History WesternAnimation / ThomasAndFriends

* BatmanGambit: Thomas pulls one off on Gordon in ''Old Reliable Edward''. To get payback on Gordon being rude to Edward, Thomas challenges him to a race the following morning. Gordon, not seeing Thomas as a challenge, gives Thomas a ten-minute head start. Thomas uses this ten minutes to [[spoiler:switch onto Gordon's line. Gordon, now stuck behind Thomas, slows down and get stranded on the hill, forcing him to call Edward for help and make amends]].

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Season 1:
** Annie, Clarabel, Percy, and Toby are only introduced later on.
** There are no diesels.
** Many of the crashes aren't as intense as you've likely come to expect from this show.
** The phrase "really useful engine" is hardly ever said.
** The harbour only appears in one scene in [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/ThomasAndFriendsS1E19TheFlyingKipper one episode]].
** Henry spends the first part of the season in his old shape.
** The freight cars only have eyes instead of complete faces.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/350276.jpg]]

* CreativeClosingCredits: The closing credits of the DirectToVideo special ''Ten Years of Thomas & Friends'' feature the Thomas replica from Strasburg Railroad's Day Out with Thomas event (where the special was filmed) instead of the Thomas model from the show.

* AnAesop: Including, but not limited to:
** BeYourself
** ThePowerOfFriendship
** [[TruthInTelevision Never be cocky or become careless around heavy machinery and freight cars.]]
** TeamSpirit: Particularly in the later series.
** BrokenAesop: Sadly, a good portion of these popped up very often during the first four CGI seasons. The worst offender may be the episode "The Biggest Present of All". Thomas is given the task of telling the other engines about a welcome party for Hiro at the Big Station, but Thomas thinks finding Hiro a welcome present would be more fun instead. He tells all his friends he's looking for a gift, but never tells them about the party. Later, he finds that Hiro is alone at the station, waiting for guests. Thomas is horrified and runs off to tell the others about the party, but they're all looking for presents too. Thomas ''[[{{Hypocrite}} promptly chews them out for doing the exact same thing he JUST did]]''. Another example hailing from the CGI incarnation is depicted in the episode "Play Time," where a new engine keeps goading Thomas into games and races on duty by challenging his fun-loving reputation. This results in the delayed delivery of an opera singer to a theater for a scheduled performance, and when the pair are chastised for their irresponsibility she reassures them that she had a great time nonetheless, cheering them on. So not only is it okay to neglect your duties just to prove yourself worthy to a bad influence who shouldn't be worth your time, but everything will still turn out fine in the end.
** On a positive note, "Henry's Forest" handled the GreenAesop pretty well. Helps that it was an early episode, and that the last scenes are [[SceneryPorn very pretty.]]

''Thomas & Friends'', formerly known as ''Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'', is a British TV series first broadcast in 1984 and concluding [[LongRunners in 2021]]. It began life as ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries'', a series of picture books about a group of [[SentientVehicle talking steam engines]] living on the otherwise relatively-realistic Island of Sodor and the adventures they have under the guardianship of the railway supervisor Fat Controller (Sir Topham Hatt). The books were originally written by the Reverend Creator/WilbertAwdry, an English clergyman and railway enthusiast, from the 1940s to the early 1970s; his son Christopher later took on the job from the 1980s until his retirement in 2011. There is also a widely-available series of books based on TV episodes.

''Thomas & Friends'', formerly known as ''Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'', is a British TV series first broadcast in 1984 and concluding [[LongRunner in 2021]]. It began life as ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries'', a series of picture books about a group of [[SentientVehicle talking steam engines]] living on the otherwise relatively-realistic Island of Sodor and the adventures they have under the guardianship of the railway supervisor Fat Controller (Sir Topham Hatt). The books were originally written by the Reverend Creator/WilbertAwdry, an English clergyman and railway enthusiast, from the 1940s to the early 1970s; his son Christopher later took on the job from the 1980s until his retirement in 2011. There is also a widely-available series of books based on TV episodes.

