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

Given the ££ that HIT appear to require in royalty payments, isn't it about time that someone resurrected the "Chuffalong" or "Sammy the Shunter" books that I had as a child in the 1960's? - Might give them a run for their money..........
I had more of those two series of books than I ever did of the "Thomas" ones. One of them (think it was "Chuffalong") was even published by Ian Allan!
Still got them all in a box in my Fathers loft somewhere!

 

I once met the late J.T. and Mrs. Holder. It seems that "Sammy the Shunter "was written by Mrs. Holder at the behest of Ian Allan in order to compete with "Thomas the Tank Engine". Although it did well enough, it did not have the lasting success so it would ironic if it succeeded a second time round. Terry Holder was a director of Ian Allan at the time.

PH

 

There are a few changes coming in the next series of Thomas.

Modern political correctness means that the "Fat Controller" has been consigned to the dustbin of history. We now have the "Democratically elected team leader of greater than average BMI".

Trucks are no longer "troublesome" but are undergoing outreach therapy to help them cope with "behavioural issues".

Henry the green engine has been repainted black to help him identify with his LMS class 5 Crewe roots.

Jakob the Polish engine has arrived. He dreams of the days when he pulled the Warsaw Express but now does all the odd jobs on Sodor for twice the money he was making back home.

Gordon the blue engine is the local UKIP candidate. He wants Sodor to be free from ORR interference and for all foreign locos to conform to the standard Sodor loading gauge.

James the red engine let fame and fortune go to his head. He swapped his chimney for a crack pipe and after being caught in the shed with some "Columbian coal", he was sent away. Nobody talks about James any more.

Emily was not good enough to pull the express so raised a grievance case regarding an apparent glass ceiling. The case went to arbitration which found in her favour. She was awarded damages and used the cash to pay for repairs to cracks in her frames and getting her buffers enlarged and lifted. Emily's local stopping service has been reclassified as an express with an additional 20 minutes allowed so she can never be classed as late. Emily's tender gets bigger every year and the others pretend not to notice.

Annie and Clarabel are now living together in a civil partnership.

Muhammad the Syrian engine is arriving next week. He wanted to be allocated to Old Oak Common and has never heard of Sodor.

 

Some years ago, when we were getting fed-up with Hit Entertainment and their constant demands, I discussed the possibility of resurrecting "Sammy the Shunter" with Ian Allan. He pointed out that the biggest drawback of Sammy compared with Thomas was that it had only one character. He/ his company had already looked into the matter, but concluded that one of the major attractions of the "Thomas" stories to children is the number and variety of characters, which also gave merchandising benefits: "Sammy" just couldn't compete! I also gained the impression that he thought that legal challenges from "Hit" were likely and that the game wasn't worth the candle.

IIRC, the original arrangements for heritage railways to use the "Thomas" franchise were negotiated between the then owner of the franchise, Britt Allcroft and Ian Allan and Micheal Draper, representing the Association of Independent Railways. It was an excellent deal from the railway's viewpoint; basically, the railway paid a small administration fee, royalties of 5% of ticket takings, or 10% if over £10,000, but you got the first £3,000 free. After that, you did pretty much as you liked. Allcroft provided a very helpful person to advise, but there was no requirement to hire a "Thomas" replica loco, you provided your own "faces", "Fat Controller", etc. We began running "Thomas" on this basis in 1993, latterly holding four "double weekend" events per annum- more than was normally permitted, but we were allowed to do it as we were Allcroft's "best railway in the London area". It was a highly profitable business which put Mangapps Railway on its feet, though it was quite hard work. However, by 2004, with the franchise having changed hands a couple of times and having passed to Hit, their financial demands were becoming greater, they displayed considerable ineptitude in how they handled marketing and merchandising and they were increasingly attempting to interfere with how we ran our business. As a private family business, that was unacceptable and in 2004 we decided to ditch "Thomas", holding the last event in summer 2005. Withdrawing made a big hole in our turnover, but had a much smaller effect on profits. However, it did allow us to concentrate on doing those things which we were originally formed to do, which did not necessarily include being children's entertainers!

The AIR set up the original deal, but they later merged with the Association of Railway Preservation Societies to become the HRA. Unfortunately, the HRA steadfastly refused to take what was happening to the "Thomas" franchise seriously, which was the main reason that I eventually resigned from the organisation. It's a great pity that the successors of the AIR effectively let this valuable asset of the railway preservation movement go. Having seen the current conditions under which HRs are allowed to run "Thomas" events, I can only say that those railways must be desperate!

 

Of course one railway, the Nene Valley, is exempt from the licensing regime as they use an original "Thomas" as I understand it?

