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Well, my prayers have been finally answered (sorta:-)
I had gotten into the habit of firing off an email to Brad Justus every 6 months
or so when he was still heading up LEGO Direct begging for TLG to get a license
for producing Thomas the Tank Engine. He was always good about writing back and
thanking me for the reminder! About six years later, he (Thomas, not Brad:-)
arrived at my door step.
Okay, so he’s Duplo, but that didn’t tarnish my excitement in the least. The
bright side is that he’s 8 wide! :-)
(Skip boring blah, blah to pics
HERE
Well, the way I saw it, I was faced with 4 options:
- Literally cut off Thomas’ and the others’ faces and glue them to my current MOC cast. That way they would all be, at least, ALL LEGO. (I can hear RobH cheering for that option in the background already!)
- Take just the face element and recreate my MOC Thomas characters in 8 wide.
- Remove the 9 volt track from the TCLTC Thomas section and lay Duplo track, and power the trains via batteries somehow.
- Remove the Duplo wheels and replace them with 9 volt ones.
I finally chose the last option. No cutting (sorry, Rob!;-), simple
modifications, giving the GP virtually a product out of the box to see and,
hopefully, to purchase. Now, if TLG has the wisdom to release 9 volt versions,
I’ll be all over those in a heartbeat!
Some final notes:
I did actually rebuild my Annie and Claribel, since TLG mysteriously decided to
omit them in this initial offering. I had to make them squat and cute like the
others; I think that they turned out okay.
Also, I actually split a troublesome truck that came with the Thomas set (the
only freight car among the initial 4 sets) into 2 separate cars-- I thought
that they looked more appropriate that way. I filled them with 1x1 light gray
and gray plates; I will be using 8x8 bricks to seal the plates in the cars for
traveling and storage.
All in all I’m happy that there are finally official LEGO Thomas characters!
They aren’t how I would have designed them, especially if some 9 volt versions
aren’t in the pike, but I will take them nonetheless. It is my ardent wish that
these sets sell like mad!
JOHN
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Message has 7 Replies:
 | | Re: 8 Wide LEGO Thomas! (pics)
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| (...) Works for me. I actually thought about doing that when I saw them in the prerelease photos! But now that you have one in your hand, how does the size of the face compare to, say, a 4x4 radar dish? Rob (20 years ago, 6-May-05, to lugnet.trains, lugnet.duplo)
| | | Re: 8 Wide LEGO Thomas! (pics)
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| (...) SWEET! I have been thinking about doing something very similiar since I first saw the preview pictures. John, you might get me to go 8-wide after all. ;-) Russell BayLTC/BayLUG (20 years ago, 6-May-05, to lugnet.trains, lugnet.duplo, FTX)
| | | Re: 8 Wide LEGO Thomas! (pics)
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| Hello John, Very nice. Two questions: 1) Where can I get a Duplo Thomas engine? - I'm not seeing them listed on S@H anywhere. 2) What color blue did LEGO use for the engine? Thanks, Ben Fleskes Big Ben Bricks LLC (...) <snip> (...) (20 years ago, 9-May-05, to lugnet.trains, lugnet.duplo, FTX)
| | | Re: 8 Wide LEGO Thomas! (pics)
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| In lugnet.announce.moc, John Neal wrote: One of the perils of fatherhood for which I was not prepared is the disturbing fact that the Thomas themesong stays in my brain for three or four days after I watch the show. I can only catch it with Matthew (...) (20 years ago, 10-May-05, to lugnet.trains, lugnet.duplo, FTX)
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