It all began when a young boy (Christopher Awdry) lay ill in bed. His loving father (The Rev. W. Awdry) entertained him with a book of four stories about a special railway on a magical island. The next stories would go on to become the tales of the most iconic tank engine the world has ever known; Thomas The Tank Engine... Thomas’s adventures have spoilt the imagination of generations of children. This year, Thomas The Tank Engine is celebrating 80 years of friendship, magic and teamwork.
First, in 2020, I decided to make my own Thomas The Tank Engine models, using unpainted wooden trains, to celebrate Thomas’s 75th anniversary.
Mum ordered some trains, I chose, for me. They used to be plain wood with no colours and some of their tenders used to be cabooses, until Dad helped me. He sawed the top bits off so they can be shaped like Fowler tenders.
I only painted the engines with paint pens while Dad turned the cabooses into tenders before I painted them as well. First, I made Thomas! Secondly, I made Gordon! Thirdly, James! And finally, Percy!
Here is a picture of my models. ↓
Then, 5 years later (which is this year), I decided to make my very own train set to celebrate Thomas's 80th anniversary!
The set started off as a boring ordinary giant blank white cardboard thingy, until its transformation. I began making the set by drawing the track and locations. And it was all thanks to one of the Thomas PC games I used to play when I was a kid; Building The New Line.
Anywha, after drawing, I started to make railway sleepers by using popsicle sticks as them, and after that, I started to paint the WHOLE set!
Then I've added some nails around the dockside canal to make them look like mooring quay thingies.
Next, I began making some of the set's buildings out of cardboard; the barn, the chicken coop, the coal bunker, the engine shed, the dockside office, the signal box, and the station house. Then I made the plants out of cotton (the apple trees and the bushes) and sticks (the apple trees). I even made 2 haybails from straw and polystyrene, a helipad printed and stuck onto a square piece of cardboard, a level crossing gate out of LEGO, a little scarecrow from sticks and plasticine, a sheep pen out of popsicle sticks, a water crane from drinking straws, and, last but not least, the quarry mountain out of polystyrene! The only things that were already made (by companies) were the red container (some wooden toy making company), the signal (Fisher-Price), the tunnel (Tomy), and Cranky the Crane (also Fisher-Price).
While I made 1 vehicle to add to my set; Bulstrode the Barge, I've added some company-made vehicles to it as well; Terrence the Tractor (with a upper body of a LEGO farmer blu-tacked to his seat), Harold the Helicopter and Sir Topham Hatt's car.
And let's not forget I also made the animals; 4 sheep out of cotton, 3 chickens out of plasticine, 2 cows from wooden cloth-pegs, and 1 sheepdog drawn on both sides of a flat dog-shaped piece of wood.
After all that, I began making the rails, using thick wire.
And, to finish off at last, I stuck anything that doesn't need moving down to my set!
Now, my very own train set is finished at last!
Here is a picture of my train set. ↓
I'm part of the Thomas history now! And if you don't believe me - then either go to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbert_Awdry where you will click on the 3rd picture in the Biography and see my username, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc3Q8umkN1Q, where you will go to and pause at 5:21:39/40 where if you look closely and carefully, you will see me with my mum riding in a Talyllyn Railway carriage!
Now before I finish, I’ve one last thing to say -
Happy 80th Anniversary, Thomas The Tank Engine!
You’re the Leader!!
in memory of
BRITT ALLCROFT
1943-2024