Anyone who has seen the range of wind-up "Thomas & Friends" toys produced by Tomy for the Japanese market will have seen several figures are made to match the engines. Of these, the one I am drawn to is Sir Topham Hatt, also known as the Fat Controller.

As you can see, he is a tad bright and glossy, but some work here and there does wonders. One thing to be addressed is the solid base he is cast on. Simply removing it improves the figure quite well, and as such makes for a nice addition to a layout.

Shown here with a standard 4mm scale figure, he fits right in. The car he is supplied with, however, does not. I'll be using either a Oxford Diecast or Pocketbond Classix model as his car, but I suppose this could pass on a layout, as long as it is carefully placed. Not shown is the carrier wagon that came with my example, but this is set for a conversion into a generic OO9 wagon.

To cap it up, quite a nice figure and worth getting, especially as it's the closest you'll ever get to a ready made HO/OO figure of the main man on Sodor.

Jack

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