Take Along Thomas & Friends - Thomas

Product Information

Thomas' Favourite Friends ( includes; Winston, Captain, Victor, Percy, Butch, Bertie, Diesel, Harold, Thomas and Kevin) Includes snow covered Percy, Magic Cargo Car with three different holiday cargo, and car with scented candy cane cargo. Target exclusive assortment. Includes: Sir Handel and Fearless Freddie, Rheneas and Culdee, Mighty Mac and Dennis, Billy and Whiff, or Toby and Percy.

The talking feature was not included on European versions of the set, likely due to the lines only being recorded in English. The range originally launched as a Target exclusive from 2002 until 2005, after which the range started being sold to other retailers. It essentially served as a successor to Ertl Company's 1:64 Scale Die-cast range. In late 2009, the range was discontinued and sold to Mattel, who launched a revamped version of the merchandise under their subsidiary, Fisher-Price. It was renamed Take-n-Play, which would begin distribution in 2010. The Take Along toys are still compatible with the new Take-n-Play range. This range originally launched as a Target Exclusive from 2002 until 2005, after which the range began being sold in other retailers. Mavis' prototype had red sideplates and white wheels. She also had a second face overlapping another one. Rosie is painted in her original lavender livery instead of her current red one from the twenty-first series onwards.

This is the first toy range in the US to feature one twin character without the other, featuring Dash without Bash and Bill without Ben. The character card for Thomas uses one of his promotional images from Thomas and the Magic Railroad. Gordon, Spencer, Emily, Murdoch, Freddie, D199, Hiro and Mike had incorrect wheel arrangements due to sizing constraints.

Christmas versions of Henry and Gordon were planned to be released but were cancelled. They would have featured Santa hats on their smokeboxes much like Thomas and Percy. The Magic Cargo Car/Mining Cargo Cars's character cards features the included items edited onto Salty's chassis with the buffer beam recoloured from yellow to red. Three characters exclusive to the Railway Series were produced: D199, Culdee and Mike. The latter was a Railway Series exclusive at the time of the range's release.Target exclusive. Includes Holiday Toby, Snowglobe Car and Caboose from 76153, and peppermint car from 76156. Adventures models for Iron Bert, Rajiv and Rebecca were planned to be released in late December, but were cancelled. Hiro was the final character and the only character from the CGI Series released in the Take Along line. He was also the only character from the CGI series to have a character card. Mike's US character card mentions that he works with Rex and Bert, while his UK card just says he works on a narrow gauge railway, although he is minimum gauge. Includes Holiday Thomas and Holiday Caboose, which is a Musical Caboose with the electronics removed.

The Australian metallic engines were released with unique character cards (the image either had Thomas along with the engine included, or an image of the shiny engine included edited onto a set from the show), and the box had a strip on the right side the same colour as the engine(s) included. Characters that were already released in Collectable Railway that were Ben, Bash , Iron Bert, Mike& Hector were never released in Adventures.

Target exclusive. Includes carnival Toby, Lion Car, Monkey Car, and Poppin' Popcorn Car, all with exclusive deco. Some of the tender engine's prototypes are depicted with Fowler tenders, when the actual model has the correct tender body. This excludes Henry. This makes the thirteenth series the only CGI series to feature merchandise from the Take Along range.

D199 and Daisy were released in the smaller UK box in said country, but were released in the larger style US box in said country. Daisy was also released in the larger style UK box, however it is unknown which version was released first. Target exclusive. Includes chocolate covered Thomas, Ice Cream Tanker, and car with chocolate barrel cargo. In 2009, TAKARA TOMY released its own Take Along range exclusively in Japan without the Take Along name. It included uniquely coloured boxes and character cards with different images to that of the rest of the world. This range had its own exclusive Thomas variations: a Blue Plated Thomas (which is almost identical to the metallic Thomas except for the wheel colour remaining unchanged from the normal model) and a Gold Plated Thomas. It was also the only piece of Take Along merchandise to be based on anything from the twelfth series, as no new characters from that series were produced. Despite this, merchandise was produced for Hero of the Rails and the thirteenth series.Theo is missing his name plate and he has no front coupling hook. This is because his face is too low to accommodate one. Target exclusive. Includes Thomas and Toby with decorations, Sir Topham Hatt's Car, and Fireworks Car. The Gold Plated Thomas was only available via a competition held on August 18th 2009. Only 333 are known to exist. To win, contestants had to send in a barcode and wait to be drawn.