If your children are anything like my three children, at some point in their lives, they will no doubt fall under the spell of a little wooden engine named Thomas. For those parents in the know, Thomas & Friends needs no introduction. Countless expensive wooden train tracks and a painted wooden table designed to replicate the “field” is a staple in the home of any self-respecting child raiser.

For the uninitiated, Thomas the Tank Engine is a grinning blue engine that is endowed with an astonishingly anthropomorphic set of features, including rosy cheeks, a big grin, and (oddly enough) eyebrows. Thomas and his many friends, which include a litany of other tank engines, rail cars and a stationmaster named Sir Topem Hat, spend their days taking part in a variety of adventures. Whether a child follows the Thomas & Friends video productions, or just follows his own imagination, Thomas usually finds himself learning a good lesson or two by the end of the day.

Although the world of Thomas & Friends is generally idyllic, there has recently been a negative side effect of its immense popularity. The fact is that Thomas mainly appeals to very young children. Unfortunately, children that age also tend to put small objects in their mouths on a regular basis. It is for this reason that the recent Thomas & Friends recall was necessary.

In June 2007, the Illinios-based RC2 Corporation recalled 1.5 million units of the popular Thomas & Friends railway toys. These Thomas & Friends toys were allegedly covered in lead paint.

This month, July 2007, RC2 Corporation was hit by a federal class action lawsuit in Chicago on Tuesday seeking an injunction against the sale of its metal toy trains.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction requiring RC2 to “cease the production and distribution of all metal toys” reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission or reported in the media as “possibly contaminated with lead paint.”

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of consumers who purchased the toys or received them as gifts, also seeks an injunction to notify all metal toy sellers and distributors “to remove such toys from their shelves and cease selling and distributing them.” “. .until their safety can be established.”

An RC2 spokeswoman released a statement in response to the lawsuit saying: “The only items subject to our previously announced voluntary recall are the 26 wood products listed and represented on our website. They represent about four percent of total rail units. of wood sold by the company at the national level during the recovery period”.

“Although some products in our line of metal train toys are similar in appearance to the products in the wooden line, they are smaller in scale. None of the metal products are subject to recall. They were produced using different manufacturing processes. manufacturing and painting in different manufacturing contracts”. mod cons.”

The firm said that in addition to replacing all recalled products returned by consumers and reimbursing them for return postage, “we are providing them with an additional train car as a thank you for returning the recalled items.”

The lawsuit filed Tuesday is the seventh federal class action lawsuit filed against RC2, according to a search of the federal e-filing database. The suit also names as defendants HIT Entertainment, the London-based children’s entertainment company that licenses Thomas & Friends railway toys; APAX Partners, the private equity group that owns HIT; and Learning Curve Brands, Inc., the RC2 subsidiary that markets the railway toys.