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1For trivia related to ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'', go [[Trivia/ThomasAndFriends here]].
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3* TheCharacterDiedWithHim: Sir Charles Topham Hatt died in 1997, the same year as the Reverend Wilbert Awdry.
4* CreatorsApathy:
5** Part of the reason William Middleton's illustrations were so terrible is because [[https://thomastankcollectablesblog.blogspot.com/2017/01/leicester-mercury-william-middleton.html Middleton believed]] [[ItWillNeverCatchOn children wouldn't be interested in a book about "dirty old locomotives"]], leading him to put no effort into his artwork.
6** While C. Reginald Dalby certainly put more effort into his illustrations than Middleton, and was still a professional illustrator who did his job on that level, he wasn't particularly invested in Awdry's desire to keep the engines up to technical scale and only [[https://www.sodor-island.com/cr-dalby saw the job as one of many commissions that he had to do]], seeing it as a way to fund family trips.
7* CreatorBacklash:
8** Wilbert Awdry was incredibly disappointed by the illustrations by William Middleton, due to how poorly done they were and the lack of overall accuracy. Unsurprisingly, Middleton would not stay on after ''The Three Railway Engines'' and he would be replaced with Reginald Payne for the next book.
9** Wilbert also disliked the illustrations of C. Reginald Dalby due to their lack of accuracy, while Dalby got tired of Awdry's "pedantic" criticisms, valuing colourful attractive imagery for children over consistency. This culminated in Awdry remarking negatively that his Percy looked like "a green caterpillar with red stripes", with Dalby departing afterwards and John T. Kenney taking his place shortly thereafter. According to Awdry, Dalby took offence to this, though Dalby claimed he left out of frustration with increasingly shorter time frames to make the illustrations in the first place, which only exacerbated Awdry's need for corrections.
10** As a result of the show's popularity, the Awdrys were pressured to write more Thomas-centric stories, especially in earlier points where the show was mandated to adapt stories from the novels only. Christopher Awdry mentioned being unsatisfied with several of the stories he made under this agreement.
11** Christopher Awdry, like the fans, heavily opposed the reformat under Egmont in the late 90s.
12* CreatorBreakdown:
13** Reginald Payne, the illustrator for ''Thomas the Tank Engine'', was to continue as illustrator for the series, but suffered a mental breakdown before he could start on ''James the Red Engine'', and passed away before the book was released.
14** John Kenney, who illustrated the books from ''The Eight Famous Engines'' to ''Gallant Old Engine'', retired after that point due to failing eyesight.
15* CreatorsFavorite: Christopher has stated that Toby is his favorite character.
16* CreatorsFavoriteEpisode: According to Sodor: Reading Between the Lines. Christopher considers ''Thomas Goes Fishing'', ''Dirty Objects'', ''Thomas Comes to Breakfast'' and ''Peter Sam and the Refreshment Lady'' to be his favorite stories. He also has stated that ''Thomas Goes Fishing'' and ''Thomas Comes to Breakfast'' were amongst Wilbert’s favorite stories as well.
17* CreatorsPest: Henry became a thorn in Wilbert's side due to his similarities to Gordon and the illustrators doing a poor job differentiating his build after he was painted blue at the end of the first book.[[note]]Originally Henry was not going to be even let out of his tunnel, but publishers insisted on him writing "Edward, Gordon and Henry" to give the book a HappyEnding[[/note]] Awdry at one point considered quietly ''scrapping'' Henry, with his illness being tacit nods to his lingering fate, but publishers and fans obviously spoke against this, leading him to writing Henry's repaint to green in the fifth book and his rebuild in "The Flying Kipper", forcing a divergent redesign for the illustrators to follow.
18-->'''Awdry:''' I was so annoyed about [the artist’s] treatment of Henry that I endeavoured to kill Henry off. That’s why in ''Thomas the Tank Engine'' Henry only appears once or twice as a Very Sick Engine. After that, I got inquiries from children about Henry’s health, so I had to bring him back again. We had Henry painted green again, but in the end the only thing to do was to be ruthless, and Henry had to have an accident and be rebuilt differently.
