Really Useful: A Thomas the Tank Engine thread

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About a week ago, on December 15, 2023, Silbert Records released the third digital album for the songs from Shining Time Station.

Shining Time Station: The Juke Box Puppet Band SingSongs from Season Three

Like the previous release (but unlike the first), it contains only the songs performed by the Jukebox Band (specifically 25 this time since there were that many episodes in the third season) and none the songs from the music videos of that season. And once again, the show's theme song is omitted.

It's available to download at all the normal places, and to listen to for free on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kY61FUIHxATpP3rDWC1aT8uZzfFlahLVk

And, looking at the artwork for this album, only now do I realize that both Stacy Jones and the Ringo version of Mr. Conductor are visible in this illustration. I wanna say that the guy sticking his head out the window next to Stacy might be Schemer, but I'm not as sure.

With this album, all that remains are the 13 songs (well, 12 since one of them was a repeat) performed in the Family Specials. But it's a shame that so many other songs from the show's music videos were just left out altogether, especially the theme song too.

 

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Oh man! MAJOR news!

The Unlucky Tug has posted his annual New Years video talking about what he has planned to come for the rest of the year. And among the expected news for his usual projects (Sodor's Finest, The Thomas Retrospective, his model train videos, etc. etc.) is a HUGE announcement about an extra special project that will be released on a daily basis starting today, on his other channel "The Lucky Tug".

I don't want to give away what this special project is, but it's the first two topics discussed in the video right after the intro. But I will say, it's a TUGS project.

 

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Thomas is back in the public news:

 

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Oh, this is priceless!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1808206646918762766

 

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Super late to this but the Awdry Extravaganza 4 took past last month on the 20-21 of July at the Talyllyn Railway in Wales.

Here's the announcement trailer from beforehand:

Here's a brief recap of the event (yes, those are cosplayers dressed as the Thin Controller, Sir Robert Norramby, and the George Carlin version of Mr. Conductor):

And here's the official livestream of the event, this time split into two parts for this year:

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And, as an extra special bonus treat, I just now found out about a super rare piece of nearly-lost media having been uploaded online for all to see and preserve.

Back in 2005, Christopher Awdry attempted to get his father's original Island of Sodor lore book (which was itself very hard to find having been out of print since 1992) reprinted by the publishers, but all his attempts to do so were denied and met with failure. So, he took it upon himself to write and publish a bring new book that served as a companion piece to that original book. The result was "Sodor: Reading Between the Lines".

As time went on, however, this book also became very hard to find after it went out of print, and has never been reprinted.

Well, as of May 7, 2024, someone went and scanned the entire book and uploaded all of it to Archive.org, where everyone and anyone can now read it as they please, or even save a copy of it for themselves as PDF.

 

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On this day, October 9, forty years ago in 1984, the British children's television series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends made its world premiere in the United Kingdom.

To celebrate this 40th anniversary occasion, Nic "The Unlucky Tug" Goodrich has shared his personal story as a lifelong fan of Thomas and how the series has impacted his life over the years. It is a very touching and heartwarming video with a lot of love and passion put into it:

And next year, 2025, comes the 80th anniversary of The Railway Series as a whole, with its first book, The Three Railway Engines, having originally been published in the UK on May 12, 1945.

Happy anniversary, Thomas & Friends.

 

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May she rest in peace.

This is just one of many, countless tributes to her that have gone up on YouTube within the past 24 hours. It's truly remarkable.

 

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At present, I am not a YouTuber. I do not have any software or equipment to be a YouTuber. But if I were, I would feel so inclined to make my own tribute to Britt Allcroft, in which I would produce a music video consisting of multiple clips from her various works (primarily Thomas, Shining Time Station, and Mumfie) along with publicity photos of her from over the years, all put to this song from the Thanksgiving episode of Shining Time Station, as my way of saying thank you to her for giving all she had to share:

 

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This Monday, May 12, 2025, is the 80th anniversary of The Railway Series, and the celebration is already underway.

Two days ago, Sodor Island Models uploaded a live reading of the first edition of the first book, The Three Railway Engines, with original illustrations by William Middleton (all later editions of the book replaced the illustrations with redrawn ones by Clarence Reginald Dalby):

But that's not the BIG news. The BIG news is what Mattel dropped today. On their YouTube channel, Mattel released a highly-coveted piece of lost media for anyone and everyone to see: The original unaired pilot of the TV series from 1983!

Now, this is technically not the original pilot as it was originally presented, as despite their efforts to reconstruct the pilot as authentically as possible with as much of the original footage they could find in their archives, some of the footage was apparently missing, and has been substituted for a few brief shots from the final TV series. They also brought back original series composer Mike O'Donnell to create a brand-new score for the pilot, as apparently the pilot originally had no music at all. And most of all, the pilot features original, never-before-heard narration from the OG narrator himself, Ringo Starr!

So, let's go back in time to 1983 and witness the original pilot version of "Down the Mine":

Stay tuned for more celebratory videos to come between now and Monday.

 

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BBC News conducted interviews related to the pilot episode.

The first is with Ian McCue, who was a series producer for the TV series during the CGI era, and Mark Chambers, grandson of Rev. Wilbert Awdry (son of his eldest daughter, Veronica Chambers):

The second interview is just with Ian McCue, going into more details on the restoration process:

ITV has also done a news story on the pilot:

Several YouTubers have made videos about the pilot, be they reactions videos, reviews, comparisons, edits (such as replacing the new music with Season 1 music), or even just straight reuploads of the original video.

This one in particular from Scribbles to Screen is really interesting:

In other anniversary-related news, Train of Thought posted today a commemorative video about Wilbert Awdry himself: