New wooden engines question

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Is this how they are releasing the new wooden engines?
Where will they cut next?  Confused  Not a fan of this design. Hopefully it's temporary.

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If it's Fisher-Price producing these knowing their practices these will only be temporary until they can find an even more efficient way to produce them at a cheaper cost. Watch out for compressed sawdust versions next!! Big Grin
Happily collecting things all my life... Big Grin
It is temporary. You're going to see no exposed wood next year.
they probably replace woods with some form of plastic
Yep, first time I out right (but lovingly) refused to buy a Thomas toy for my son! This was a major downgrade from the previous Wooden Railway line and worst still is that they redesigned the track to use proprietary connections, making them incompatible with other wooden rail sets and the earlier Thomas line.

An interesting little aside.... The Minnesota Childrens Museum has a traveling Thomas exhibit that has made it our “local” Children’s Museum twice in the past two years. It gets major support from Mattel, of course, and features a large Wooden Railway layout for the kids to play with. There was not a single piece of the “new and improved” wooden line on this year’s layout! I was surprised since pieces constantly get broken, lost and stolen or simply wear out from constant use. Yet, Mattel had continued to supply the older stuff.

Another observation is that, since the demise of Toys R Us here in the US, none of the other Big Box retailers seem to support the line. I suspect the high price point and lack of display space account for much of this and it may be different in other parts of the country. Still, as far as I can tell, it’s pretty much a dead toy line right now.
Off the rails, thanks for the details. I was not aware that the tracks weren't compatible with older generation/3rd party tracks. I am already not a fan of the weak magnets on these or the way they went from magnet to plastic on "Take N Play or Adventures or whatever it is they call them now" sets. Those bidirectional magnets were perfect for little kids who didn't care which way engines are facing.
Price point is a huge downside of these wooden engines. At $25/engine, parents can't really afford a whole set. Well maybe these exposed wood ones will last slightly longer since corners won't peel so easily. They won't look worn out as quickly as the fully painted ones?
The Thomas Wood line is a disaster, even after the issue with the paint was resolved. It's pretty evident that the main purpose was to further lessen the already small costs (as per usual for Mattel and their Thomas products). The track was supposedly made specifically to be incompatible with other brands to get parents buying more Thomas branded track, and those track adapters are probably going to vanish at some point (Look at Tomy>TM1>TM2).
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