19** Ironically, the model of Henry on the Awdrys' model railway layout was just as temperamental as pre-rebuild Henry, likely adding to Wilbert Awdry's frustrations. He had been taking steps to fix it completely, but died before this project could be completed, with the model remaining as is in an unfinished state.
20* DevelopmentGag: During Henry's section on ''The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways'', Sir Topham Hatt angrily complains about the engine he got, as he wanted an Atlantic, only to receive the flawed Henry I instead. This was a nod to how Awdry originally wanted Henry to be an 4-4-2 Atlantic, only for illustrators to depict him as being similar to Gordon instead.
21* DevelopmentHell:
22** ''Barry the Rescue Engine'', first pitched by Christopher Awdry in the '80s, has yet to see the light of day; the book was going to be released in 1986, but the publishers wanted even more stories starring Thomas, and Britt Allcroft needed a set of stories to adapt for the TV Series anyways. According to Christopher, the stories were already been set and ready to go, but the book itself kept getting rejected despite his attempts. With Christopher now retired from writing the books, it seems likely to stay that way.
23** ''Thomas & Victoria'' was originally planned to release in 1997. however, due to publisher Egmont putting the series on hiatus due to negative backlash towards their poorly received reformat, the book would not see a release til ''2007''. 10 years after its original planned release.
24* ExecutiveMeddling: The success of ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' led requests from the publishers for more "Thomas" volumes. Christopher occasionally worked around this by including Thomas in the title but only featuring him in one of the four stories, though this got ridiculous at times; ''Thomas and the Fat Controller's Engines'' was supposed to only be called ''The Fat Controller's Engines'', but was forced to have the titular character's name at the last minute. ''Sodor: Reading Between the Lines'' confirms that this overall overwhelmed Christopher's original ideas unless they could be used for merchandising purposes; ''Jock the New Engine'', for example, was only allowed to be published to allow for a new character to market-originally, the publishers had been wanting yet another Thomas-centered story.
25** Henry was twice planned to be written out of the series. In his initial story he was intended to remain bricked up in the tunnel and remain disconnected from Sodor. However, Kaye and Ward requested a happy ending for Henry that has him interact with the other engines of the book. Whether or not that was a good decision is up to you. Later, Awdry was frustrated with Henry's similarities to Gordon, so intended to silently 'kill him off' due to his failing health. Fans and publishers objected, so Awdry instead gave him an EmergencyTransformation to establish a new distinctive design for the character (from a Frankenstein's creation mixing an LNER C1 and GNR A1 into an LMS Stanier Black 5).
26** ''Sodor: Reading Between the Lines'' confirms that the book set for 1986 was already prepped to be published, but was pushed aside for ''More About Thomas the Tank Engine'' to give the TV Series stories to adapt (as they could not write original material at the time). Based on the timeline (and seen in DevelopmentHell), it seems very likely that the original book for 1986 was meant to be ''Barry the Rescue Engine''.
27** According to Christopher Awdry, the story "Trouble on the Line" was based around railway safety, but was watered down by the publishers (apparently, the original reflected badly on crowd control at the National Railway Museum, so it presumably involved a member of the crowd falling onto the line, as opposed to a bag being thrown on). As a result, Christopher Awdry was prompted to write the railway safety books "Bad Days for Thomas and his Friends" and "More Bad Days for Thomas and his Friends".
28** After the death of Wilbert, Britt Allcroft obtained the copyright for the books and sold them to Egmont Books, who redesigned the book format and republished the books with cropped images, whilst also putting the original versions out-of-print. This was not well-received and was the main reason for the hiatus put on the stories, hence why only two more books were published after 1996.
29* FilmingLocationCameo: One of the illustrations for Duke the Lost Engine in "You Can't Win" depicts a real life location on the abandoned Ravenglass & Eskdale grade just outside the end of the modern day line at [[https://goo.gl/maps/wHt419BHYk1mghCg6 Dalegarth Station]]. The Ravenglass & Eskdale is a miniature railroad relaid over abandoned narrow gauge track, and was the inspiration for the Arlesdale Railway in the series. The cottages at Dalegarth are drawn in the background of "You Can't Win" as Stuart and Duke are passing by in the book's illustration.