* DuelingDubs: The original UK dub as well as the US dub. Season 1 also had a total of ''three'' dubs all together: Ringo Starr's original UK dub, his re-recorded US dub, and George Carlin's version of the US dub used for later video releases.

** Seasons 8 through 12 had alliteration in small doses, and seasons 13 through 16 had them in ''every episode''.

** In the special ''Misty Island Rescue'', Thomas and the three Logging Locos get trapped in an underwater tunnel (Bash, Dash and Ferdinand running out of fuel) with nobody knowing where they are.

* {{Backstory}}: ''Hero of the Rails'' takes some time off to explain Hiro's past.

** The movie ''Misty Island Rescue'' has a few machines with names but no faces - a crane called Old Wheezy and a steam donkey called [[PunnyName Hee-Haw]].

* JustTrainWrong: This applies to numerous railway gaffes from season 6 onward, where the writers (no longer working from Awdry's books) seem to know little about the workings of steam engines and railways. Nitrogen Studios seems to have very little knowledge of how steam engines are supposed to work:

** ''Misty Island Rescue'' apparently has a railway track built ''inside a hollow log.'' What the hell?
** Thankfully, Season 17 and onwards now has a railway consultant to deal with this. Unfortunately, said railway consultant has been downplayed from Season 22 onwards, due to the demand by Mattel executives to have more unrealism and nonexistent physics in order to compete with other modern preschool shows (specifically ''WesternAnimation/PawPatrol''), in a similar vein to Seasons 13-16.
* KarmaHoudini: The adapatation of "Old Iron" neglects to mention the fate of the two boys who meddled with James' controls and caused him to run off out of control, whereas in the book they are caught by the police, [[ValuesDissonance "soundly walloped"]] by their fathers, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking forbidden to watch trains for quite some time]].

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: Fans of ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries'' may be taken aback by later episodes, which not only cease adapting stories from the books, but have a much DenserAndWackier narrative (For Seasons 13 through 16 at least), with such elements as painful rhyming, constant alliteration, and seemingly zero knowledge of railway operations, transitioned from model puppetry to CGI animation (with all the cast fully voiced and animated) and have altered several characters in role and personality (or disposed of them altogether in favor of numerous more gimmicky new ones for merchandising purposes, though this practice has since been reversed, with characters who had been DemotedToExtra back during Season 8 making the transition to CGI, and new characters are given much better development, while the gimmicky ones are fleshed out, Paxton, Scruff, and Winston being prime examples).
** The series also becomes even more unrealistic in Season 22, going under the title ''Big World! Big Adventures!''. The series becomes more fast-paced, along with marking the first radical changes to the main cast since Season 8 with Edward, Henry and Toby getting written out for new female members Nia and Rebecca, as well the series returning to focus on new gimmicks for merchandise (much like Seasons 8-16) in the form of fantasy sequences and animals. There are also new characters who are notably racially different, being races such as Latin, Asian, Indian, African and Australian. Some fans have liked it so far, but others are concerned it will be another dark age.

* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: In ''WesternAnimation/SodorsLegendOfTheLostTreasure'', Duck remarks that it felt like [[TheBusCameBack years since he had last seen Donald and Douglas]].

* LongRunner: The television series has been running since 1984. The Railway Series, meanwhile, originally ran from 1945 to 2011.''

* LostAesop: ''Misty Island Rescue'' is supposedly about making decisions, but this message is inverted and subverted so many times it's impossible to tell whether the writers support or condemn the idea of Thomas making decisions for others.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
** Thomas pulls this off in "The Great Discovery", and because of this, Great Waterton almost doesn't get completed in time.
** Happens in "Don't Be Silly Billy". New engine Billy is too excited to listen and mistakes Thomas' wise advice for being bossy, much to Thomas' anger and shock. After failing to get Billy to listen, Thomas gives up and leaves Billy alone...and he runs out of coal and water as a result.

* NowLetMeCarryYou: In ''The Great Discovery'', Stanley rescues Thomas, but breaks down in the process. Thomas then helps Stanley back home, and the two become good friends ever since.

* OminousFog: Used in ''Misty Island Rescue'', when Thomas first arrives on the island. It's seen again when Edward, James, and Gordon get lost.

