1994)

Percy was sold in a train pack with a driver and two brown Troublesome Trucks with drop-down sides.

The trucks use the tooling of the existing Tomy Train animal wagons but in a nice brown with classic troublesome truck face stickers. I think they look very nice and fit the system well, with plenty of exposed studs and open space to fill with cargo. The trucks come on unique black-wheeled black train bases and can be prone to losing the drop-down sides.

Percy uses the regular Tomy Train chassis with green wheels. Percy and the trucks were included in the large Thomas and Percy's Big Adventure set.

Here is the 1996 U.K. Tomy Trains box for Percy and Troublesome Trucks. This is a later production example and was marked down.

This Tomy Trains Percy dates to 1997. The battery compartment has a new DC1.5V mark in the tooling.

1344 Edward the Blue Engine (1994)

The next Thomas characters, released in 1994 and 1995, were all released individually with a driver figure. The larger engines all have open cabs for the figures to sit in. These trains have different wheel arrangements from regular Tomy Train - very neat! The tenders sit on shorter chassis and the engine have correctly colored wheels instead of the red used on regular Tomy Trains Trains (and, indeed, Annie and Clarabel).

The Thomas engines all have nice uses of stickers. I do think that the tenders and really engines as well ride a little high, but this really just a side effect of being designed for the Tomy Train standard and having to fit the large reversing gearbox inside. The short blue-wheeled tender chassis was also used for Gordon. Edward seems to be the hardest to find, I've come across just one from buying lots that had in total three or four of each of the other tender engines - I've held onto two of each of the other big engines, plus the extra boxed James shown below.

1345 James the Red Engine (1994)

European releases from 1992 when the Thomas series started to the Tomy Trains brand refresh in 1996 used this blue TOMY TRAIN packaging that shows the engine through a plastic window.

Inside is a vacuformed holding tray.

The plastic used on these trains is very nice and bright. James has a nicely-made face and an effective use of plastic color, paint, and stickers.

Like other characters, James continued to be produced into 1997.

1347 Gordon the Big Express Engine (1995)

In 1995 the two large tender engines Gordon and Henry were released for the range. Gordon looks very large and long and has a nice face.

This version of the chassis has a spring-return articulated front bogie, something that Tomy has not implemented on... any other of their train toys that I can think of.

1348 Henry the Green Engine (1995)

Henry uses the same long chassis as Gordon and also has a nice big cheery face.

The big engines really do look quite nice with the smaller ones... I quite like the whole range. Some photos of some of the trains in use can be seen on this page.