Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends - Time to say "Goodbye"?

I am with Tom I don't think that it earns them a huge amount, and I think with a couple of exceptions they believe - with some justification - that the quality of the event that the heritage railways put on is likely to be damaging to the brand. The potential for a third party to mess up the brand image is huge, and very few railways can afford or have the capability to stage an event that has sufficient depth.

Back in Britt Alcroft days (and earlier) there was a lot less opportunity for a bad "day out" to have an effect on the brand. Now, it is instantly, in fact sometimes in real-time, possible to know that X railway has put on a poor show. I recall being at one railway centre many years ago, when they were trying to pass off a GWR liveried pannier tank as Thomas. One small boy turned to his parents in disgust and said "that's not Thomas, that's Duck!!" and it clearly spoilt his day. These days there would have been an angry Facebook page with 5,000 views inside of half an hour.

If it were not for the fact that heritage railways are held in warm regard for the most part by the general public and the brand managers are clearly concerned about the "Greedy conglomerate wipes out steam railway" type headline I think they would have been more decisive about "Days Out" than they have been. The logical thing from their perspective is to keep upping the bar until only those places that really do put on a truly excellent show are left.

 

I liked it until CGI reared its ugly head.

And I still like the NVR 'Thomas' story

 

I really don't know as I haven't visited Eastleigh Lakeside Railway since the children grew up. Nothing shown on their web site. Shoddy127 may know more.

Cheers, Neil

 

In some cases the quality of the CGI models is noticeably higher than the old physical ones. For example one of the newer characters is clearly based on a Manning Wardle industrial and has the injector and its pipework modelled, but I doubt you could ever find an injector on Percy!

 

There is a series of childrens stories that completely coincidentally features anthropomorphised steam locomotives that could perhaps step into the breach as a lower-cost alternative?

Err... aren't 'gaudy paint jobs' as historically appropriate to Indian railways as BR black is to the UK? Or am I just being oversensitive to what reads rather like casual chauvinism and xenophobia?

I don't recall reading the original 26 books when I was a child and it crossing my mind that Mavis was 'politically corrected'. But maybe she's allowed as she doesn't have a 'gaudy paint job'?

 

Mavis is a good example of what is wrong with the original books: as the only obviously female loco (from memory) she is portrayed as an overwhelmingly negative character - diesel, self-important, makes bad decisions, refuses to listen to her "betters", causes problems as a result - until she has to be rescued by Toby. A number of the male locos show these traits too, but they all are also shown in a positive light afterwards. In the original books, I don't think Mavis is shown in any positive way at all other than in the last page of "her book".

 

Mavis isn't the only original female character, the obvious other one that springs to mind is Daisy (first female character introduced I think) - but then that just goes to prove your point further. She is, after all, "highly sprung".

Annie, Clarabel and Henrietta (although she didn't have a visible face for a while) are also core characters, although no locomotives obviously

 

Don't forget also Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Jemima and Beatrice...

 

Both of you make entirely valid points, although I must confess that I hadn't thought about it that deeply. I was so young when I read them (precocious early reader) that the apparent chauvinism never crossed my mind. Or maybe it's because it was the early 1970s, a decade which it is always inadvisable to judge by modern standards! Everything from race relations and sexual identity to brown/orange wallpaper, nylon clothes and fondue sets really don't stand up to any kind of 21st century scrutiny!

Indeed perhaps we are all doing childhood a disservice by over-analysing these things with adult minds? If it never occurred to me, perhaps it never occurs to any child who the books are actually aimed at?

(As someone who went on to become a professional writer, I must confess I only just noticed the 'highly strung/sprung' wordplay... and it made me laugh out loud)

 

The one I only picked up on when reading the books recently was in “Stepney the Bluebell engine”: when Stepney is describing to Thomas the other engines on the line, he describes Bluebell and Primose as “alike as two peas”.

Tom

 

I liked Thomas when they used real model trains and not this animated stuff they have in our days...

 

I understand that HIT will have costs but will they really be that much? Standard contracts and license agreements would be a simple 'Fill in railway name and print off' (Would they really re write their contracts or T&C for every individual event?) Maintaining the lists of approved character actors is a simple secretarial exercise and copies of the lists sent out with every license to let the railway have the problem of finding who is available, and I'd suggest that inspection of venues needs only to be done once per venue. After all it's not as easy to change a railway layout as it is a fairground attraction. Checking the faces and trains at the events themselves could be done by one or two people who would only need to work on a part-time bases as and when the events were running.

I'm not saying heritage railways are a golden goose for HIT but they do bring the characters to 'real life' for the children and by doing that they do provide an instant opportunity for some significant merchandise sales that might not otherwise have happened (not everybody has a theme park nearby) and could well make the brand more likely to 'stick' in the minds of children (as a fun day out as well) rather than just finishing watching the TV programme and then immediately wondering "...what's on next?"

I just don't understand why they hit these venues so hard financially - although it was mooted about a year or 18 months ago that all heritage railway thomases were being stopped and they were going to concentrate on the much more lucrative theme park sites. Perhaps they are trying to dissuade the railways to make them pull out of the events themselves rather than HIT being seen as the big bad conglomerate forcing the railways to stop?

 

Am I the only person who finds it overbearingly irritating when people refer to 'Thomas the Tank'?

If it was 'Thomas the Tank', he wouldn't be blue for starters. And if any trucks were troublesome, he'd simply blat them to oblivion with a 120mm shell. Which wouldn't make for much of a story.

 

Thomas the Tank visits Minehead...

 

So let me get this right. Is that a maybe???

 

Must be the 'Fiction' sub-class.
Anyone spotted 34112 'Jamaica Inn', or 34113 'Ross Poldark' yet?

 

What Railways still run Thomas events?

 

Was interested to know that myself a few days back. All appear to be shown on this website - http://www.dayoutwiththomas.co.uk/locations/

 

I notice that their list doesn't included the Nene Valley Railway or Talyllyn.

My own listing has 36 Thomas events for 2018 at 15 locations (inc NVR and Taly )

 

Aren't the Nene Valley and Talyllyn outside the HIT licensing system due to their use of the characters being agreed with Rev Awdry prior to Britt Allcroft's involvement?