* RhymesOnADime: In seasons 9-16, in a reported attempt to maintain the show's "literary" qualities, increasingly incorporated rhyming phrases into their narration and dialogue. While only moderately frequent early on, the direct-to-DVD film "The Great Discovery" featured a far higher volume of rhyming, inclusive of Thomas oft-repeated mantra "I am brave and I am strong. I'll get to the wharf and it won't take long!"; seasons 12-15 would subsequently incorporate ubiquitous rhyming and character mantras into [[OnceAnEpisode almost every episode]]. Following a period of declining usage across season 16, this trend was eliminated in Blue Mountain Mystery and the ensuing season 17.
** Sadly, during ''Flatbeds of Fear'', Henry got scared back into rhyming. "[[MadnessMantra I don't want to hear the Flatbeds of Fear, I don't want to hear the Flatbeds of Fear...]]"

* SaveTheVillain: Thomas saves Diesel from rolling off an unfinished bridge in ''Misty Island Rescue''.
** ''Tale of the Brave'' has [[spoiler:Percy saving James. Yes, JAMES is the villain here!]]

* SceneryPorn: The modelers for before the series went CG made some beautiful scenery and backgrounds for the trains to roll around in. There's still quite a lot of it in the CG series, especially in ''Misty Island Rescue''. In addition Arc Productions, the current animators for the series, really enjoy using various shots that show a great deal of scenery.
** The animation team went all-out for ''Tale of the Brave'', with some really breathtaking shots of the Suspension Bridge and the clay pits.

** There's no way that the song played in the beginning of ''Misty Island Rescue'' wasn't partially inspired by the ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' theme.
** Thomas attempts to stop James' runaway in ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventureBegins'' by coupling up to the back of his train, similar to the climax of ''Film/{{Unstoppable}}''.
** New main cast member Rebecca is a yellow streamlined engine with a blue roof on her body, with a personality of being very happy and seeing the positive side in everything. She’s basically the steam locomotive version of [[WesternAnimation/InsideOut Joy]].

* SpiritualSuccessor: The seasons with models felt a lot like a UsefulNotes/{{Supermarionation}} show -- it helps that David Mitton, a veteran of ''Series/{{Thunderbirds}}'' and other Gerry Anderson shows, was the showrunner (essentially) from 1984 to 2003. This may explain why accidents happen every so often -- you can't blow things up, but you certainly can derail trains, [[CoveredInGunge cover them in stuff]], etc.

* TheStinger:
** [[spoiler:After the credits of Misty Island Rescue, Diesel 10 appears watching the Sodor engines, with an EvilLaugh and promising ruin and destruction, {{foreshadowing}} ''Day of the Diesels''.]]
** In the middle of the credits of Blue Mountain Mystery, Thomas visits the Steamworks where Victor and Luke surprise him by painting Rheneas yellow, like how Victor looked when he first came to Sodor years ago.
* StoryArc: During Seasons 1, 2, and 4, mostly consisting of CharacterDevelopment. Season 1 deals with the main cast's respective arcs, Season 2's has Duck and Diesel's, with several minor characters such as [=BoCo=] getting their own, while Season 4's arcs are centered around the narrow gauge engines.

* LighterAndSofter: The HiT episodes from Seasons 8-16, combined with a bit of DenserAndWackier. Most of the realism was thrown out the window until Season 17 brought it back, even the nastiest of engines tend to show a redeeming side, and scrapping is refered to a lot less (or when it is, is made clear that Sir Topham has no interest in it whatsoever, though to be fair, he never once had any interest in it to begin with in both the original show and the books). Season 22 reverts back to the Season 8-16 format to an extent, throwing out the realism again, coupled with the engines’ new non-static body movement.

*** Thomas' theme from Seasons 1-4 shifts down two steps from F major to D major.

* Thinly-velledDubCountryChange: Might have happened in the Dutch dub early on since all references to the Great Western Railway were removed. Not to mention the dub renamed the following characters before giving them their original English names: Toad to Paddie, Cranky to Krik, Sir Handel to Meneer Handel and Annie to Anna.

