Thomas the Tank Engine

**Thomas the Tank Engine** is a fictional steam locomotive in _The Railway Series_ books by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher. He became the most popular character in the series. He is the title character in the television series, _Thomas and Friends_.

## Origins

On Christmas 1942, Wilbert Awdry gave his son Christopher a wooden model of a blue steam engine. Christopher named it Thomas. Wilbert would later write the second _Railway Series_ book focused on Thomas. He published the book after his wife Margaret encouraged him to do so. Illustrated by Reginald Payne, Thomas was based on an LB&SCR E2 class tank engine.

## Characteristics

Thomas is introduced as being very cheeky and fussy. He thinks his job is the most important one, and thus looks down on everyone else despite being the smallest at the time. He also tends to ignore advice and prefer doing jobs on his own. These two flaws cause him to get into accidents a lot. As the series goes on, Thomas became less selfish and got more mature over time.

### Awards

Thomas was the only fictional character included in _The Independent on Sunday_s 2009 "Happy List". He was listed alongside 98 real-life adults and a therapy dog for making Britain a better and happier place. In 2011, Thomas appeared on a series of 1st class UK postage stamps handed out by the Royal Mail. The postal service company did this to mark the centenary of the birth of Wilbert Awdry.

### Legacy

From 2014, the  in Japan dressed up five of their locomotives to look like characters from _Thomas and Friends_. These characters are Thomas, Hiro, Percy, James, and Rusty. The locomotives are based at Shin-Kanaya Station. Train rides operate between Shin-Kanaya Station and Ieyama Station.

The 2015 Marvel superhero movie _Ant-Man_ features a model of Thomas. Director Peyton Reed and his production team had made sure not to make Thomas seen as evil by children. They achieved this by writing Thomas as neutral during the fighting sequence and rendering him using computer graphics to make production simpler.

Video game players have frequently modified released games to include Thomas and other characters. One of the first popular efforts was replacing dragons with _Thomas and Friends_ characters in the game _The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim_ in 2013. Since then, Thomas has been incorporated into other games like _Grand Theft Auto V_, _Sonic the Hedgehog_ and the 2019 _Resident Evil 2_ remake.

## Related pages

- __ – an American short story featuring a similar blue locomotive character
- Hatsune Miku – a Japanese vocal synthesiser mascot with similar characteristics and cultural influence as Thomas

## Infobox (character)

- **colour**: skyblue
- **series**: Thomas & Friends
- **name**: Thomas the Tank Engine
- **image**: Thomas the tank engine.jpg
- **caption**: A tank engine customised to look like Thomas at a Day Out With Thomas event
- **first**: _Thomas the Tank Engine_ (1946)
- **creator**: Wilbert Awdry
Christopher Awdry
- **designer**: L. B. Billinton (in-universe)
Reginald Payne
- **species**: Steam locomotive
- **gender**: Male
- **nationality**: English (formerly)
Sudric
- **lbl1**: Number
- **data1**: NWR 1 (formerly, London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, L.B.S.C. 70 in _Thomas & Friends_)