One of our son's favorite things, for some time now but the last few months especially, is Thomas the Tank Engine. I'll admit that I'm into it a little bit too, depending on the material.
It started with some new-ish books that my wife found at a consignment sale. He loved them right away, except one called 'Thomas in Charge' for some reason. Since then we've been acquiring wooden trains and checking out the old TV series. By now I've got the different properties figured out and feel the need to share.
First things first, who is Thomas? Thomas is a young, exuberant steam (or tank) engine who dreams of bigger things, and whose most seen characteristic is that he's 'too excited to listen.' He lives on Sodor, a fictitious landmass placed between the island of Great Britain and the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. This is a clever location because everywhere on the island is made up but they can then travel to, or have visitors from, real places nearby. The entire island is based around the railway and it's run by a man called Sir Topham Hatt, the spitting image of John Bull. It's all very English. There's an ever growing cast of characters, engines and train cars and other vehicles as well, that all have distinct personalities (and faces). Doing your job well is an important part of living on Sodor and the biggest compliment an engine can be paid is to be declared 'Really Useful.' Typically it's various un-admirable character traits (e.g. pride) that get in the way, though misfortunes happen too.
Today everything you see Thomas branded is 'Thomas and Friends.' The TV show is the source of all this and it's currently the basis for the movies and books and toys. Maybe I'm overly harsh but my opinion is the vast majority of new Thomas stories, from the last 10-15 years or so, are pretty much terribly pointless fluff. Our exposure has really only been through books found at the Frederick library and, while our son absolutely loved them and wanted to hear them again and again (which we obliged), they were frustrating to read. It's almost comical that the newer they got, the worse they were. In these stories the engines move on their own without help from humans and a job for trains is all too often no longer the plot. Plus they just keep adding more and more side characters that seem to be replacing the uniquely lovable standbys. It doesn't express confidence when they don't even put an authors name on them, only the illustrator.
It was when we started watching the TV series from the beginning, called 'Thomas and Friends Classic' (seasons 1-7, available for easy viewing on Prime) that I realized this was at one point based on old books. Called The Railway Series, the original stories and characters were created by the Rev. Wilbert Awdry, an Anglican priest, for his son Christopher. Somewhat amusingly the initial stories didn't even include Thomas, instead introducing Edward ('the Blue Engine' #2), Gordon ('the Big Engine' #4) and Henry ('the Green Engine' #3). After developing these in 1942 Rev. Awdry then created a toy engine, named Thomas, for his son and more writing was needed. That first book, The Three Railway Engines, was published in 1945. His second, Thomas the Tank Engine, was published in 1946 with house-favorite Thomas becoming a central character. 26 books were published in total by 1972, with 105 stories by my count. Christopher would later write more.
I wanted to find these books and read them to our son. This was a somewhat difficult task, partially because there don't appear to be a lot of them floating around, partially because at this point I didn't really know what I was looking for. On seeing huge box sets on Amazon for $100 or more I decided to pass, though I did eventually find the Thomas origin stories at our local used bookstore. After reading those every day at bedtime for weeks I knew they wouldn't be enough. It wasn't long afterward that we added a used collection that was sizable but still affordable. It's a really cool, big single volume book that our son has been obsessed with ever since. It helped entertain him on the long drive for the move and we now read it every night, abandoning all the other books in his room. The only flaw is it contains just 13 of the 26 books written by the Rev. Awdry. So there's more to find!
These old stories are great because they're simple and meaningful and, all things considered, realistic. Each story only takes a few minutes to read and rarely is the narrative hard to understand. Awdry skillfully utilized his different characters to teach little lessons about how to be a useful member of society, how to overcome obstacles and how to get along with others. I will say it's rather clear these are old tales. When the engines are rude or selfish, the lessons are more or less about how they deserved what comes to them. Playful teasing somewhat regularly comes off as justified. For one example, there's no way 'The Sad Story of Henry' would be published today. What I like about it, however, is that after being abandoned in the tunnel he earns a chance at redemption in the very next story and comes through for the railway in a time of need. This is how it goes all the way through and it's heartwarming to watch the trains learn to be better versions of themselves and strengthen their friendships. And it happens through cute short stories that are frequently truly funny. It also continues to impress how clearly the different personalities shine through in a remarkably short amount of storytelling.
I do mean what I say about the stories being realistic, if we can discount the strong-willed talking trains. Many, even most, include or are about the mechanics of how the railway operates. There are whistles and flags, water towers and signals and more. Each engine has a crew, with a driver and a fireman (who tends the fire that generates steam) and there's usually a guard at the back too. The trains don't go by themselves unless there's a scary situation. This type of train needs water in the tank and it's dangerous if it runs out. Trouble can happen if an engine is careless or inattentive with (the constantly troublesome) freight cars while coaches need to be treated with care so they don't break. An engine will get frustrated if another is running late at a timed connection. There's a story about how a guard is left behind and needs to run down the tracks to catch up. One of my favorites is when a 'sickly' engine with a small firebox gets fixed so he can actually perform as expected and doesn't need to be replaced. There's a lot of that actually, a latent sadness if you will, as the steam engines seem to know, even in the 40s/50s, they're an old form of technology whose heyday has passed. A similar outdated piece of machinery, a traction engine, is saved from the scrap heap. There's tension between the steam engines and a newly arrived diesel engine, though that's more about the fact the newcomer is devious and underhanded. Altogether, this quaint nature is a large part of the appeal.
There's no doubt I like the Railway Series more than anything related to the current version of Thomas and Friends. I'm enjoying that our kid can't get enough of it either and we're already on the third read-through of the 500 page book. If you want to have a good idea of what these stories are like, without locating the physical book like I did, check out season one of Thomas and Friends Classic. These are taken basically word for word from Awdry and amusing to see on screen, not least because it was made in 1984 and they didn't smooth over the language. Even funnier, if you find the British versions on YouTube they're voiced by Ringo Starr! Alright that's enough for today, and way too much thought on a children's book series.
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