History Trivia / TheRailwaySeries

* InkSuitActor: Or perhaps a case of accidental NoCelebritiesWereHarmed, in the 90's and 00's various heritage railways that had preexisting deals with the Awdry family to license Railway Series characters for events were legally threatened by the TV series creator Britt Allcroft shortly after Wilbert Awdry's death. This included the Bluebell Railway which owned Stepney an 1875 locomotive that had worn that name for nearly its entire existence, which Allcroft claimed was a rip-off of the ''TV character'' and particularly the Talyllyn Railway which had been canonically included in the Railway Series as a place where locomotives such as Peter Sam or Sir Handel would visit (being portrayed by their respective real life counterparts). With a deal inked with Rev. Awdry before the TV series creation to pay only £1 annually in licensing, the Talyllyn was able to avoid Allcroft's legal charges and retain the ability to let Railway Series characters show up on the railway. However since ''faces'' were designed by the TV show artists, the Talyllyn had to create custom faces which didn't resemble the TV show character designs to continue holding Skarloey themed events on the railway.[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nasOrrSq1Jc&t=3s]] This eventually lead to them creating a face for Peter Sam that resembled Creator/NicolasCage. No, ''really'' just take a look at it [[https://twitter.com/TalyllynRailway/status/768706917501919232/photo/1]]. Cue all sorts of bad puns from internet railfans about Peter Sam looking to "[[Film/NationalTreasure steal the Declaration of Independence]]" or screaming about "[[Film/TheWickerMan2006 the bees]]!" Curiously, this was replaced with [[https://i.redd.it/7s91bd9g5cd91.jpg another more authentic looking face]] come 2022. Whether another agreement was made is unknown.

*** The engine who would have helped Donald and Douglas with their workload, as implied in ''Wilbert The Forest Engine'', would have been an [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunslet_Austerity_0-6-0ST Austerity]], just like Wilbert. In addition Chris also had plans for a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BR_Standard_Class_2_2-6-0 BR Standard Class 2]] tender engine named Barry based on the stories of engines being rescued from the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodham_Brothers Barry Scrapyard]], but was forced to instead write ''More About Thomas the Tank Engine'' when Britt Allcroft requested adaptation material.

* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Thomas, who became the series' BreakoutCharacter to the point the whole franchise eventually revolved around him, didn't appear until the second book.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: In the Reverend Awdry's world the Isle of Sodor is a substantial landmass squeezed between the north-west English coast and the UsefulNotes/IsleOfMan, an island in the mid Irish Sea nearly equidistant between England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Man exists in real life, but Sodor does not. However... in the Church of England there is a ''Bishop'' of Sodor & Man. This is an ArtifactTitle, deriving from the medieval Norwegian diocese of Sodor, which was formed in 1154 and stretched to cover the Hebrides and the other islands along the west coast of Scotland -- as far south as Man.[[note]](The word in the original Norse was ''Suðreyjar'' [Sudreys or "southern isles"], to contrast with the Norðreyjar, the "northern isles" of Orkney and Shetland off the top of the Scottish mainland.)[[/note]] Norway controlled all these islands until 1266, when they were ceded to Scotland; the Isle of Man came under the suzerainty of the Kings of England in 1334 and was held by feudal lords until the lordship was purchased by the British Crown in 1765.\\
The upshot of this history is that to this day there is an Anglican diocese of Sodor & Man, despite one of those places not actually existing. The Rev Awdry essentially chose to [[{{Defictionalisation}} Defictionalise]] the name in order to create a setting for his stories. Said Bishop[[note]]at the time, the Right Reverend Benjamin Pollard[[/note]] was even sent a copy of Kenney's 1958 map of Sodor, with a note from the good Reverend explaining that he had found the 'lost half' of his diocese!
-->'''Wilbert Awdry:''' "Everybody knew that there was an Isle of Man, but we decided to 'discover' another island – the Island of Sodor – and so give the poor deprived Bishop the other half of his diocese!"
* BilingualBonus: In the introduction to ''Four Little Engines'', the debut appearance for the engines of the Skarloey Railway, 'Skarloey' is stated by the Rev W Awdry to mean "lake in the woods". The line is based on the real preserved Talyllyn Railway in Wales, and Skarloey himself is based on its eponymous engine Talyllyn -- which means, in Welsh, broadly "brow of the lake".