Mr. Conductor

**Mr. Conductor,** or "Mr. C." as he is often nicknamed, is the protagonist of The Magic Railroad Parody. He was the third man to hold the title of "Mr. Conductor" as the resident storyteller at Shining Time Station, and worked on the North Western Railway for over 20 years until his retirement in August 2019.

## History:

**Mr. Conductor** is the son of the late Ringo Starr Conductor, and the father of Mr. Conductor Junior. Raised by a man obsessed with preserving the purity of his own childhood innocence, believing that the adult world was full of ignorance and tragedy, Mr. C. was extremely sheltered as a child and raised only to enjoy the familiar, not to stray outside his comfort zone. From his father, he also inherited a dependency on the super-psychoactive drug "gold dust" from a very young age.

In his early 20's, Mr. C. met and fell in love with the woman who would become Junior's Mother not long after. Following her frustrations with his inability to mature past his hedonistic obsessions and be a responsible father, she leaves Mr. C. and takes Junior with her. In order to protect Junior from his father, who she assumes will only be a bad influence like Ringo was, she tells her son that Mr. C. is merely a distant cousin. Per her wishes, Mr. C. remained almost entirely absent from Junior's childhood, which in turn was the catalyst for Junior's descent into delinquency and eventual escape to Scotland as a teenager. He too became addicted to "gold dust" not long after.

During his two decades working part-time, both as a caretaker at Shining Time Station and as a "temporary relief assistant conductor" on the Island of Sodor, Mr. C.'s struggles with addiction and general incompetency left him taking the jobs other rail-workers felt were beneath them. While at the absolute bottom of the company's hierarchy, he began to develop an unhealthy obsession with the power and status symbol ostentatiously displayed by his corrupt boss, Sir Topham Hatt, every waking minute. He wanted to be not only a railway controller, but to also regain control of his own life.

The winter before his retirement, Mr. Conductor was buried in a fallen snow drift he created by taking shortcuts while begrudgingly continuing the annual Conductor Family tradition of decorating the Sodor Grain Windmill in golden Christmas lights for the holiday.

The following August saw Mr. Conductor's power fantasies come to life, as he was temporarily placed in charge of the railways of Sodor while Topham fled to an expensive, cocaine-fueled vacation with his (much) younger wife. As a result of this blatant mismanagement, the railway immediately fell into disarray under Mr. C.'s watch. He would quickly abandon his prestigious position after less than one day to hunt down the clue to making more "gold dust" when his lifetime supply was threatened for the first time and he was unable to cope without it.

Along his meandering journey into the overgrown side of the Island, Mr. C. soon discovered that Topham was not a figure to be admired, and promptly gave up on his pipe-dream of climbing the corporate ladder just in time for Junior's arrival on Sodor after answering his distress call. In the absence of the bureaucratic aspirations which blinded him from the fulfilling life he threw away, Mr. C. unexpectedly reconnected with his son, filling the void left behind by his failures and eventually even revealed his true parentage to him.

With a strong bond established between father and son for the first time in both of their lives, Mr. C. and Junior are able to decode the nonsensical clue left by their dead relatives and solve their "gold dust" problem. However, now more content with his quality of life than ever, Mr. C. appoints Junior as Shining Time Station's new "Mr. Conductor", and leaves the Island of Sodor, his drugs, and his demons behind forever to retire in peace: a different man. A father.

## Introduction in Official Site:

The youngest in a long line of conductors, Mr. C. is an eccentric alcoholic who longs to one day be the head of a railway. When opportunity presents itself on the Island of Sodor, he leaves his home inside the mural of Shining Time Station to embark on an adventure that quickly leaves him without the drug he depends upon most of all - gold dust. With his days numbered and all credibility lost, Mr. C. must prove that he is still really useful - with or without his magic in order to save the universe from total destruction.

## Appearances:

* The Magic Railroad Parody
* The Magic Halloween Parody (mentioned)
* The Magic Christmas Parody

## Trivia:

* He is portrayed in The Magic Railroad Parody series by actor Robert Magee, most well-known for both his insightful, cinematic toy reviews and his accidental viral video hit.
* His character was significantly expanded upon from one-dimensional version conceived for the original 2000 film.