Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends - Time to say "Goodbye"?

Recently I was talking to the mother of a young child and the subject of "Thomas" came up. She was astounded to learn that tourist railways had to pay substantial sums to the licencees in order to hold "Thomas" events. In her view the licencees ought to be paying the railways for promoting their product!

I am aware of a railway which decided to replace their Thomas event with a "home grown" one aimed at the same market. After a couple of years development it now produces more business than Thomas did. Needless to say, the bottom line is better too.

Is this a solitary experience, or are there others? I must say I feel this is the way to go, although the licencees might be prevailed to moderate their demands on the basis that "if you don't we will devise our own event; others do so successfully."

Paul H

 

Certainly not the only experience. I know of several railways who have considered or have gotten rid of their Thomas events. Some railways of course have a "home" Thomas which reduces prices, and with some railways nit doing it demand increases for those that do.

 

Maybe it depends on if a Tommy Tanker has to be hired in or if the railway owns one?
The balance sheet decides if it is viable or not, but care need to be taken on alternatives should they contravene licencing/copywrite/whatever.

 

No it isn't the only experience. On the Gwili we ran Thomas for 15 years and latterly twice a year. The issues for us were a numerous and one of the main items to hit the bottom line was the car parking, as we either had to bus passengers in or hire a field, neither of which were cheap. In the end the amount of set up and take down for reduced profit led us to withdrawing, around the same time as several other lines. We focus more on on train dining and cream teas and well as an enhanced Santa event. One of the things missed most about Thomas is the number of potential new volunteers of tomorrow inspired by the event- hard to quantify.

Regards

Matt

 

In the instance I know of, the replacement event has been granted copyright itself. No need to bring in outside motive power.

The point is that no only does the event have lesser overheads than "Thomas" but is becoming a bigger draw, with return visits.

Paul H

 

I'm skeptical about this. Sure, Thomas might increase interest in railways in under 7s say, but by the time they're old enough to volunteer they'll be well past Thomas and it may even put some off, Thomas hardly improves the image of railway enthusiasts in the over 7s. A better way to encourage young volunteers is to do as much as possible to allow them to do as much as possible as young as possible. In addition, encourage families to visit not just on thomas days, but maybe during a half, or even a normal running day.

I'm not convinced running special events aimed at children increases young volunteering, although I'd be interested to hear more about the event Paul is talking about - which railway is it Paul?

 

I think you will have a pretty good idea that it is the IOWSR! The three day event is called The Railway Folk and whilst I think I had better keep the figures which have been sent to volunteers etc. to myself, they are very good. Although the prime reason for the event is to produce revenue (rather important for any line} it is fun to be around.

This isn't always the case with "Thomas" as far as adults are concerned. I remember visiting one railway where the Fat Controller was played by someone who adopted something of the style of Michael Barrymore! It was a railway which is a bit "loudspeaker happy" and there was no-where to get away from that hectoring voice, even the museum or the men's lavatory. (NOTE: Subject for another thread "Why can some railways manage with very few loudspeaker announcements whilst others bombard you with them?")

Paul H

 

IOWSR really, who would have guessed, with you!? I'll take a look.

I agree the volunteers and how it's run can make or break a Thomas event.

 

I agree - the average 16yo potential volunteer is hardly likely to be attracted by engines that have faces and talk. Very uncool - and only likely to lead to ridicule from his mates.

Thomas only re-inforces the puffer-nutter stereotyping.

 

I think its down to individuals rather than railways - at any event (railway or otherwise), give someone a microphone and they can't stop using it.

 

the last point made here is indeed worthy of a thread. I find it really jars when a railway makes announcements in the modern style as if you're on a 455 headed for Waterloo. In fact I think all announcements of this type are non-prototypical and should be binned.

 

The point I was making is that a Thomas type event will provide the first introduction to the railway of 5-7 year olds, in a suitable environment. Impressions are formed at a young age and this may lead to a continued interest culminating in a desire to volunteer when they are older. I agree that 16 year olds are likely to find Thomas uncool but you could probably extend this argument to the whole concept of volunteering on a railway as compared to playing sport or gaming for example.

Regards

Matt

 

The trouble is for many people it's teir first time on a railway and theyvteally don't know what's going on. Also handy for short stations directing folk to front to carriages or whatever.

We do occasionally have a town crier to do it for us though, that traditional enough?

 

What the IOWSR really needs is a new build steam loco. Because it's nice to have I know PH will fund it(!)
I give you: the (extinct) LBSCR E2 0-6-0T. None of this Jinty or Austerity nonsense-this is the real (Thomas) thing. You get a choice of liveries too (LBSC, SR and BR).

