Just over sixty years ago the
Reverend W. V. Awdry told his sick son a series of stories based on
real life incidents with trains,
which he later wrote up as the Railway Series. Now
Thomas the Tank Engine and
the other engines of the Isle of Sodor (somewhere
between Barrow-in-Furness and the Isle of Man) are a global phenomena, with
toys, books and of course the TV series - filmed using model trains on
more than 70 1:32 scale 16-by-20-foot sets, and voiced by the likes of Ringo Starr and Alec Baldwin. 2008 has been a rough year for Thomas: George Carlin, who voiced the series in the US up until 1998, passed away (
previously), as did
David Mitton, who had written and directed over 180 episodes (and who has previously worked on the special effects for
Thunderbirds). There's changes ahead for Thomas as well - this year saw the faces of the engines, which had previously been cast in silicone and attached with double sided tape, replaced by
CGI faces, and from 2009 onwards
Nitrogen studios in Canada will be taking over production with an
entirely CGI Thomas. Meanwhile a group of British students continues the tradition of model engine-based storytelling with their YouTube based
British Railway Series.
posted by Artw
on Dec 21, 2008 -
74 comments