30** Barrow-In-Furness, England is a real life location that is in-universe the terminus of the North Western Railway. Although the location begins appearing in the series whenever the North Western engines are exchanging passengers and goods with the "Other Railway," Christopher's stories with Clive Spong's illustrations depict the real life station at Barrow-In-Furness very accurately.
31* FranchiseOwnershipAcquisition: The Railway Series has burned through many different owners, with its television adaptation ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' having a hand in its numerous owners over time. The first twenty-one books were published by Edmund Ward Publishers, which merged with Nicholas Kaye Limited in 1967 to form Kaye & Ward Limited. They were still the owners of the book series until 1997, when Britt Allcroft purchased the rights following the Rev. W. Awdry's death. The Britt Allcroft Company's properties then went to Gullane Entertainment in 2000 after ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad'' [[Main/{{Pun}} derailed]] [[Main/BoxOfficeBomb at the box office]]. Then in 2002, Creator/HITEntertainment purchased Gullane, along with the entire ''Thomas'' franchise (except ''Magic Railroad'', which is owned by Creator/{{Sony}}). Finally, in 2012, Creator/{{Mattel}} bought out HIT Entertainment.
32* 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. 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.
33* InspirationForTheWork: The genesis for the series came when Rev. Awdry would listen to the train noises outside his window and imagine that the engines were having conversations.
34* KeepCirculatingTheTapes:
35** While the original books by Wilbert Awdry are easy to find, the later books by Christopher Awdry are notably more difficult and expensive these days by comparsion, and copies of his books can frequently go up into the [[CrackIsCheaper hundreds or even thousands]]. This is likely due to his books having been out of print and not seeing many rereleases beyond their original printing unlike Wilbert's, which have seen numerous rereleases since their original release. The one compilation featuring his stories is also notoriously hard to find as well.
36** ''The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways''. The [[AllThereInTheManual guidebook]] by Wilbert Awdry, has not received any kind of rerelease since 1992, making it incredibly difficult to find and expensive to obtain. Christopher attempted to get it republished in the 2000s, even offering to buy it and release it himself, however all plans have failed, leading him to make a new guidebook known as ''Sodor: Reading Between the Lines'' in its place instead.
37** Multiple audiobooks of the series have been made, while some have been re-released digitally (mostly those made under the TV series label), you'll be lucky to find many others besides old vinyls and cassettes. Narrations include the likes of Johnny Morris, Willie Rushton, Sir John Gielgud and Ted Robbins.
38** The first versions of ''The Three Railway Engines'' and ''Thomas the Tank Engine'' (illustrated by William Middleton and Reginald Payne respectively) have not seen any rereleases beyond their original printing, making them incredibly rare and expensive, with the first version of ''The Three Railway Engine'' often going up into the thousands. In fact, the original 1946 version of ''Thomas the Tank Engine'' was considered [[MissingEpisode lost media]] for a long while until 2017.
39* MilestoneCelebration: ​
40** ''Thomas and the Fat Controller's Engines'' was released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ''The Railway Series'' and the overarching narrative in the book is centered around hosting a golden jubilee to celebrate it.
41** ''Sodor: Reading Between the Lines'' was created and published in honor of the 60th anniversary of ''The Railway Series'' after Christopher's attempts to get ''The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways'' reprinted all failed.
42** The GrandFinale, ''Thomas and his Friends'', was published in honor of the centennial anniversary of Wilbert Awdry.
43* OldShame:
44** Christopher Awdry was unsatisfied with the novel ''More About Thomas the Tank Engine''. The Awdrys had been pushed to publish more stories starring Thomas to coincide with the TV show and give it more adaptation material. Christopher Awdry found the final result rushed and disliked the final story "Drip Tank" due to the use of now outdated slang as a plot pivot. Noticeably "Drip Tank" is the only story of the book not adapted into a TV episode. He also was not a fan of how it was written to meet a deadline; Christopher had prepared a different book for 1986 (likely ''Barry the Rescue Engine''), and had to change it despite said book being ready to go. He admits that the uncreative title was due to said deadline and wishes he had thought of a better one.