* ThinlyVelledDubCountryChange: Might have happened in the Dutch dub early on since all references to the Great Western Railway were removed. Not to mention the dub renamed the following characters before giving them their original English names: Toad to Paddie, Cranky to Krik, Sir Handel to Meneer Handel and Annie to Anna.

*** The "busy station" theme shifts up from A&#9837 major to B&#9837 major, then to C major, then back to A♭ major.

* EnemyMine:
** The engines and the troublesome trucks have a few of these in "Special Attraction" when dealing with Bulstrode, a disagreeable boat, and in "The World's Strongest Engine" when going against Diesel. For the latter episode, Thomas and Percy lampshade that sometimes, troublesome trucks can do an engine a favor, which is getting rid of a haughty diesel.
** This also happens with the steam engines and diesels in ''Calling All Engines''.

** Season 17 has reversed this however, Edward and Toby have returned to being wise, Gordon has become less pompous and able to knock an engine down a peg, James has gained a more mischievous side, Henry has slowly become less of a coward, and Percy has regained his intelligence whilst still being naive. Some traits of the later episodes are still evident (eg. Thomas is still a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} while Henry is still [[TookALevelInKindness softer and less arrogant]]) but they qualify more as HiddenDepths to their now revived original personas.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: The post-Miller episodes still occasionally forgo railway realism for the sake of telling a story. One example is "Luke's New Friend". A railway is no place for animals, much less a deer, but Luke befriending the deer works for his character development.

* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g75YK_yIxNM This]] is the theme song in Japan.

* AnotherDimension:
** The Island of Sodor in ''Thomas and the Magic Railroad''. Also doubles as a MagicalLand. This is particularly odd as in the books and TV series Sodor was simply a small island between the Isle of Man and the British Mainland. The books also established that all the engines in the world, not just the Sodor ones, were alive, unlike in the movie where you can see nonsentient locomotives.
** By extension, this was implied to also be the case with the ''Shining Time Station'' series, meaning the movie took cues from this as an attempt to cement the relationship between ''Shining Time'' and ''Thomas And Friends.''
* AppliedPhlebotinum: In ''Thomas and the Magic Railroad'', gold dust and [[spoiler:coal from Sodor]].

* BigBudgetBeefUp: To hold up better on the big screen, the characters and sets featured in ''Thomas and the Magic Railroad'' were all rebuilt from scratch. In Series 6, they began to replace some of the older models.

** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFnpne7kI8k One episode of "Thomas' Comedy Showtime"]] on the official [=YouTube=] channel takes two potshots at the Miller-era. First calling Mr. Bubbles a "textbook clown" while commentating on [[Recap/ThomasAndFriendsS13E5SlippySodor Slippy Sodor]], and saying there's nothing funny about a giant balloon while commentating on "[[Recap/ThomasAndFriendsS15E8UpUpAndAway Up Up and Away]]".

** "Dowager Hatt's Busy Day" is a giant middle finger towards the Sharon Miller-era, taking potshots at the bizarre deliveries that the engines were assigned to take throughout the era.

* CompositeCharacter: Written example. During Brenner's run, the series does its best to mix the feel of the HIT seasons with the feel of the Mitton era. These stories even include references to the Railway Series books by the Awdry family while maintaining continuity with the Miller seasons for the large part. A lot of the characters are also compromises of the personalities they gained in both eras.

* ContinuityReboot: The twenty-fifth series is set to start a new continuity from past seasons.

** In the books and television series, the island of Sodor is off the coast of England. ''Series/ShiningTimeStation'' put it in another dimension. ''Thomas and the Magic Railroad'' placed Sodor in another, ''magical'' dimension, kept afloat by [[spoiler: Lady and her gold dust,]] even though there was nothing mystical about the series until (or after) that point. As a result of this change, previous mainstays of the series were removed, particularly the drivers and the rest of Sodor's human cast, as well most of the engines (only 6 appeared in the film). Not only that, but plot points that had been resolved in the previous seasons were all forgotten about (with the biggest one being Henry needing Special Coal, for entirely different reasons in the movie). This has pushed ''Magic Railroad'' toward both FanonDiscontinuity and CanonDiscontinuity as a result, with only one character introduced in the movie (Diesel 10), actually making consistent appearances in the actual show.

