I remember being really scared of Diesel 10, the one with the claw on top, who appeared in the feature film they made about 15 years ago. Other than that, the series that started with Cranky the Crane toppling over twice, I remember for being unusually dark for a young children's TV show.
That ridiculous modern film churned out by Britt Allcroft, who have b*st*rdised the whole notion of Thomas the Tank Engine, has nothing to do with the Railway Series as written by the Reverend W. Awdry, or his son Christopher, and certainly shouldn't be considered canon. The same goes for the TV series from, according to Wikipedia, series 5, where it began to deviate widely from the original Railway Series as had been portrayed in the first four series (primarily the first two), and as far as I can tell has introduced a bewildering supporting cast of additional characters never mentioned in any of the books and a whole host of non-prototypical situations.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
That quote is from 1963. I think it's more a statement about Beeching than anything else.
There were plenty of steam locos being scrapped in 1963: The East Coast Pacifics started to go around this time for one, as they were ousted by Deltics.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
If Sodor is this 'sanctuary of the railway' we need to send the 442s over and attach new couplers to the Sodor engines. The kettles survive and the 442s find a use.
In the books, the railways of Sodor did modernise to an extent in line with contemporary events on "the other railway" (BR). Various diesels were trialled, some more successfully than others. Early on, there was of course the slimy 08 shunter "Diesel" who was sent away after causing considerable trouble for Duck, and the much more successful "Boco", who after being initially tormented by Bill and Ben became far more settled on Sodor.
Later on, a ficitional "Hymek" (D7101) became resident on the island as a "really useful engine", at the same time as the trial of a dreadfully unreliable "Peak" took place! In one of the later Christopher Awdry stories, there's even the visit of an HST (with power cars named Pip and Emma) to the island!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Those scrap engines add a whole other dimension.
Are trains born? When do they become sentient? When and how do they die? Do they feel the pain?
They killed them!
What's interesting is that not all of the engines of the "other railway" are shown with faces in the illustrations: For instance, I don't think that we ever see the face of "City of Truro" when "he" visits the island, and when Gordon takes the express all the way to London as a result of the fresh engine from the "other railway" derailing when coming off shed, you can see, in the distance, a green pacific or somesuch overturned from head on but with no face.
Plenty of others are shown with faces, though, including "Mallard" in a later book, which is interesting as of course the artist couldn't just stick to the usual oval template.
:P
