The Railway Series and Thomas & Friends merchandise: History and Key Facts

Whilst merchandise for The Railway Series books by Wilbert Awdry was produced alongside the books, since the original broadcast of its television adaptation Thomas & Friends in 1984 in the United Kingdom, much more merchandise was produced for the television series. Large numbers of manufacturers have sought to produce items based on the Thomas & Friends franchise after the original television series was broadcast in the United States and Japan.

The most popular and wide-ranging merchandise are models of the characters, some including accompanying railway systems. Other popular products include videos, books and magazines, computer and video games, audiobooks, annuals, colouring and activity books, jigsaw puzzles, board games, stationery, clothing, cutlery, household items such as curtains, duvet covers and lampshades and soft drinks.

Thomas & Friends ranked number one in the preschool toys category in the U.S. and made the top 10 for the entire U.S. toy industry in 2010. In January 2011, Thomas & Friends ranked as the number-one preschool toy property in the U.K. for the 11th year in a row. Thomas is also a top-selling toy property in Australia, Germany, Japan and Korea. While the total traditional toy industry in the United States increased 1.9 per cent in 2010, overall Thomas & Friends toy sales increased over 47.1 per cent.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from The Railway Series and Thomas & Friends merchandise by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.