** Season 22, the start of the ''Big World! Big Adventures!'' Series, has another one. Tim Bain, the writer for the Australia-themed episodes of the new series and several [=YouTube=] shorts, voices Aiden, one of the Australian twin coaches.

** Season 5 is often viewed as this. It featured more darker plotlines and crashes than the other seasons.

* DeadpanSnarker: Andrew Brenner and his team are tried to make everyone act like this from time to time in seasons 17-21 Reg is outright stated to be this. Sodor may even be a WorldOfSnark!

* DemotedToExtra: Edward from seasons 4-6, but everybody gets this treatment in the newer movies. The only characters to get a lot of focus are Thomas and the new engine introduced. Toby's been getting the worst it lately. In ''Hero Of The Rails'', not only does he get only one line, not only one word, but one '''syllable'''. He doesn't even appear in ''Tale of the Brave''! And to make matters worse, unlike Edward, who quickly underwent CharacterRerailment during his first Brenner-era episode, Toby still has yet to fully return to his former persona. As of Season 22, Edward, Henry and Toby have been demoted from the main cast entirely, in order to make way for two new female main characters, Nia and Rebecca.
* DenserAndWackier: ZigZagged. While the newer seasons have brought back railway realism, the episodes are much more humourous. [[spoiler:The series becomes even more wackier in Season 22, titled ''Big World! Big Adventures!'', with a notable focus on fantasy sequences, cultural traditions (in this case China, India and Australia) and wild animals.]]

* FriendshipTrinket: In ''The Magic Railroad'', Lily gives her Burnett a friendship bracelet to remind them of their friendship. Later in the film, Lily puts the gold dust Junior gives to her on her bluebird toy, also to remind her of her friendship with Burnett.

* IncrediblyLamePun: From ''Magic Railroad:''
-->'''Splatter''' (to Diesel 10): Liar, liar.
-->'''Dodge''' Pants on fire.
-->'''Splatter''': Does he wear pants?
-->'''Dodge''': Well, training pants.
-->'''Splatter''': Alright.
** From "The Adventure Begins":
-->'''James:''' Oh, dear!\\
''(A deer promptly runs away from him.)''

* IronicEcho: Practically a staple in Andrew Brenner's writing, especially in ''Tale of the Brave''.

* ItBelongsInAMuseum: The Fat Controller's engines are often told this by other characters due to their age.

* MacGuffin: The ''special'' specials from Seasons 13 to 16.
** It is implied both in the ''Magic Railway'' movie and throughout the series that Sodor Coal is this to the engines of the island, giving them the ability to be sentient.

* MediumBlending: The CGI faces in season 12 and the full CGI in ''Hero Of The Rails''. Earlier, the 2D-animated bee that stings James in "Buzz, Buzz."

* MerchandiseDriven: Arguably; some characters are only in one episode and seem to exist purely for merchandise reasons. The worst case of this is currently ''Day of the Diesels''. Three new characters - Norman, Paxton and Sidney - are introduced and marketed...and none of them have a single line of dialog, only seen creeping around in the background. A few characters from ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries'' that were never adapted into the show have also made it onto ''Thomas And Friends'' merchandise.
** Recent episodes seem to be remedying this a little with previous characters getting ADayInTheLimelight and CharacterDevelopment. Paxton in particular is now an AscendedExtra with regular appearances.

* MustMakeAmends: Constantly happens in the newer series before Season 17. After an engine makes [[RuleOfThree three mistakes]] in their given job due to their FatalFlaw or [[IdiotBall is just being plain incompetent]], and after The Fat Controller calls them out for causing "confusion and delay", the engine will begin making things right with absolutely no problem at all. The engine does their job on time and The Fat Controller praises them by calling them "really useful engines".

* NoOSHACompliance: After the Awdry adaptions ended, many of the engines have done things that real railways would consider irresponsible or even illegal, Season 5 is a great example of this, more than half of the episodes in that one Season featured a large crash.
** The Shake Shake Bridge. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8qcmZdJqMY See for yourself.]]

