n guage company that made thomas

[Anonymous]

what happened to the company that made thomas the train in n guage?
Looked like a neat little train at the shows
Rich

[M636C]

The N gauge "Thomas the Tank engine" was made by one of the Japanese manufacturers who make everything for Japanese modellers in N. It might have been Kato, Green Max, or any of the others.

The problem is probably that they aren't licenced to sell "Thomas" in the USA. In the USA, Lionel made a large scale Thomas and Bachmann sell an HO scale model. In England Hornby have the rights for an OO scale model. I suspect the N scale models are only licenced for Japan, and a few were brought in by a retailer (I've seen them here in Australia, too).

Bachmann sell their "Thomas" models in England without faces as "scale models" because they can't sell the Thomas models in competition with Hornby. Likewise Bachmann sell the "Hogwarts" train in the USA but Hornby sell (a slightly different version) in England.

This is the wonderful world of licenced spin offs from movies and TV. All the rights are owned by the publisher, and they say who can make or sell their items.

Peter