Trivia / Sodor: The True Stories

• Missing Episode: Originally, the 45th chapter was an adaptation of the fan story "Dirty Trucks, Dirty Sidings". However, a user on the project's Discord server raised fears that, since the story was largely adapted wholesale, the threat of the entire series being Screwed by the Lawyers existed. It was taken down shortly thereafter, and a new 45th chapter was posted in the form of an adaptation of the fifth season episode "Bye, George!"
• What Could Have Been: The first draft of "Tim and Ruby" involved a much longer ending in which it was discovered that certain Sentient engines could morph their faces into human bodies, leaving their engine body inanimate, mainly to allow Tim and Ruby to actually hug and kiss. This was rejected for being too outlandish even by Thomas standards, though a few elements of the original version were left in, including a scene where BoCo moves his face to his other end "as if by magic", and a scene at the very end involving a scientist named Dr. Mitton (named for the original series director David Mitton) receiving intel from an MI-5 agent known only as "Mr. Fehrle" (named for Phil Fehrle, who was the producer for the sixth and seventh seasons, as well as the cancelled Jack and the Sodor Construction Company spinoff and the ill-fated Thomas and the Magic Railroad) about emotions in Sentient engines; the original scene was about mutant essence, yet both scenes still have the same ending involving Dr. Mitton locking the pictures away lest the government do any experiments.
  • In early planning, Weiss was a GWR 2600 Class, and Blake was a GWR 4300 Class. This was eventually changed, with Weiss becoming an LNER B13, and Blake becoming a GWR 2800 Class, mainly so that the RWBY quartet would be made up of one representative from each of the Big Four (Ruby from the LMS, Weiss from the LNER, Blake from the GWR, and Yang from the SR). In addition, Blake and Weiss were originally going to know each other prior to coming to Sodor, with Weiss being a display piece at Newton Abbot station, before the latter is carted off to be scrapped alive for her Spectra, prompting Blake to join Aaron in forming the Knights of Steam.