fall inside a hole

Bandai Thomas Town 4

First written December 24, 2024

The 4th series of Bandai's Thomas Town series was released in 2000 and focused on the feature-length Thomas the Tank Engine movie Thomas and the Magic Railroad.

(1) Friendly Lady Set

The Friendly Lady Set includes a stickered shed that fits onto a base section with a racked ramp that can open the doors when it is slid forward and tip an engine out and forward onto the rail.

The Lady from this set. The stickers on these releases reference The Magic Railroad Company Limited, who handled licensing merchandise related to the Thomas and the Magic Railroad movie.

(2) Friendly Splatter Set

Splatter with what I suppose is supposed to be Shining Time Station, with opening doors and a tunnel and branching section on the same piece.

Thomas Town Splatter with Magic Railroad Company marks.

Dodge with a coal hopper as well as a set of buffers which are supposed to be the "magic" ones, I think. This is a neat and funny accessory that replicates a scene in the movie where Diesel 10 agitates a coal hopper and gets col dumped all over him. I think the water tower had a sticker originally - actually, I'm pretty sure I found one in my collection of Thomas Town pieces after taking these photos - next time I get this stuff out to photograph more of it I will have to set this section back up. The same track layouts from early series were rereleased with different characters later on in Thomas Town's life, and I also have some of the pieces from one of those releases.

Thomas Town 4 Dodge.

(4) Friendly Diesel 10 Set

Diesel 10's set with the start of the viaduct section as well as a windmill with gears that can be used to spin it around.

The Thomas Town Diesel 10 with poseable Pinchy - I have a few of these, and between all of them I only have 2/3rds of a complete Pinchy... There is a variation where Diesel has a little bit of extra red paint to the sides of his couplings that dates to the Magic Railroad Company Limited era.

(5) Friendly Thomas Set

Thomas' section includes the viaduct, a sloped curve, and a signal (missing the arm here).