My Passion for Thomas the Tank Engine​

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          Many television shows and films aimed at children have a strong adult following. A few examples include SpongeBob SquarePants, Ed, Edd n Eddy, the works of the Walt Disney Company, and several others. As an adult, I’m no exception to having a soft spot for things from my childhood, with the previous three examples being some of the things I like. But there’s one children’s show that I have always loved for as long as I can remember. And that show is about a little blue tank engine named Thomas.

          Most people who know me well are aware that I am a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, later known as Thomas & Friends, or Thomas for short (as many fans call the show). I have loved the show ever since I was two years old. Although Thomas does have an adult fan base, I do fully understand and accept that it’s not exactly the norm for an almost-30-year-old man to be a huge fan of this show. And in my past, I have been teased for and questioned about my passion for Thomas. The purpose of this essay is to explain why I love this show, and why there’s more to Thomas than most people realize. And for a full disclaimer, this essay is primarily from my own personal experience and understanding of Thomas the Tank Engine. I am not speaking on behalf of the Thomas fandom in any way, shape, or form. However, the work of other Thomas fans has helped inspire this piece, and some points presented here are from what is understood to be general fan consensus. Plus, much of the information presented can be read on the Thomas the Tank Engine Wiki, a fan-run online encyclopedia of all things Thomas.

          As stated before, I’ve been a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine since I was very young. It was one of the first TV shows I ever saw. Ever since watching my first VHS tape of episodes, I’ve been hooked. And as I grew older, I grew to appreciate more than just the smiling train characters. Several aspects of the show made it stand out from other children’s shows. Before I dive into this, a history of Thomas must be shared.

          Thomas & Friends is based on a series of children’s books called The Railway Series. First published in 1945, the books were written by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry. Awdry wrote Railway Series books almost annually until 1972, when he retired from writing. Then, Christopher Awdry, Wilbert’s son, became the author of The Railway Series. He wrote volumes of The Railway Series from 1983 to 1996, with two additional Railway Series books that were published in 2007 and 2011, respectively.

          During the late 1970s, a television producer named Britt Allcroft came upon The Railway Series during the making of a train documentary. She fell in love with the books and saw their potential as a TV show. Though Wilbert Awdry was initially hesitant, following a disastrous adaptation of his books back in 1953, he eventually gave the go ahead for the series to be made. On October 9, 1984, the world was introduced to Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.

          After a successful first season, a second, third, fourth, and fifth season followed. The first four seasons’ episodes were primarily adaptations of The Railway Series, plus some stories that were written by either Wilbert or Christopher Awdry, though some episodes in the third and fourth seasons were original stories. The show would then stop adapting The Railway Series books, beginning with Season Five. Then, the year 2000 saw the release of the first and (so far) only theatrical Thomas film, Thomas and the Magic Railroad. However, the film was both a critical and commercial failure. Due to the film’s failure, Britt Allcroft stepped down as the head of her own company, the Britt Allcroft Company, which then became known as Gullane Entertainment. She would then serve as an executive producer for the sixth season, and later as a story consultant for the seventh season. During the airing of Season Six and planning stages of Season Seven in 2002, Gullane Entertainment was purchased by the children’s programming company HiT Entertainment (HiT for short), which also owned other kid shows like Bob the Builder, Barney & Friends, The Wiggles, and several others. HiT also oversaw the production of the seventh season and had a lot of say in how the episodes were made. As such, fans had noticed that there was a difference in writing quality, but it wasn’t as different as what was to come the next season.

          In 2004, HiT would revamp Thomas with a somewhat soft reboot, beginning with Season Eight. The show saw several changes. The episodes ran about seven minutes in length (rather than four and a half minutes in the prior seasons), the music changed due to having new composers, the show focused on a main cast of eight characters (dubbed the Steam Team), and the series as a whole had a more educational stance. But the episodes were still filmed using live action models, as was tradition. In 2008, though, for the twelfth season, the series started an extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI). While models were still used, the engine’s faces, people, and animals were rendered in CGI. However, this would only last for the twelfth season.

            In 2009, starting with the full-length special Hero of the Rails, Thomas switched to full CGI animation for its medium. Although retaining a narrator like the previous seasons, the show was given a voice cast. The Canadian animation company, Nitrogen Studios, animated the first CGI seasons, those being Seasons Thirteen to Sixteen. Most fans are not too fond of these seasons, mostly due to the writing. Most of these episodes had constant rhyming and alliterations in the dialogue and narration, and most of the plots followed a “three-strikes-you’re-out” formula. Despite these lackluster aspects, more changes were on the horizon for Thomas & Friends.