* OutOfContextEavesdropping: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NolKsx27tRo Percy's Big Mistake]]" had Percy overhearing The Fat Controller say something about scrap and thought it meant he was to be scrapped (he's a steam engine). [[spoiler: The Fat Controller actually said that Percy was working too hard recently and so after taking some scrap metal to the smelters he would be given the somewhat easier job of carrying the mail for a week]].

* RhymesOnADime: The seasons (9-16) helmed by Sharon Miller, in a reported attempt to maintain the show's "literary" qualities, increasingly incorporated rhyming phrases into their narration and dialogue. While only moderately frequent early in Miller's tenure, the direct-to-DVD film "The Great Discovery" featured a far higher volume of rhyming, inclusive of Thomas oft-repeated mantra "I am brave and I am strong. I'll get to the wharf and it won't take long!"; seasons 12-15 would subsequently incorporate ubiquitous rhyming and character mantras into [[OnceAnEpisode almost every episode]]. Following a period of declining usage across season 16, this trend was finally eliminated in Blue Mountain Mystery and the ensuing season 17, much to the relief of the fans.

* SaveBothWorlds: Basically the entire plot of ''Thomas and the Magic Railroad''.

* ThemeNaming: So far, every special more than two words long (except ''Thomas and the Magic Railroad'') have "of the" in the title.
* TheSmurfettePrinciple: ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries'' featured just two female engines, Daisy and Mavis, neither of whom were exactly strong characters. The TV series added more female engines in later series, such as Emily, Molly, Rosie, Nia and Rebecca. However, coaches such as Annie and Clarabel were always female.

* SpiceUpTheSubtitles: One pirated Indonesian DVD (commonly sold at stalls in markets) of ''Calling All Engines!'' translated Thomas' exclamations "Cinders and ashes!" and "Bust my buffers!" as something that roughly means "Son of a bitch!" in English.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: S.C. Ruffey was scrapped in the novels after being dismantled by Oliver. In the show he is repaired and appears in later episodes.

* TerribleTrio: Diesel sometimes forms one with 'Arry and Bert in later episodes. Gordon, James and Henry were a lighter example in the earlier seasons (being more just arrogant peers than villains) while Diesel 10 formed one with Splatter and Dodge in ''Thomas And The Magic Railroad''.

** Percy's childlike attitude was exaggerated heavily. Seems to be getting downplayed as of recently however (or at least isn't much worse than the other engines).

* {{Trigger}}: Nearly every engine rightfully ''cowers'' at the mere mention of scrapping. Some of the older engines like Toby also dread the suggestion of becoming museum pieces.

The episodes--and until ''Hero of the Rails'', the characters' dialogue as well--are told through a {{narrator}}, initially [[Music/TheBeatles Ringo Starr]]. Following Starr's departure in 1990, the UK and US dubs acquired distinct narrators, with Creator/GeorgeCarlin, Creator/AlecBaldwin and, ultimately, Michael Brandon wielding the role for US audiences, while the UK dub consistently retained Michael Angelis as narrator. For series 17, both Angelis and Brandon were replaced by Mark Moraghan, reunifying both English dubs' narration for the first time in decades; Moraghan would hold the (progressively less prominent) role until series 22, in which the omniscient narrator was finally eliminated entirely in favour of Thomas framing each episode through BreakingTheFourthWall.

* LargeHam: Michael Angelis' narration for seasons 3-6 of the UK dub, which frequently features fast-paced, enthusiastically-delivered spoken prose interspersed by characters loudly yelling dialogue:

* NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent: Alec Baldwin in his narration of the U.S. version of Season 6. Unlike Ringo Starr, George Carlin and Michael Angelis, he made no attempt whatsoever to give Donald and Douglas a Scottish accent.

** Michael Angelis originally narrated the show in a faster, more excited tone. As seasons progressed his storytelling style became slower and more mellow sounding. His voices for some of the engines also changed. This is even more noticeable due to stories from earlier seasons he has renarrated for audiobooks and other projects later on.

