Thomas the tank engine was introduced into America by Britt Allcroft in the late 1980's. The first company to produce the wooden Thomas trains was not Learning Curve or Brio. In 1992, Early Learning Centre, a well known toy company in UK, produced wooden Thomas trains in US. As the toys were made in US, the production cost was very high and the trains were sold at a very high price. For example, a 22-piece starter set  was sold for US $70 at that time as compare to the current figure 8 set which cost only $49.99 (made in China).  The UK based company has its US head office at 40 Pepe's Farm Road, Milford, CT 06460. As there were not that many people able to afford wooden Thomas trains at that time, the license for Thomas was bought over by Learning Curves in 1993, which was founded by John W. Lee in the same year. Learning Curve was located at Southport, CT 06490 in 1993. It continue to manufacture the toys in US for only a very short period of time before moving the production to China. In 1994, Learning Curve relocate its office to Chicago and have all the trains production move to China. In addition, they changed the packaging from plastic to cardboard. In 1998, it revamp the entired packaging to blue color, with the word "Clikity-Clack Track". In the 2000's, the tracks were improved and "Clikity-Clack Track" was discontinued. Therefore, they re-design the packaging for the trains and this is the current design.