45** To a lesser extent, Wilbert Awdry stated "James the Red Engine" to be his least favourite work due to being written hastily to meet a deadline as well.
46** The original text of "Henry's Sneeze" stated that Henry's "sneeze" of coal dust and soot, over some schoolboys dropping rocks on trains, left the boys running away "black as niggers". In 1972 this sentence was reworded for future editions, for obvious reasons.
47* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
48** Skarloey Railway locomotives sometimes visit the Talyllyn Railway, a move designed to write in the fact that Talyllyn locomotives are sometimes decorated to look like their Skarloey counterparts. (Notably, Sir Handel spends 1983 in Talyllyn.)
49** On a larger scale, the mass Dieselisation of the 60s was the basis for a number of books in the series. ''Duck and the Diesel Engine'' was essentially a setup for how the steam engines viewed diesels in later volumes. Books like ''The Twin Engines'', ''Stepney The "Bluebell" Engine'' and ''Enterprising Engines'', showed the severity of what happened to steam engines not lucky enough to be preserved. And ''The Little Old Engine'', ''Branchline Engines'', ''Mainline Engines'', ''Tramway Engines'', ''Jock The New Engine'', ''James and the Diesel Engines'' and ''Gordon The High Speed Engine'' all introduced us to diesels that were very friendly (Rusty, Daisy, Boco, Mavis, Frank, The Works Diesel and Pip & Emma), along with Bear in the aforementioned ''Enterprising Engines''. Indeed, the steam engine's changing attitude to diesels echoed the Awdrys' and the wider preservation movement's attitude to them - early on diesel traction was seen as an invasion of soulless boxes, but many diesel locomotives eventually became equally beloved (notably the Deltics, Westerns, and Hymeks like Bear).
50** Inversely, the updated safety regulations and limited traffic on the Snowdon Mountain Railway, the real-life basis for the Culdee Fell Railway, killed off any possibility for future mountain engine stories (hasn't stopped fans from writing their own CFR stories, though).
51*** The elimination of steam from revenue service and the equally strict safety regulations that heritage railways must follow had a similar effect on the books in general from the 90s onward.
52* SequelGap: There was an 11 year gap between ''New Little Engine'' (1996) and ''Thomas and Victoria'' (2007). This was due to publisher Egmont putting the series on an enforced hiatus due to the poor reception of their reformat of the books.
53* SerendipityWritesThePlot:
54** Henry's repaint back to green livery, plus his EmergencyTransformation into a new build, were written due to problems distinguishing the character from Gordon, a similar large tender engine with blue livery (an especially egregious example can be found in ''Tank Engine Thomas Again'', in which Henry has square buffers due to C. Reginald Dalby being a notoriously difficult illustrator to work with; Awdry later explained that Henry had these because there were no other spare buffers available).
55** The fourth story of "Three Railway Engines" was only created from a request by publishers, who wanted a happier outcome for Henry where he meets with Edward and Gordon. However, not only did this have significant effect on later novels' world building, but would play into the four story format for nearly every book afterwards.
56* TechnologyMarchesOn: Paradoxically averted on both Sodor and the other railway.
57** On Sodor, the Fat Controller is savvy enough to know both steam and diesel have their advantages and disadvantages, keeping steam power, enables versatility.
58** On the mainland, the diesels are always shown as largely arrogant and think themselves immune to scrapping, from newer, more powerful, more reliable, cheaper-to-run diesels or electric engines. Indeed, it seems the series never acknowledges they are neither immune to time or corrupt heartless controllers (though some trial runners are sent away for bad behavior). Indeed, [=BoCo=] and Bear's Other Railway counterparts had been earmarked for retirement at the time of their arrivals. Save for Pip and Emma (the High Speed Train engines) and The Works Diesel, none of the other diesels shown in the books have counterparts still in revenue service on the Other Railway by the series' end - and the High Speed Trains and Class 47s aren't far behind. Only Daisy and The Works Diesel among the diesels permanently assigned to Sodor belonged to classes that had long working lives after their arrivals.