          In 2012, HiT Entertainment was purchased by the toy company Mattel for $680 million. Starting with Season Seventeen, more changes were made. Not only did Thomas get a new animation company (Arc Productions, now known as Jam Filled Toronto), but the writing quality had changed. Gone away were the rhymes, and the “three-strikes” formula was practically non-existent. Plus, there were several call-backs and references to the earlier seasons, and several characters who had been absent from the show for several seasons returned. Plus, for the first time since the mid 1990s, the series adapted stories from The Railway Series, with these adaptations being the 2015 special The Adventure Begins and three episodes from Season Twenty. These changes were partly due to the new head writer, Andrew Brenner, having previous involvement with the show. Most fans have been very appreciative of the seasons for which Brenner was the head writer, those being Seasons Seventeen through Season Twenty-One. But this improvement in quality wasn’t to last.

          In 2017, Mattel announced the news that Thomas would be rebranded once again, and there were to be major changes starting the following year. The show would then have the subtitle “Big World! Big Adventures!” (BWBA), with some episodes having Thomas work in different countries, such as China, India, Australia, Italy, and Brazil. In addition, Thomas himself became the narrator of the episodes. And perhaps the most controversial change was the removal of long-time characters Edward and Henry from the main cast, in favor of having two brand new female engines, Nia and Rebecca. The BWBA era comprised of Seasons Twenty-Two to Twenty-Four. However, BWBA didn’t fare well (especially with long-time fans), and due to this and low Thomas toy sales, Mattel cancelled Thomas after 578 episodes, twenty-four seasons, and about thirty-seven years on the air. The final episode aired on British television on January 20, 2021. Later that year, Mattel released a reboot called Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go!, which airs on Cartoon Network and streams on Netflix. This series shows Thomas and his friends in a very kiddish and slapstick manner, and the train characters are extremely cartoony in their portrayals. I have not seen any episodes of All Engines Go!, nor do I have any desire to watch it.

          And now that a history of Thomas the Tank Engine has been prefaced, it’s time to explain why I still like this talking train show. I was born in 1995, when the show was in its prime. My first Thomas VHS tape comprised of episodes from Season Four. And I found it a joy to watch. And, of course, I enjoyed the various Thomas the Tank Engine toys that I had growing up (some of which I still own!). As stated before, several things that stuck out to me as a child still do as an adult. These include the medium and format of the show, the storytelling and characters, the music, and other elements.

            One thing that has always made Thomas the Tank Engine stand out was that from 1984 to 2008, the show was filmed using live-action model trains on sets. This made Thomas unique since other children’s shows at the time utilized more common methods, such as traditional animation, stop motion, and/or puppets. The cameras were positioned at low angles, making the train models seem larger than they really were. Plus, the engine models had smoke generators, and the sets had platforms from which steam was vented. Even though the people and animals were clearly static figures, and the characters’ mouths didn’t move when they spoke, Thomas the Tank Engine still felt real to me. As stated before, the models were ditched in favor of full computer animation in 2009. And while the CGI was fairly well done, nothing compares to the realistic aesthetic of the models.

            Another reason why Thomas felt real was because, despite that most of the characters were talking trains, it was still fairly grounded in reality. The show’s source material, The Railway Series, also has this realism. Rev. Awdry was a man who loved trains very much, and he ensured that talking trains were only one of the few strange things in his fictional universe. This was carried on for most of the show. For instance, in the source material and most of the show, Thomas and his friends didn’t do anything cartoony. None of the train characters used their wheels as hands, no one jumped off the tracks to look at pretty flowers, no one twisted and flexed their bodies to look around and express themselves, and other things. And one other thing that made Thomas realistic is that the engine characters required crews to operate. Thomas needed a driver (engineer) and a fireman to keep him going. As the series went on, the realism slowly diminished. Engine crews were less and less prominent, and the engines eventually began to move their bodies about to express emotions, beginning in 2017, with the hour-long special Journey Beyond Sodor. Cartoony physics and the lack of realistic train operations are just some of many reasons why some Thomas fans, myself included, are not interested in watching the All Engines Go! reboot.