** Gordon, James and Henry's old {{Catchphrase}}: "Disgraceful! Disgusting! Despicable!"

* CatchPhrase: Plenty of them.

The show debuted on British TV screens in 1984, a co-production between TV producer Britt Allcroft and Clearwater Productions, which (staffed by numerous veterans of Creator/GerryAnderson's stop-motion series) specialized in live-action modelwork and stop motion and which was later absorbed by Allcroft. In the US, the stories were originally [[FramingDevice encapsulated]] into the live-action PBS show ''Series/ShiningTimeStation'' beginning in 1989; later series were aired as a ThreeShorts format program with short interstitials or songs in between each story. The first four series largely followed the books (save for a number of exceptions in seasons 3 and 4), partially on Awdry's insistence; following his death in 1997, the show, beginning in its fifth series, shifted to entirely-original material and thus increasingly deviated from the source material. In 2000, ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad'', a theatrical feature film directed and produced by Allcroft, was released to capitalize on the show's popularity; the film's convoluted narrative and overt emphasis on the live-action setting and cast of ''Shining Time Station'' (relegating Thomas himself to a relatively minor role with [[DemotedToExtra only twelve minutes of screentime]]), however, bewildered international audiences and rendered the film a critical and financial disappointment, forcing Allcroft, in turn, to step down as her company's CEO and thus assume a gradually-diminishing role in the TV show. As of the sixth series in 2002, the show thus began to evolve into a more moralistic ensemble series, utilizing a conventional writing staff that tonally gravitated the series further away from its source material. That same year, Creator/HitEntertainment absorbed Allcroft's former company and effectively revamped the show into a LighterAndSofter and more simplistic format (featuring the involvement of neither Allcroft nor veteran director David Mitton) for its eighth series in 2004, a move substantially reducing the age of its target audience. Following [[AudienceAlienatingEra many seasons of progressively-decreasing writing quality]] and a [[ShiftedToCGI shift from modelwork to CGI visuals]] as of series 13 in 2009, Hit was in turn absorbed by toy giant Creator/{{Mattel}}, which replaced the majority of the show's creative staff and installed Andrew Brenner as head writer. Under Brenner's supervision, the show experienced an arguable creative resurgence during series 17-21, gaining more cohesive and detailed narratives and dialogue and [[TheBusCameBack reintroducing numerous fan-favourite characters absent during the Hit era]]. This was not to last, however, as declining toy sales led Mattel to threaten cancellation, yielding the DenserAndWackier retool ''Big World, Big Adventures!'' (which divided the show between episodes set on Sodor and episodes featuring Thomas travelling to various countries across the globe in a ploy to expand the show's international popularity) during the show's final years. This ultimately doomed the show both creatively and financially, leading to its final cancellation in 2021 after [[ArchivePanic 24 series and multiple films and specials]].

The show originally wasn't "animation" per se, more model trains moved around and puppeteered in live-action with some sporadic moments of basic stop motion. While the vehicle characters' facial expressions were represented by removable static resin masks, special cameras and techniques such as the engine models' moving eye mechanisms and an abundance of low camera angles were utilised to give the illusion of animate, realistic locomotives. Human and animal characters, conversely, were represented by small, static lead or resin figures, accentuating the "realism" of the comparatively-mobile vehicle props further. This process would persist in a largely-unchanged form (save for a shift from 35mm film to digital camera rigs in 2004) until series 12 in 2008, which featured a bizarre "hybrid" process in which mobile CGI faces were superimposed onto the model engine props via motion-capture technology, with human and animal props similarly replaced by mobile CGI renders. This method proved prohibitively expensive, however, obliging then-owners Hit Entertainment to switch to full CGI visuals (complete with, for the first time in the show's history, a full voice cast) the following year; the show would be animated by various Canadian outfits until its conclusion in 2021.

* RhymesOnADime: Thomas gets a few in ''The Great Discovery''. "I am brave and I am strong. I'll get to the wharf and it won't take long!" Since then, the engines seem to come up with a recurring mantra almost OnceAnEpisode. They are finally done away with in Blue Mountain Mystery, much to the relief of the fans.