Wooden toy train
"Thomas the Tank Engine" is a character created by the Rev. W. Awdry in "The Railway Series" of children's books, first published in the U.K. in 1945. In 1984 a television series called "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" was made, adding to the popularity of the characters. It was first broadcast in the United States in 1989. John W. Lee founded the company "Learning Curve Toys" in November 1992 with a wooden railway system called "Thomas & Friends" based on the Thomas the Tank Engine characters. This made the wooden toy trains even more popular than before. Learning Curve introduced some new designs for the track surface, such as the "Clickety Clack" rails patented 1995 and the newer tracks in 2002 with a relief to supply better traction grip for battery powered four wheel drive trains patented in 1998.
Thomas &amp; Friends (franchise)
With the popularity of the "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" TV series among children, Thomas-based merchandise has proven very lucrative. At least 5 different categories of trains and tracks exist: "Take Along Thomas" with grey tracks; Trackmaster battery-operated engines with brown tracks (previously Tomy with blue track); Brio-type wooden engines with wooden rails and roads (by ELC and others); electric model railway (produced in OO gauge by Hornby and Bachmann, N gauge by Tomix, O gauge by Lionel, and (from 2010) G-scale from Bachmann); and Lego engines and tracks. Merit Toys also produced some larger scale battery-powered engines with carriages and wagons in the 1980s, which ran on red tracks. Complementary videos, DVDs, books, games, puzzles, stationery, clothing and household items have also been produced.