History Of Thomas The Tank Engine
Thomas and Friends is a conception of the British TV way of life inspired by the model train trend in the nation and its first episode aired on British TV in 1984. Shepperton Studios was responsible for its production and the early title of the show “Thomas and Friends” was later changed to “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends” in 2003.
Based on the book The Railway Series by W.V. Awdry, the show tells stories of locomotives that have a life of their own and can even interact with people. From the time during the 1980s to the current time, the show has starred notable famous narrators from the UK and the US namely Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Pierce Brosnan, and Alec Baldwin.
From books to TV series, Thomas and Friends has turn out to be a worldwide franchise by way of merchandising and distribution. From shirts, mugs, blankets, bed sheets, and of course, model trains.
The Heritage Railways has even made locomotives with the very same likeness as those of the characters from Thomas and Friends and they held special events that feature these locomotives. These special events are acknowledged as “Day out with Thomas” and were organised to attract visitors and tourists. The added revenues Heritage railways get and passengers and their kids riding on their favorite characters gives everyone delight. Thanks to Thomas and Friends, model trains have turn into the inspiration toward building actual life-sized and working locomotives.
In the initial years of the show, each episode was shot in a studio using model trains with live action animation. Compared to other kids’ shows that make use of inanimate objects and making them move by means of stop-motion animation, Thomas and Friends used stationary characters and the type of animation given to these characters is by radio controllers and simple facial adjustments on the character trains. Voices and dialogues of each character always differ seeing as guest storytellers are the one providing them.
When Thomas and Friends was obtained by HIT Entertainment, new animation techniques were then incorporated. Even if they still used actual model trains, facial expressions, lip movements, people and animal characters are done using CGI.
Even with this sort of enhancement to the show, there are still some who prefer to watch earlier episodes of the show because of the nostalgic value they give out.
In order to create elaborate stories for the show, Shepperton Studios built broad model railway layouts. The German toy company, Marklin, is the one responsible for creating and providing the studio with the train characters and the scale size of the locomotives is at 1:32 or Gauge 1 with a track gauge of 44.45 mm. Movable eyes along with smoke generators were the basic special attributes of the model locomotives for the show.
The fact that Thomas and his friends has been a popular kids show for lots of countries around the world is undeniable. Children and children-at-heart have always stay tuned when it was first broadcast in 1984 and it still lives-on today being followed by the present generation of kids.
Model trains hobbyists and kids alike will enjoy Thomas and his friends as gifts or as part of their collection and Hornby is able to offer this satisfaction with its Hornby R9071 Thomas the Tank Engine Train Set.