EDIT - info here

http://www.sodor-island.net/daysoutwiththomas.html

Regards

Matt

 

Changing tack slightly on the thread, my view is that the HRA is a pretty useless shell that spends far too little of its energies working out how to be an effective support structure for its members. Little of what it starts is finished and most of what it does is of limited usefulness. It ignores significant areas of opportunity for increased collaboration and support between members. The old AIR was an effective trade organisation that provided useful support to its members (sort of what an association is for really). Time to go back to the future.

 

Well, er, yes- up to a point.

The NVR can use their "Thomas", but only their "Thomas"; they can't use any of the other characters, which is a problem (see my previous post). Also, they have a recurrent problem when "Thomas" is out of commission for 10 year overhauls, repairs etc.

 

Yet the industry seems dis-interested in alternatives. Many years ago I created a series of modern traction characters which I initially offered to the BTP for Rail Safety concerns and they responded by creating their own characters which seemed to have passed into oblivion and no publisher seems interested because "Thomas the Tank" had cornered the market as far as they were concerned. So now Derek the Diesel sits in a lonely siding with all his (modern traction) friends awaiting the opportunity that marketing seems to have over-looked.

 

I believe that since Awdry was local to the NVR he insisted on the exemption of the NVR from future liabilities but couldn't extend that dispensation to other heritage lines. Whilst Britt Allcroft was a reasonable company to do business with - and who respected the value of the brand - it seems that subsequent owners have no appreciation of the heritage environment and see the licence simply as a licence to make money - hence killing their Golden Goose.

 

Could be any number of reasons ranging from shortage of money prompting fears about the alternatives to (I fear more likely) variations on "not invented here" or "We've always done it this way". As observed earlier, the alternatives may well be more lucrative.

Paul H

 

The only alternative (in a railway sense) I can think of is Ivor the Engine, although of course this was on TV when I was young it doesn't have anything like the same coverage these days.

I don't think anyone has come up with an event version of Chuggington yet, but popular children event alternatives include Peppa Pig, Paddington (some railway element) or Tractor Ted. We did try Peppa Pig but I personally thought it didnt't have quite the same aura in the flesh as it does on TV (unlike Thomas)

(This is assuming that the railway concerned doesn't invent its own characters)

Regards

Matt

 

The characters concerned , which have a railway theme, were invented (and copyrighted) by the railway involved. I am not trying to flog use licences (!) but merely pointing out that if one can do this, so can others

Paul H

 

I think dear old Wilbur Awdry must be spinning in his grave at the thought of what these money making parasites have done to his innocent railway characters. Would one way round it be to persuade his son to write another book "Thomas becomes a
BR unlined black liveried engine"

 

The Talyllyn is also exempt

 

Del, My earlier post was simple advice with nothing to qualify it as I was out and about til late. I would not get involved with HIT entertainment in this way. Having your own Thomas is not a cash cow but it is a problem. It does save you from hiring in and paying transport costs. However, if the loco is in the dreaded blue livery, you can only use it at HIT licenced events, which means that you no longer have a really useful locomotive for your own general use. You are also meant to keep it out of public view. It therefore has to be out on the road for much of the time to pay for its next overhaul. This then means that you have to service and maintain it, which can mean going anywhere in the country at a moments notice or being selective in who you hire to. Being a hire loco which is only at a line for a weekend may mean that the hiring organisation is not going to treat it kindly as there is no incentive to do otherwise. I also know of one railway that would go over its hired-in Thomas with a fine toothcomb to find faults which they would then rectify and cross charge to reduce charges.
Middleton had its own Thomas loco for several years, originally licenced under the Brit Allcroft regime but gave it up when HIT came along because of all the aggro that came with them. We also gave up with the holding of these events.

 

If that happened, I'm sure that HIT would be claiming all black liveried locos infringed their copyright!

 

We at Mangapps had the good fortune to hire the Middleton's "Thomas" exclusively from the time when Britt Allcroft, regrettably, made the hiring of a licenced "Thomas" a condition of getting a licence, until the loco's owner decided to withdraw from the scheme, a decision which we fully understood and with which we sympathised.

In fact, the withdrawal of the Middleton's loco proved, for us, to be the last straw. We were then obliged to deal with various different HRs, not all of whom were as efficient and helpful as the Middleton, and some of whose locos were often unfit for operation. Because there was an ongoing shortage of serviceable "Thomas" locos, we found that we would sometimes have to hire-in a different loco for the second week of an event, because the first one had previously been committed to another railway- an expensive business, especially if the second loco happened to be in the far north of England or in Scotland!

 

I have just had a look at the "Thomas" website and find that, despite what has been said about railways withdrawing from involvement and those remaining having to be very hard up to endure the aggro., a large number are still associated. If this means more than suspected are so hard up they cannot afford to give Hit the soldier's farewell, things are rather bad generally.

Paul H

 

Not necessarily Paul. I think it's pretty clear the heritage movement is doing rather well at the moment (we may disagree on the sustainability of it though! ) More likely that some lines make it more successful than others for whatever reason - more willing volunteers etc.

 

Hmmm.

PH