From: czl30@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Chris Lee)
Newsgroups: rec.models.railroad
Subject: Re: Thomas the Tank Engine Layout
Date: 4 Sep 92 01:08:55 GMT
Reply-To: czl30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Chris Lee)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Sep3.200030.25448@newsgate.sps.mot.com> turner@ssdt-tempe.sps.mot.com (Robert Turner) writes:
>In the U.S.A. a children's show called "Shining Time Station" appears to
>use an HO layout for  "animated" features about Thomas the Tank Engine
>and his friends Gordon, James, Henry, and ...

The Thomas stuff was lifted from a British series called "Thomas the Tank
Engine and Friends", originally narrated by the ex-Beatle, Richard
Starky, a.k.a. Ringo Starr.

>
>OR I think it is an HO layout.  Does anybody know about the train layout
>used in the filming of these segments?

It's actually gauge 1 (10mm/ft). There was an article in (I think) the
Railway Modeller when the series was made. It uses Marklin gauge 1
mechanisms under British outline bodies.

>
>The layout is very impressive in its details.  I have a couple of children's
>story books with photographs of the layout that show an incredible amount of
>detailing in the track and the landscape.  Check of these story books for what
>can be done with a fairly large budget.

Yes, I like it too, but I preferred the original smaller format books,
with artist's drawings of the trains and situations. The books were
written by the Rev. W. Awdry, and they started off as bed-time stories
for his son, Christopher (an author of railway books in his own right)
who had acquired a toy engine with a face, which he called Thomas.

The engines are all based on real British prototypes, but sometimes the
pictures didn't come out the way the author intended, because the
artist sometimes hadn't seen the actual engine. Thomas, for instance
was an ex London, Brighton and South Coast tank engine. Toby was based
on the tram engines on the Wisbech and Upwell line of the Great Eastern.

The location is the mythical island of Sodor, in the Irish Sea, between
the Furness peninsula of northwest England, and the Isle of Man. The
full title of the bishop of the Isle of Man is the Bishop of Sodor and
Man. The island is reached by a tunnel from Barrow-in-Furness.

The people are based on real railway enthusiasts: Sir Topham Hatt is known
as the Fat Controller in the original books. I forget who he was, but the
Thin Controller was Gerry Fiennes, who was controller on the Eastern
region of BR. The Fat Clergyman was Teddy Boston of Cadeby who has a
huge model railway in the rectory, and narrow and standard gauge live
steam in the rectory grounds. The Thin Clergyman was Peter Denny, who had
a famous model railway (Buckingham, Great Central). Awdry himself was a
keen modeller who used to take his layouts to various shows. I've seen
his Ffarquar branch, which was Thomas's line, and Skarloey Railway, which
was based on the narrow gauge Talyllyn Railway in Wales.

>
>FYI: the closing credits has some nice helicopter shots of a steam train
>speeding across a lovely green countryside.  Too short, however.
>
>Any information floating around out there in net-land?
>
>Robert
>-- 
>Robert Turner (602) 897-5441 Semiconductor Systems Design Technology, Motorola
>turner@ssdt-tempe.sps.mot.com   OR   ...!uunet!dover!turner
>GOD is real, unless declared integer. --J. Allan Toogood

I'm suprised how successful the series is in the US because all the
railway features are totally unlike US railway practice although it
is pretty authentic for Britain: high station platforms, left hand
running etc.

The British firm Hornby make Thomas sets that will run on HO track. These
are to OO scale, which is 4mm/ft, where HO is 3.5mm/ft. Mixing them with
US trains looks a bit silly, because the US prototypes are considerably
larger than the Thomas prototypes.

Chris Lee