          Continuing on with realism, many Thomas stories, from the original Railway Series books to certain episodes of the TV show, were inspired by true events from railways throughout time and the world. For instance, one story/episode called “Down the Mine” was inspired by an engine that fell down a mine shaft in 1892. Another one, called “Off the Rails” (titled “Gordon Takes a Dip” in the United States), had Gordon the Big Engine sliding into a ditch while using a turntable. An event like this actually happened in 1952. A television exclusive story, “A Better View for Gordon,” featured Gordon crashing through the wall of a station. This was inspired by a train crash that happened at a French train station in 1895. It’s clear that Awdry and the TV show crew cared about Thomas being set in reality, despite the talking trains. Though realism was pretty much thrown out the window as the series progressed, fans like myself still appreciate the attention to detail regarding how the universe of Thomas worked.

          One other thing that made the storytelling of Thomas stand out was that while it was still for kids, it was initially not condescending towards them. The morals and life lessons weren’t in your face, and some episodes (particularly in Season Five) had a very dark, ominous tone. These early episodes were not hesitant to use technical railway terms and jargon, such as “feed pipe,” “side rods,” “safety valve,” “branch line,” and others. The narrative didn’t always need to stop to explain what any of these were to the audience. While much of this changed when HiT Entertainment took over the franchise, owing to its more educational stance starting with the eighth season, this original writing for Thomas is one thing we older fans hold dear to our hearts.

          As an additional note, one other awesome aspect about the original Railway Series books was Rev. Awdry’s dedication to its lore. Not only did he apply the above realism, but he also spent time mapping out the railways of Island of Sodor, where Thomas is set, and he had a timeline of events laid out, from when characters were built, to when they first arrived on the Island of Sodor. Rev. Awdry actually wrote a companion book to The Railway Series, titled The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways, which details these character histories and timeline. As one of my college classmates brilliantly put it, “It’s like Tolkien wrote a train book!” Plus, most of the characters seen in Thomas, from The Railway Series to the TV show, are actually based on actual real-life locomotives, rolling stock, and vehicles. In fact, Wilbert and Christopher Awdry made some the characters “relatives” of actual engines. One instance is that Gordon is the brother of the famous British steam engine Flying Scotsman. Awdry’s backstory for Gordon was that Gordon was the very first member (prototype) of Flying Scotsman’s class. In one of Christopher Awdry’s books, Gordon the High-Speed Engine, Gordon mentions that his “cousin” is Mallard, a British locomotive that set a speed record of 126 miles per hour. All in all, like the stories and some TV episodes, the characters had some basis in realism, which is only one reason why they stood out to me.

          The characters of Thomas, whether they’re engines, rolling stock, vehicles, or people, came in all shapes and sizes. Most of them are their own unique class of engine, though some are of the same class (with at least seven diesel engines seen in the TV show being the same kind of engine, the British Rail Class 08 shunter). Also, their physical appearances and colors weren’t the only things that made them stand out. Most of these characters had their own distinct personalities. Thomas was cheeky but was friendly and worked dutifully. Gordon was proud and pompous but had a heart of gold. Edward was old and wise with a mentor-like relationship with the others. James was full of himself but still worked hard and pulled through for his friends. Percy was happy-go-lucky and silly, but rather accident-prone. The list goes on. Even though some characters experienced some personality changes as the show went on, others remained generally consistent, like Thomas being cheeky, James being vain, Gordon having that self-importance, and so on. In addition, the characters each had their own musical theme, or leitmotif, that matched their personalities and gave off vibes strongly associated with their traits.

          This leads to another big reason why I love Thomas – the music. No matter from which era of the show it’s from, the music of Thomas the Tank Engine has always been very catchy. For the first seven seasons (called the “Classic Era” by fans), the composers for the show were Mike O’Donnell and Junior Campbell. They were succeeded by Robert Hartshorne from Season Eight to Season Nineteen. Ed Welch wrote the songs from Season Eight to the 2008 special The Great Discovery, after which, Hartshorne took over as songwriter. Hartshorne’s son, Peter, joined him in the latter part of his tenure. Then, after Season Nineteen, Robert and Peter Hartshorne were replaced by Chris Renshaw and Oliver Davis as composer and songwriter. My favorite Thomas compositions are from O’Donnell and Campbell’s tenure as composers/songwriters. They had a wide range of incidental music and songs, from the extremely catchy and well-known Thomas theme tune to the classic song “He’s a Really Useful Engine.” As mentioned before, O’Donnell and Campbell gave each character a different musical theme which helped establish the characters’ personalities. Their successors would carry on the trend of making themes for the characters. While the Classic Series music and songs will forever be my favorites from Thomas, this isn’t to say that what the Hartshornes, Welch, Renshaw, and Davis did were by any means bad. There are quite a few songs from post-Classic Thomas that I enjoy, even as an adult. And as a cherry on top of the cake, the later CGI series would sometimes incorporate remixed/rerecorded O’Donnell and Campbell’s themes into their soundtracks

