The end of Thomas and friends from Plarail?

[ROCKINATOR]

Maybe that's what plarail should do...

[NWRMainLineTerminal]

I can't quite understand how FENBO can produce these Thomas liveried models ! Do they need to pay a licence fee to Mattel ?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fenbo-Thomas-A...20f9e4a71c

Mattel owns the entire Thomas franchise now?! What about Christopher Awdry? And what about hit entertainment? Besides, isn't that train livery a real life train livery in Japan?

[Ucwepn]

Christopher Awdry sold it to Britt Allcroft, The Britt Allcroft Company (which changed to Gullane Entertainment in 2001) was bought over by HiT Entertainment in September 2002, a company specialising in children's entertainment.

Now Mattel owns HiT who owns Thomas.

[NWRMainLineTerminal]

Just something new here, um my profile pics gone on my device?!

[Super]

Read about it here NWR http://www.blueplastictracks.com/showthr...78#pid9878

[Ucwepn]

Been doing some more research and I will bold the important part of this statement...

The transaction is expected to be financed with a combination of cash and debt and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012. The transaction is not expected to have a material impact on Mattel’s 2012 earnings, but is expected to be increasingly accretive as the benefits of owning these brands are reflected in Mattel’s results, including the addition of Thomas & Friends® wood business in 2013 and retention of Thomas & Friends® plastic and die-cast business from 2015 onwards.

read the whole article here: http://www.hitentertainment.com/corporat...spx?nid=87

Sick of reading mattel annual reports they are boring lol

[Trainboy90 Productions]

Plarail Thomas is officially discontinued

[thejintymodeller]

Well, There Goes The Best Of The Battery Powered :/ (in my opinion) Its A Shame They'd Do That But Hey, At Least Its Not The End Of Plarail Entirely

[Muddy Poppins]

:::

[plarnold]

Plarail Thomas is officially discontinued

May I ask which 'official' channel this post was based on?

As far as I can see, no 'official' channels have stated explicitly the discontinuation of the series.

I would really like to know if this is true.

-plarnold

[DalaGStanator]

May I ask which 'official' channel this post was based on?

As far as I can see, no 'official' channels have stated explicitly the discontinuation of the series.

I would really like to know if this is true.

-plarnold

He shouldn't have simply written something like that without providing a source. It could cause a lot of rage and disappointment.

[Super]

I don't think there has ever been an official announcement nor, if true, do I ever see one coming business wise. Unless it was Plarails own idea of canceling a product line of their own making a statement that they have lost their rights would not be to their advantage. IMO. Time will tell

[Thomasengineandjames67]

I don't think there has ever been an official announcement nor, if true, do I ever see one coming business wise. Unless it was Plarails own idea of canceling a product line of their own making a statement that they have lost their rights would not be to their advantage. IMO. Time will tell

Super is correct plarail won't be discontinued

[sunhuntin]

if you read the thread, we werent discussing plarail as a whole being cancelled, but the thomas and friends side of things. there was a large gap between new releases, and when they did come they were very slow, leading to fears that tomy/plarail had lost the license.

[Ucwepn]

I still stand by this, we got 1 engine this time and it was Ryan, nothing new has been announced No-one is sadder than me as my whole channel was based on Plarail and Trackmaster Thomas train reviews. If I have nothing to review there can be no channel.