The 'Super Station-ification' Of Trackmaster 

You can really see throughout the promo stuff that Mattel and other companies progressively worked towards younger audiences, to the point where that last kid looked like he was holding himself back from just putting Harold in his mouth

Love the quips in the [as] themed bumps. Hate to see the toy equivalent of key jingling being put onto these current young Thomas fans. I loved the take along toys, the earliest memory I had of em was taking the tidmouth sheds set with Bill and Ben to a restaurant. Fun times.

The tomy and old trackmaster sets are so simple yet so comforting and wonderful: that's the magic of them.

That Bulgy and Thomas set takes me back to Christmas Day of 2000. No ramps to jump, no roller coaster loops, and no cheap gimmicks, and it was still my favourite gift.

Sometimes RU-vid recommendations shows you a subculture you didn’t know existed and it’s always pretty neat to see all the different things people are passionate about.

Cranky's face just speaks for itself, he already saw enough

we've gone from railways to roller coasters, its so gimmicky and gross I HATE IT

Honestly I think one of the biggest problems about the 'Super Station-ification' of trackmaster is trying to figure out where the hell you're supposed to store all of it if you bought so much of it.

If I'm being honest, the trains and cranes super tower could have been better if they picked LITERALLY Any other engine than Thomas. Like seriously how many Thomas's are we owning right now?

9 min of my life spent on a dude talking bout trains 👍

There was a sense of creation and connection with all the older Thomas toy ranges that Mattel can't seem to replicate. I firmly believe that one of the reasons people still create content using these toys because the engines and buildings look the part to their real counterparts. As a kid, when a Thomas range captured the energy and look of the real Island of Sodor, it was as close as someone that age could get to owning the real gauge 1 props. That faith in them pushed me and so many others to try and match the story telling and visual appeal of the show, and it clearly molded us into the community we are today.

I remember as a kid, maybe favourite TOMY set was the one that came with docks piece with Cranky. I didn't have many double track pieces, so this piece was always super important to my own custom layouts. I liked having the engine on one track and a consist on the other, the shed provided a place for them to go at the end of the day and of course you had Cranky there for like little character interactions when playing. It was so much fun and it's just sad that the simplicity of trains simply isn't enough to Mattel.

Yeah I feel they've become set pieces rather than a system, the same thing happened with the matchbox playsets. I got the original Tomy Train Thomas set for christmas :D I had the same one when I was like 3 or 4

It's a thing that has also affected tons of the vehicles in not just Trackmaster but in Wooden Railway too. Anyone remember Wooden Railway Reviews' video on the "Aquarium Cars"?

For my fifth birthday my dad got me an a Athearn engine, 5 freight cars and a caboose, some atlas track and a transformer. I still have all of it and It all still works. The layout is much bigger now but it is still one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever got

I think bigger sets like action canyon work as one-offs, and even then it just looks like a normal mountain when you think about it. I think it’s when Mattel made every set this way that it started to lose all the great things about Trackmaster (and the cheap 2014 engines didn’t help)

You really hit the nail on the head with this one, perfect describing the issue with tm2 that I could never properly articulate. It is a shame how Trackmaster fell off due to competition with ipads. I'm glad I was one of the last to not have internet access immediately out the womb

I never had a gimmick set, all my tracks and set peices could function with 5 or 6 carriage long engines and thats how I liked it

I will say the Super Station did have the right idea of making a unified track system that everything could run on, despite the fact that the ranges the track was designed for were never meant to work together. I just wished as a Die-cast collector they stuck with that over squash & stretching the at the time adventures range to fit the regular Trackmaster track thus creating the Push Along range.

Track master always has been a hit or miss. I'm glad I didn't follow on after 2013 but I'm horribly pissed that I got rid of my two plastic totes full of playrail/trackmaster toys (all probably thrown away and trashed today 🙃)