          And for one more element of Thomas that I have always liked, a special mention to the narrators and cast must be made. Throughout its tenure, quite a few celebrities have had their names attached to Thomas. The first narrator of the series was Ringo Starr of the Beatles, who narrated the first two seasons for both the original United Kingdom dub and the United States dub. In the U. K., Ringo Starr was succeeded by the late Michael Angelis (who narrated Seasons Three to Sixteen) and Mark Moraghan (who narrated Seasons Seventeen to Twenty-One). In the U. S., however, Starr was succeeded by the late great George Carlin (who narrated Seasons Three and Four, and re-narrated Seasons One and Two for home video releases), Alec Baldwin (who narrated Seasons Five and Six, and starred in Thomas and the Magic Railroad as Mr. Conductor), the late Michael Angelis (for six episodes on one VHS/DVD release), Michael Brandon (for Seasons Seven to Sixteen), and, once again, Mark Moraghan (for Seasons Seventeen to Twenty-One). The 2008 hour-long special The Great Discovery was guest-narrated by Pierce Brosnan for both the U. K. and U. S. versions. Each narrator brought their own unique flare to narrating Thomas. Starr and Angelis had nice deliveries that, in my opinion, help affirm the British nature of the series. Carlin (personally my favorite narrator) provided different voices and vocal patterns to the characters during his tenure. And Baldwin’s narration in Season Five and Season Six sounds like he’s having fun. For Thomas and the Magic Railroad and when the show switched to CGI in 2009, a voice cast was added. The voice actors in both Magic Railroad and the CGI seasons did a good job bringing their characters to life. Plus, in some of the feature-length specials during the latter part of the CGI era, they brought in guest stars, such as Eddie Redmayne, the late John Hurt, and Hugh Bonneville, to name just a few. Some of these narrators and guest stars had a prior history with Thomas, such watching the series with their kids or when they themselves were kids, or reading The Railway Series for fun or as bedtime stories to their children. This perfectly demonstrates that there’s an appeal to Thomas in practically everyone, no matter how old you are.

          In my later years of childhood and into my early adolescence, I still liked Thomas, but I wasn’t as open about my passion for it as I am now. As mentioned before, my peers would sometimes tease me about liking Thomas, or question why I do. I felt a bit isolated in that manner, and I would tend to keep my love of Thomas mostly a secret. But when I was about eleven or twelve years old, I was exposed to various fan-made Thomas the Tank Engine videos on YouTube. These videos range from remakes of episodes to original stories, to making music videos, to humorous parodies, and to recreations, remixes, and covers of the music and songs of the series. These videos, from old to recent, were a major reassurance that some people my age and older still hold Thomas dear to them. And as a related note, Reverend Awdry once said something along the lines of that he wasn’t only writing The Railway Series for children, but also for the adults who have to read the stories over and over and over again to them. These just go to show just how much Thomas has impacted not only my life, but the lives of others

          Last of all, it was through Thomas that I learned of several things. From the show, not only did I learn some train terminology, but also the differences between said lingo for the United States versus the United Kingdom. For instance, what we Americans call freight cars, the Brits call trucks or wagons. What we call a conductor and an engineer, they call a guard and a driver, respectively. Also, the fifth season introduced me to the concept of a good luck package (something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue). Plus, if it weren’t for Thomas, I probably would have heard of the Beatles (thanks to Ringo Starr’s tenure as the narrator). And the show was my first exposure to George Carlin and Alec Baldwin. All in all, I have to thank Thomas for many things.

          And so, that’s why I love Thomas the Tank Engine. It stood out against other shows and always had something to admire. Also, Thomas is the reason why I love trains today.  Now, am I saying that you should drop what you’re doing and go watch Thomas right now? The answer is no. At the end of the day, I acknowledge that Thomas is, was, and always will be a series for younger kids, and most adults are not into little kid shows. Plus, Thomas is about trains, which are already a niche interest. But I hope that this essay has been of interest, and I hope that you can understand why I am still a fan of this childhood classic of mine. While I have outgrown many things from childhood, I don’t think I will outgrow my love of Thomas any time soon. Were you a Thomas the Tank Engine fan when you were young, and did you have a favorite character? Are there any kid shows that you still hold near and dear to you long after childhood? Let me know your thoughts. Thank you for reading. Dry rails and good running to you!