Wooden Railway

**Wooden Railway** was a Thomas & Friends merchandise range that consisted of wooden model trains, tracks, and accessories. It was a railway system created in 1993 by Learning Curve, who held the rights until 2011. The range was then acquired by TOMY in 2012. From 2013, the Wooden Railway range was first produced by Fisher-Price, and then by Mattel, when Mattel bought Fisher-Price. The Wooden Railway range was replaced with Wood in 2017.

Wooden Railway worked alongside BRIO and other wooden train brands due to using a nearly-identical track system. However, its successor, Wood, has a different track connecting system, thus ending compatibility with other brands, though adapters for the older Wooden Railway track pieces have been made and released.

## Product History, Design and Make

The Wooden Railway merchandise line for the Thomas & Friends franchise was created by Roy Wilsonof Learning Curve in 1992, with the line becoming publicly available in 1993. These original models were primarily constructed with painted wood, along with metal used in the coupling magnets and axles and plastic for the wheels and faces. These models were relatively simple, with simple wooden stubs for the funnel and dome, while details such as windows, whistles and buffer beams were omitted.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the line was overhauled and the majority of the models underwent major redesigns. The wooden funnel and smokebox were replaced with a separate plastic smokebox with a more realistic funnel. The tender engines received an additional upgrade, with a moulded plastic coal pile for their tenders.

These improved designs were manufactured until 2002, when they were replaced with a third generation of design, which included new and more detailed faces. 2011 saw another slight re-design in the form of new faces to coincide with the recent CGI Series switchover.

In late 2011, TOMY bought out Learning Curve and as such acquired the rights to the Wooden Railway line. They sold the products previously planned to be released by Learning Curve for early 2012. The products due to be released in late 2012 coinciding with the special Blue Mountain Mystery were cancelled because Learning Curve had only developed the computer generated prototypes, before they were acquired by TOMY. Most of these cancelled releases with the new CGI style models were re-constructed by TOMY and sold under their name and a few others were later released by Fisher-Price. TOMY held the licensing until the end of 2012.

In 2013, Fisher-Price began manufacturing and distributing the Wooden Railway merchandise line and this change introduced another re-design. This upgrade was used for all of the Wooden Railway merchandise line until late 2017. All the engines, rolling stock and vehicles were re-constructed with more paint detailing, current CGI styled faces as well as curved edges to prevent edge-wear and wood-break. All models with multiple bogies had their chassis made of plastic and other slight plastic incorporations were utilised to cut down production costs. The Wooden Railway merchandise range became one of Thomas & Friends' longest-running and most popular merchandise lines.

In late 2016, some engines received smaller faces that no longer cover the whole smokebox front and others' faces were changed.

In late 2017, twenty-five years after the debut of the Wooden Railway line, it was retired and replaced with Wood. The replacement was originally announced to take place in 2018, but ended up happening sooner.