City News

Drayton Manor Theme Park is set to host a world record attempt to create the world’s longest train set.

The record-breaking TOMY Thomas Track Master train set will be unveiled on Thursday 28th August, at the park’s Thomas Land attraction, which is based upon the popular Thomas the Tank Engine books and television show.

The record attempt will involve a 1,800 metre long toy train track containing 10,530 pieces from the new TOMY’s Thomas Track Master train sets and could surround the football pitch at Wembley Stadium more than five times *.  If it were a full-scale track it would measure 89 miles long, the same distance as the M40 motorway**!

TOMY Track Master Engines travel at an average speed of 1/2 mile per hour. It will take Thomas the Tank Engine 2 1/2 hours to run from the start to the finish line of the Guinness World Records™ attempt.

The building of the track will start on Tuesday 26th August ready for completion on the Thursday morning.

Young fans visiting Drayton Manor will be invited by the Fat Controller to take part in the record building attempt by adding pieces to complete the track.

Fun Facts About The TOMY Thomas Track Master Guinness World Records™ Attempt:

• To fit in the entire track onsite TOMY commissioned 1,700 customised supports to enable the TOMY Thomas Track Master track to travel up and around itself in spirals five tiers high. There are 48 spirals in total, which are each 3 metres long by 0.6 metre wide. Interspersed between these are popular Thomas destinations from the island of Sodor.    
• The 1,800 metre long TOMY Thomas Track Master train set has been built by the Royal British Legion Industries and took a team of six people over one week to set up and connect all 10,530 pieces together.
• The TOMY Thomas Track Master world record is attempted by TOMY, HIT Entertainment and Drayton Manor Theme Park. It was built to break the current Guinness World Records™ for the longest toy train which is 1,650.14 m***. The new record has been submitted to Guinness World Records™ for official adjudication.   

Robert Mann, CEO, TOMY comments: “Creating the world’s largest train set is a dream of many a Thomas fan, young and old. We wanted to design the most magnificent train track in the world. It will be a challenge to build, but we are confident we can reach our destination and have a fantastic 1.8 km long train set. We will be waiting with great anticipation for Guinness World Records™ to confirm we have broken the world record.”

Colin Bryan, Managing Director at Drayton Manor Theme Park comments: “This is going to be an amazing occasion.  Thomas Land has been a huge attraction to the park and Thomas’ popularity continues to grow each year. We are looking forward to being a part of a World Record attempt with TOMY and HIT Entertainment.”

The TOMY Thomas Track Master train set is based on the popular pre-school property Thomas & Friends. Thomas & Friends is the UK’s number one preschool property (according to NPD 2008), a position it has maintained for the past 8 years and celebrates its 65th Anniversary in 2010.

The New TOMY Thomas Track Master Sets allow you to build exciting rail tracks for Thomas and his friends. It has more destinations and engines, clever action features and accessories such as signs to new areas. It also comes with special adapter tracks so the TOMY Track Master sets can be connected to the blue TOMY Thomas Motor Rail & Road track.