Poor humour aside for a moment, I am rather surprised that, amongst all the new build projects proposed and being built or not, no one has yet launched a scheme (at least not to my knowledge) to build one of these little tank locos, of which 10 were built. I wonder.....perhaps I should start one. Could be a money spinner Rodney.

Regarding the comment by michaelh about "microphone happy" people, if you want to be annoyed by a Frenchman with a mic drowning out the sound of around 40 high performance piston engine WWII fighter aircraft, go to Flying Legends at Duxford, or maybe not.

 

An interesting thought and the licensing fees are certainly too high if one considers the true costs of staging the event by charging volunteer time at commercial rates which logically would be the business model for negotiation with an aggressively commercial rights owner.

Unfortunately there are still railways where Thomas represents very high percentages of total takings and without the events they would rapidly fail. One local to me, which now hires in the famous loco, reported 5203 visitors in 2 days earlier this month with one of these the busiest day in over 10 years. Whilst I'm sure we can all see the risks of an over reliance on Thomas and a need to diversify the sources of visitors it seems Thomas still works for some.

Sadly there is no guarantee of success in a crowded heritage sector but by sharing experiences and ideas and working jointly to promote good value days out (as perceived by the customers) the chances of survival improve. The challenge surely is to work together on exchanging ideas and formats which can be used effectively to target and grow the various market sectors on which heritage railways rely. We might for example consider how other heritage related events such as traction engine rallies have evolved to attract both the family market and new owners and volunteers as the original participants have aged and passed on.

We might also learn from how the Thomas licensing restrictions protect the product through rigorous quality controls. The lack of such quality controls across the sector may mean that a poor customer experience at one railway leads to visitors avoiding all others something we presumably all wish to avoid.

 

He was the best advert going for viewing the show from the "naughty field" and thus out of range of his nonsensical blathering. Mind you, there's one guy who sometimes commentates at Old Warden who could do with switching off his mic.

 

A couple of things have come up.

Firstly replicas. Entirely a matter for the line concerned and is likely to have a more practical use than a goodly number 0f "newbuilds". However the need to factor in the cost of either maintaining or hiring in a "lookalike" only makes the economics of "Thomas" more difficult. I gather that one of the stories features an Ivatt 2-6-2T. The IOWSR has one (shortly to be two) of these in service so it would seem unlikely for them to be interested, even if they were still doing "Thomas" trains.

Secondly, loudspeakers. Some lines are addicted but not all. Havenstreet has a set but I have only heard them used once, when the passengers were rescued from a failed electric train and someone wished to inform them that taxis awaited in the car park to take them into Ryde. The individual had to think hard where the microphone was! Provided destination boards, timetable signs and, above all, platform staff who talk to visitors are present, then loudspeakers are only needed very occasionally.

Thirdly, standards. The licensees are perfectly entitled to maintain the integrity of their brand but this is as far as it goes. For standards across the whole field of the passenger experience railways would do better to avail themselves of the services of organisations like Visit England.

PH

 

Hi there,
I am researching the pros and cons of painting a suitable side tank as Thomas. Can anyone help with licence cost info, or indeed any advice?
Cheers
Del T

 

Yes. Don't bother.

 

The Rights to Thomas and friends is owned by Hit entertainment

I was involved for a couple of years with the Thomas and Friends big Day out arena show which I toured a couple of times round the UK and Japan
and the hoops we had to jump through to satisfy Hit where horrific. the promoters of the show not only had to buy the license for the show,then hand over a large % of the gross profit, but Hit also limited the merchandise that could be sold but again took a large % of those profits. Over the years the owners of the show have tried repeatedly to take the show back on the road but without success, the last time they tried Hit wanted the faces of the engines to be projected on video screens mounted on the front of the engines, technically possible but hellishly expensive. As the original build of the show cost in excess of £1,ooo,ooo the owners decided not to throw good money after bad, so the show now sits in several sea containers in a yard in southern england.

So back to your tank engine first you will have to buy a licence from Hit not cheap, the Paint you use to cover your engine is not just any old blue, it has to be mixed to a Pantone number which matches the colour you see on the TV again not cheap you have to hire fiberglass face from Hit no using a bit of painted ply wood , and Finally you can only hire your engine to Licenced Tomas events. and one last thing, there are a couple of other licenced Thomases out there so you will be competing for work in an ever shrinking market.
so my advice would be stay well away from Hit.
If anybody is interested hers a link to a poor quality recording of part of the arena tour


Colin