50 Fun Facts About Thomas the Tank Engine

What are the names of the two faithful carriages Thomas pulls along his branch line?

Annie and Clarabel came with the branch line Thomas was given as a reward, and he loves them dearly, though in one early story he steams off and leaves their guard behind by mistake.

Which of Thomas's fellow engines is bricked up in a tunnel after refusing to come out in the rain?

Henry stayed walled in until a train broke down that one engine could not shift alone, and he was let out to help pull it.

Thomas is modelled on tank engines of a railway linking London with which resort?

Brighton: Thomas was drawn as an E2 of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Only ten were built and every one was scrapped in the 1960s, so none of the real engines survives.

In his first book, Thomas fetches what for the bigger engines?

Coaches: when he teased the express engine once too often, it set off before Thomas could be uncoupled from them and dragged the little shunter along at top speed.

Which book launched Awdry's series in 1945, a year before Thomas appeared?

The Three Railway Engines had no Thomas in it at all, and its first pictures so displeased Awdry that the whole book was later redrawn by another artist.

Which tractor does Thomas mock for his caterpillar tracks, only to need his help in a snowdrift?

Terence got the last laugh: Thomas laughed at the tracks, then stuck fast in a snowdrift, and it was Terence who pulled him free and earned an apology.

Awdry's son reportedly asked for a wooden model of which engine, but got the toy that became Thomas instead?

Gordon was too much for the odds and ends Awdry could find in wartime, so he made a small tank engine instead and gave it to his son for Christmas.

Which illness kept young Christopher Awdry in bed when his father first told him the engine stories?

Measles kept Christopher in bed, and he had the tales told over and over, correcting every slip, until his father wrote them down to keep them straight.

Which title relaunched The Railway Series in 1983, eleven years after Wilbert Awdry's final book?

Really Useful Engines was the first of 16 books by Awdry's son Christopher, the boy the stories were first told to, who wrote his as bedtime tales for his own son; together they make 42.

Which road vehicle boasts he is faster than Thomas, races him along the branch line and loses?

Bertie the Bus claimed he was the faster of the two, but lost the race to the end of the line after having to stop at a traffic light, and the pair became friends.

Which emerald-green tender engine arrived in series 7 of Thomas & Friends and joined the Steam Team?

Emily made a bad start by borrowing Thomas's carriages without his knowledge; all was forgiven after she saved Oliver from a nasty accident, and she was given two of her own.

Awdry complained that illustrator C. Reginald Dalby drew which engine like 'a green caterpillar with red stripes'?

Percy was the final straw: Dalby took offence at the caterpillar jibe and quit the series in 1956.

Which engine was the hero of Awdry's first story for his sick son, about an old engine left sad in the shed?

Edward's Day Out went on to open the first book, where the little old engine who had not been out for so long ends up helping a far bigger one up a hill.

What is the Fat Controller's real name?

Sir Topham Hatt is the only name American audiences hear: the makers of the US version thought 'the Fat Controller' too unkind and used his real name instead.

What was the Fat Controller called in the first two books of The Railway Series?

The Fat Director was renamed in the third book because Britain's railways were nationalised in 1948, which turned a private company's director into a regional controller.

Which Beatle narrated the first two series of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends?

Ringo Starr assumed he was wanted for his Beatles fame, but producer Britt Allcroft said it had nothing to do with that: she thought his mellow Liverpool voice was perfect for storytelling.

Who replaced the original narrator of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends for American viewers?

George Carlin was cast on the strength of his voice alone; producer Britt Allcroft recalled that he was nervous with no audience in the booth, so a teddy bear sat in on every recording.

Which James Bond actor narrated the 2008 Thomas & Friends special The Great Discovery?

Pierce Brosnan was unveiled in 2007 as the show's new regular narrator, but in the end The Great Discovery was the only Thomas story released with his voice.

Producer Britt Allcroft discovered The Railway Series while making a film about which heritage line?

Bluebell Railway research put the books in her hands: she told Awdry she loved 'this whole little world' he had created and offered to bring it to the screen herself.

After the BBC's 1953 Railway Series adaptation flopped, which channel launched the 1984 Thomas series?

ITV's series succeeded where the BBC's attempt, scrapped soon after viewers complained, had failed; its producer had spent four years raising the money to film the first 26 episodes.

In the show's 1983 pilot, Thomas ignores a danger sign and ends up where?

A mine: the track gave way beneath him and a bigger engine he had been teasing was sent to haul him out. The test film, 'Down the Mine', then sat unseen until it was restored and released in 2025.

In the US, Thomas stories first appeared as segments of which PBS show?

Shining Time Station wrapped the short British films in a live-action show set at a small-town railway station, where a tiny Mr. Conductor who lived in the wall told the Thomas stories.

What brought the engines to life in 1984's Thomas series?

Radio-controlled models ran on a real miniature railway while a single narrator told every story; the engines only got voices of their own when computer animation arrived in 2009.

In one classic story, Thomas's crew top up his tank with river water, and what gets in with it?

Fish: Thomas felt a pain in his boiler, an inspector found his pipe blocked, and the crew pulled the catch out of his tank and ate it with chips.

Which toy giant bought HIT Entertainment, Thomas's owner, for $680 million in 2011?

Mattel is said to have wanted Thomas on his own, but in the end it bought the whole company, which brought Barney, Bob the Builder and Pingu along with him.

Which 2018 rebrand swapped two of Awdry's engines for two new female ones?

