Will 'Thomas the Tank Engine' be sold?

HIT Entertainment, the current company who licence 'Thomas the Tank Engine' events at heritage railways, may be sold off by their parent company Apex, say reports in the financial pages today.

HIT have been criticised in recent years for their stringient requirements for 'Thomas' events, leading to a number of heritage lines dropping 'Thomas' and developing their own alternatives. Be interesting to see if any new owner drops some of the most criticised conditions!

John Webb

 

Does anyone else think that real locomotives with grey plastic faces stuck on them look a bit creepy? I'm sure Thomas has done a lot to recruit new rail enthusiasts, so I'm not knocking the idea, but even when I was little, the sort of question I would have asked would have been 'Daddy, why do those trains have faces on?'

 

"Because they're going to eat you, child... bwa-ha-ha-ha...." :fear:

 

Good news if true, but sadly it doesnt mean its going to be bought by anyone more sympathetic to heritage rail. You would think they would be more encouraging of people advertisting the product wouldnt you?

 

At one time Thomas was an golden egg now after pricing themselves out of the market the owners are trying to sell off the merchandise rights who ever buys it will Probally make the same mistakes as H.I.T ITS CALLED GREED

 

True, THOMAS LOVES CHILDREN , preferably roasted in his firebox first though

 

The HIT business model is a safe one, to maximise revenue by selling the rights to operate on top of pocketing the royalties on books, models and other merchandise sold in the railway shop.

But I wonder how many sales opportunities they have let slip because railways decided on an alternative theme to bring in the kids.

Risk management or short-sightedness?

 

But have the alternative events put on by railways who refused to accept HIT conditions been successful and have they abstracted sales, d'you think?

 

It doesn't matter, in any analysis from HIT's point of view, whether the alternatives were successful or not, it matters that they may have missed dozens of opportunities to place their merchandise in front of kids accompanied by purses a.k.a. parents, in a context where an intense experience was to be had involving Thomas or Friends. And all they needed to do to avoid this was to take more moderate licensing fees.

 

How much of a license fee do HIT charge?

and how much would you consider is enough, in comparison?

 

Like it or not, HIT have an obligation to protect their brand.

By tightening up their licensing agreements so that every preserved siding can't devalue their product by sticking a cardboard face on an industrial shunter and call it a "Thomas" day, that's fair enough in my book.

Sometimes I think we forget that it's HIT and their predecessors doing steam railways the favour and not the other way round.

HIT are keeping steam trains at the forefront of the mind of pre-schoolers through continued global promotion of the Thomas brand. If the Awdry family still had the rights to the books the stories would be much better - but there would be a fraction of the following.

 

I don't deny HIT should require some standards for licensing out 'Thomas', but some of their requirements were, in my and many other's opinions, well over the top. Examples include demanding CRB checks on all staff, including those 'behind the scenes' such as signallers, whether or not they had contact with the public, and compelling railways to only use 'Directors' who had been on HIT courses. Both these requirements had associated costs which have to be paid for, of course!

 

Giving the volunteer fat controller/director some guidance is no bad thing - he's a key part of the product. The courses were not expensive, and the guy who plays the character at the railway I volunteer on got a lot out of it.

The CRB checks were a justifiable reaction to the paedophile (ex)volunteer at the Mid-Hants Thomas event, well documented a few years back.

 

The CRB checks on all was an over-reaction by HIT and unenforceable as they are technically illegal. I don't believe any railway that refused to do them (and there were some) was denied a licence but happy to be told I'm wrong.

 

Yes, sorry. I phrased my last post badly. I should have said the CRB checks were an understandable reaction to the Mid-Hants incident, if not entirely justifiable.

 

what is a licence charge for this ...friends