Thomas, we love you!

Thomas is everywhere! When Josh was little we had to go to the hobby shops just to give him his engine fix. He was not to be found in department stores or even Toys r us except for the pricey wooden ones. Josh had an evergrowing collection of these colourful trains. He was 3, and he could tell you the name and number of the train. By the time he was 4 he could tell you what type of engine each of the trains were... he played with those trains for so long!! Josh would line up his trains one after the other, along with some of his other toy trains. Big, little, he just put them all in a row... across the whole floor. He was very particular about them too. He would get lost in the videos... episode after episode of this lame, I mean loveable engine. Josh was ahead of the times, because it was years before Thomas became a staple in toystores. We still have that collection of trains, with the exception of his first Ben which was lost at Bayfront Park's Aquafest. (a new Ben was a must, his twin engine Bill would not have gotten along without him) Trains bought by Grandma and Grandpa, Auntie Carrie, Mommy, Grandma Mary and Grandpa Jeff and of course, Pops... he bought anything he could find that had Thomas on it!!
When Josh outgrew Thomas, I was sad but put them into the closet in their case... not to far out of sight because they would have an occasional resurgance. There was a huge chunk of childhood in that case!!
Along came Aidan and to our delight he would love Thomas too. Not nearly as much as Joshua did but he got a great deal of play out of those trains too. He especially liked to have Daddy play on the tracks with him. I remember Mike saying that we should only give Aidan a few of these trains at a time... so he would appreciate them more. This collection was years in the making for Josh but was all readily available to Aidan. So that is what we did. New magnetic trains came out and Aidan was lucky to get a bunch of them to add to the "vintage collection". They were shiny and bright, with new characters from the show. Aidan was happy to play just as much with the ones who had paint chipped away, or the coupling broken. He knew these familiar trains from our old videos. But Aidan was really excited to go to Toys r us or the Sherwood library to see the train table and he would have to be dragged away kicking and screaming.
It has been awhile since I have seen the train case out in the open. Of course, we have kept it on hand... with the hopes that Colin finds them as fun and magical as his brothers did. The show is still running new episodes. Toys, bedding, clothing, movies, books, toy bins are all over the shelves these days. Chances are it will still be a hit when Colin is a toddler. I cannot imagine little boyhood without Thomas, Percy, Edward or any of the gang!