Thomas the Tank Engine television series layout?

It's not all computers,....
All the older stuff was done with models. The little story clips are all "animatronic" models.....still not certain what scale. I do belive (again) that more than one scale was used over a course of time. Some stuff looks like HO or O guage, some more like it might be G guage.
I know the newer PBS stuff has a lot of CG stuff,...but the stories remain "pure" (film).
Cosmo

All the episodes I ever saw when I was a child were done with models. The tracks appeared to be that of a G/LGB scale. When Shining time station was closed and made no longer the show, (it used to be called shining time station, and thomas the tank engine was the stories told), there was a special on how they made the Thomas stuff and it was all LGB stuff. The eye movements, movements of the trains and so forth were done with RC controllers. Different facial expressions were done by changing the 'skin' on their face to a different expression between scenes or cuts from different camera angles.

I have yet to see whats going on with PBS right now, but from the looks of the website thomas the tank engine is not the same as it was in 1988/89/90 when I started watching it.

Fortunatly for us, we scored a whole bin full of the old episodes (including the verry first, narrated by Beatle Ringo himself, where Thomas gets his branchline) for a song at a yard sale.
Our daughter loves em!

Hi All,

Had no idea that the series goes back that far. Since my Emily is only three years old, I have no idea it has been around that long. Have they gone through a series of writers or are they still rehashing old stories ?

Shining Time Station with Ringo Starr was also a bolt out of the blue. Vaguely remember it with my kids back in the year of the flood. Wasn't that in black and white ?

pennsy wrote:Hi All,

Had no idea that the series goes back that far. Since my Emily is only three years old, I have no idea it has been around that long. Have they gone through a series of writers or are they still rehashing old stories ?

Shining Time Station with Ringo Starr was also a bolt out of the blue. Vaguely remember it with my kids back in the year of the flood. Wasn't that in black and white ?

No it was not that far back! lol. It definatly started in the 80s, and it was always in color.

My 3 1/2 y.o. son has been a Thomas fanatic since he was 2. We have almost all of the little wooden trains and other rolling stock, and it has really brought my son into the hobby. He loves to ride trains and knows all about steam, diesel and electric trains (or so he likes to explain). Thomas is one of the few children's shows that I can tolerate (our house is a "Barney-free zone" LOL).

Sorta getting back to topic, Wikipedia has a more detailed map of Sodor than what is found on the Thomas & Friends web site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodor_%28f ... _island%29

[quote="Jersey Jeff"]My 3 1/2 y.o. son has been a Thomas fanatic since he was 2.

My daughter (also 3+1/2) since she could say "Tomas choo-choo!"

We have almost all of the little wooden trains and other rolling stock, and it has really brought my son into the hobby. He loves to ride trains and knows all about steam, diesel and electric trains (or so he likes to explain).

Well, Heather's still working on her vocab skills, but she can tell the difference.....

Thomas is one of the few children's shows that I can tolerate (our house is a "Barney-free zone" LOL).

That's great! Mine too!
("Uh-oh, Barney's comming on.....Heather,...wanna watch Thomas?")
LOL

[/b]

I had heard that the original was "G"Gauge, and later they switched to "HO".

D/

pennsy wrote:Hi All,

Had no idea that the series goes back that far. Since my Emily is only three years old, I have no idea it has been around that long. Have they gone through a series of writers or are they still rehashing old stories ?

For those of you who followed the links to the Island of Sodor, you already know that the entire series was written by Reverend Wilbert Awdry . Rev. Awdry published a series of 26 books, each with 3 short stories, every year from 1945-1972 with no books being published in 1947 or 1971. Most of the characters (locomotives) in the books were all covered in the series.

I've always had an interest in British railways, my great-grandfather, Edward Audley, having emigrated from Manchester, England in the late 1800's.

I used to watch the series myself, and I have no children to interest in the railway hobby. Hey, I'm 53 and still enjoy watching the shows, now titled "Thomas and Friends" but usually on too early on Saturday morning for me to see it here in the Washington, DC suburbs.

If anyone knows where I can pick up "Arthur", a LMS (London, Midland & Scottish) 2-6-2T, made by Ertl, please let me know.

CPSD40-2 wrote:Bachmann makes an operating model of all of the popular characters on that show, and they all seem to run better than most of Bachmann's other engines!

Recently, I bought the main characters (the ones that were 'main' characters back in the early 1990s, when I watched Shining Time Station with my kids). I have run a few of them, and they work well.

NOTE: I read some customer complaints on Amazon.com about these, which infer that after prolonged operation, these locos will overheat and some of the parts will melt. So, resist your little ones' demands to run these for long* periods of time.

Re the TV show: As I said, Shining Time Station was on back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, (and the Thomas the Tank Engine clips were shown during Ringo's narration of a story). I think when we watched it, it was the first few seasons (although they may have been reruns by then). Ringo Starr played the part of Mr. Conductor for the first season or two, then was replaced by George Carlin.

I haven't watched it (probably) in 15 years.



*(they didn't say how long was too long)

I have to admit that even as an adult, it's fun to watch STS for the models, and if you get the right episodes, hearing George Carlin do the story reading. In his autpbiography, he said he enjoyed doing it. He noted that the same kids that watched the show in the 1990s were coming to his standup shows ten years later, 'to complete their education'.

I remember reading that the models used in the 1990s were Marklin gauge 1 models, some from the regular range and some from the Maxi range (new at that time), with new superstructures on the engine mechanisms, some of which I recognized because I own some Marklin Gauge 1 engines. I'm not that familiar with any more recent episodes of the series, but if they have gone to CGI, that's not surprising.

Mike Bartel