Big World! Big Adventures! sent Thomas to China, India and Australia, and its film took him to Brazil and the United States, while Nia and Rebecca moved into the Steam Team.

Nia, who joined Thomas's Steam Team in 2018, was the show's first engine from which continent?

Africa: Nia was developed with help from the United Nations, which held workshops with the producers to work five of its Sustainable Development Goals into the new stories.

Which 2021 reboot of Thomas & Friends moved to 2D animation by Canada's Nelvana?

All Engines Go replaced the original series outright, ending a run that had lasted from 1984 to 2021, and redrew Thomas as a younger cartoon engine.

Which composer's abandoned 1970s TV musical of The Railway Series later inspired one of his stage hits?

Andrew Lloyd Webber's version never got beyond a pilot, but the idea of singing trains resurfaced in 1984 as Starlight Express.

Which 2000 film was the Thomas franchise's first cinema release?

Thomas and the Magic Railroad was recut so heavily after test screenings that its human villain, P.T. Boomer, vanished from the story, and it still took only $19.7 million against a $19 million budget.

Who played Mr. Conductor in Thomas's 2000 big-screen adventure?

Alec Baldwin's Mr. Conductor spends the film running short of the gold dust that carries him to Sodor; Fonda and Means played other parts in it.

Which claw-armed villain hunts the lost engine Lady in Thomas's 2000 cinema film?

Diesel 10 calls the hydraulic claw on his roof 'Pinchy'; his lines were re-recorded by Neil Crone before release, replacing the actor heard in the first cut.

Which old wooden tram engine came to Sodor with his coach Henrietta after his own line closed down?

Toby was sent for after a policeman barred Thomas from the roadside line to the quarry for having no cowcatchers or side plates; Toby had both.

Which 2009 special first gave the engines in the TV series voices of their own?

Hero of the Rails gave Thomas a British voice, Ben Small, and an American one, Martin Sherman, who walked out five years later in a contract dispute, saying he felt bullied.

What is Sodor's native language called in Awdry's books?

Sudric belongs to the detailed island history Awdry drew up with his brother George, maps and all, so that the stories' scenery stayed consistent and readers' awkward questions had answers.

Which real island's diocese name inspired Awdry to invent Sodor?

Isle of Man: on a preaching trip there Awdry noticed that its bishop is Bishop of Sodor and Man, yet no island called Sodor existed, so he drew one into the sea next door.

Thomas's branch line runs from the junction at Knapford up to which village?

Ffarquhar was also the name of the model railway Awdry built of Thomas's branch and took to exhibitions around the country.

Which Welsh line, where Awdry volunteered as a guard, inspired Sodor's Skarloey Railway?

Talyllyn Railway: a mishap from his first stint as guard in 1952, when the train left the tea lady behind, went straight into one of his Skarloey stories.

Sodor's Culdee Fell Railway, which climbs the island's highest peak, copies which real line?

Snowdon Mountain Railway is Britain's only public rack line: the climb is so steep that cogs under the trains grip a toothed rail, and Awdry gave his mountain engines the same.

What is the Fat Controller's standard-gauge railway on Sodor called?

North Western Railway trains reach the mainland by a bridge at Barrow-in-Furness, where Awdry swapped the real Vickerstown on Walney Island for a 'Vicarstown' of his own.

Which character from the Thomas stories sneers that railways are slow and out of date, then loses a race to an engine?

Harold the Helicopter lost for want of somewhere to land: the small tank engine he had sneered at was already at the wharf while he was still hovering overhead.

Which real locomotive appears in the books as the last surviving brother of Sodor's express engine?

Flying Scotsman's visit was laid on to cheer up the big blue engine, who had been miserable since hearing that the rest of his class had gone for scrap.

Wilbert Awdry wrote himself into his later Railway Series books as which character?

The Thin Clergyman turns up as a railway enthusiast alongside a Fat Clergyman, Awdry's friend the Rev. Teddy Boston, who in real life built a railway in the grounds of his Leicestershire rectory.

As a boy in Wiltshire, Awdry lay in bed hearing engines 'talk' as they climbed which railway's main line?

Great Western trains laboured up the slope to Box Tunnel near his home, and Awdry said it took little imagination to hear, in the puffing and panting, what the engines were saying to each other.

Which real-life figure visits Sodor in an early Railway Series story, arriving by special train?

Queen Elizabeth II visits in a book published in 1953, the year of her coronation; one hopeful engine is ruled out when a pot of paint lands on him, and the proud express engine gets the Royal Train.

Which company launched the OO gauge 'World of Thomas the Tank Engine' range in 1985?

Hornby already sold a model of the real E2 tank engine, so its Thomas was that model given a face and longer water tanks.

In which Marvel film does a toy Thomas swell to full size and land on a police car?

Ant-Man's makers had to pitch the scene to Thomas's owners, who found it funny but set conditions: nobody could be tied to the tracks and run over by him.

A famous 2013 mod replaced the dragons of which video game with Thomas the Tank Engine?

Skyrim's dragons became airborne, fire-breathing engines, and the joke spread: a later mod for the Resident Evil 2 remake gives its stalking monster, Mr. X, the face of Thomas.

In Thomas and the Breakdown Train, Thomas rescues which engine and wins a branch line?

James came to grief when his wooden brake blocks caught fire and the trucks pushed him off the rails into a field; Thomas fetched the breakdown train to rescue him.

In a famous 1961 story, a cleaner's carelessness sends Thomas rolling away to crash into what?

A stationmaster's house: Thomas crashed into it, ruined the family's breakfast and had to be sent away to the Works for repairs.