59** Justified that Pip and Emma are young enough they were never ''built'' to replace steam engines to begin with, but instead were replacements for ''older diesels''. As such their friendly treatment of the steam on Sodor befits coming from a generation of diesels that were never intended to replace steam to begin with. The fact the two ''ultimately do'' replace Gordon is appropriately ironic.
60* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
61** ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' was not the first attempt to get a TV adaptation off the ground:
62*** A 1953 adaptation made using model trains was planned for BBC Children's Hour, and even got as far as airing the pilot, ''The Sad Story of Henry''. Due to being broadcast live and the BBC by all evidence [[AnimationAgeGhetto treating the model railway they needed as a child's toy rather than a serious hobby requiring actual skill]], the execution was sloppy, with an engine even derailing after points were set incorrectly. Awdry was critical of the poor handling as well as the "freely adapted" script, leading to the series being cancelled.
63*** In 1976, Creator/AndrewLloydWebber pitched the idea for a musical adaptation, labelled ''Thomas the Tank Engine'' much like the later approved series. Working with Brian Cosgrove, the show would have used a whimsical cut-out animation format reminiscent of ''Ivor the Engine''. Despite Awdry being apprehensive of Webber's creative liberties, a contract was signed and a pilot was made, though since Thomas had not yet gained much interest from the international market, the project was cancelled.
64** In addition several later stories were in fact made primarily so ''Thomas and Friends'' had material to adapt, though were never made into episodes. "Thomas and the Evil Diesel" is a standout case, since despite the novel being repackaged under the show multiple times it has never been televised proper.
65** Considering the ExecutiveMeddling for more Thomas stories versus Christopher's intentions to develop Sodor as a modern heritage network, as seen with the rejected ''Barry the Rescue Engine'', it does make one wonder what stories he had in mind had the books not been overshadowed by the television series and put on enforced hiatus.
66** Both the original [[https://pm1.narvii.com/7060/0d519861b1b46a9189afb8a19a174440d3745e66r1-924-569v2_hq.jpg toy train]] and [[https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/File:ThomasRevWAwdry.jpg early sketches of Thomas by Awdry]] featured a very different design for Thomas compared to the one featured in the books proper, as he was originally based off of an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNR_Class_J23 Class J50 tank engine]] as opposed to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LB%26SCR_E2_class E2 Tank Engine]] that would ultimately be used as the basis for Thomas' final design thanks to illustrator Reginald Payne.
67** Henry was originally intended by Awdry to be an 4-4-2 Atlantic and was depicted as such in Awdry's original sketches, however, William Middleton decided to depict him similar to Gordon, which other authors would follow suit, much to Awdry's dismay.
68*** Because of these issues with Henry's shape and wheel arrangement, Awdry gained a distaste for the character and originally wanted to have Henry KilledOffForReal, however due to finding out that kids loved the character, he decided to keep him around, but have him radically redesigned InUniverse to be a Black 5 instead so the illustrators would finally draw him consistently.
69** Reginald Payne was originally due to be asked to come back to do ''James the Red Engine'', however a nervous breakdown he had due to issues in the Admiralty made him unable to do anymore art. Rev. Awdry considered collaborating with Barbara Bean to make the illustrations himself at first, though Edmund Ward commissioned C. Reginald Dalby for the book instead.
70** If it wasn't for the success of ''Thomas the Tank Engine'' and kids sending in letters wanting more, the Railway Series would have consisted of only 2 books instead of 42, as Awdry initially wanted to end the series after ''Thomas the Tank Engine'', only deciding to continue onwards due to the book's great reception.
71** There are a number of characters who were never introduced even in the books proper.
72*** In addition to Henrietta, Toby also had a baggage car named Elsie.
73*** 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 an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Ivatt_Class_2_2-6-2T LMS Ivatt Class 2-6-2T]] tank 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.
74*** The Small Railway had three unused diesel characters: Blister I, Blister II, and Sigrid Of Arlesdale.
75* WrittenForMyKids: The series were invented by Rev. Awdry to entertain his son Christopher during a bout of measles.

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