Fan of TTTE (S1 to S7). Enjoys the lore of the show. Analysing its set locations, story trivias and the characters' relevance. A Trainz Route Maker as well.
A new concept art has been published on Robert Gauld-Galliers' site.
This one features a scene from the S7 episode "Something Fishy", taking place in the Fishing Village, with Arthur having his original name, Clarence.
So, I don't know if anyone saw this one yet. But Robert Gauld-Galliers had posted in his website another storyboard from "Rusty and the Boulder" that is not the same one we've seen before.
This one is of the Rheneas and the "Boulder crashes into the shed" scenes.
Okay, here it is.
This will also explain why Thomas only has a single facemask used throughout the whole “Thomas and Trevor” episode and did not use any other face.
It will also explain why Thomas uses a different one in this deleted Viaduct shot.
I think I might have found a bit more evidence that might (and it's a big might, as it's all just theories) disprove “Thomas and Trevor” (and “Better Late than Never” by extension) being the replacement of “The Missing Coach”.
And this shot is related. I will explain it shortly.
In "Lady Hatt's Birthday Party", the flower seller at Kirk Ronan (who had a large scale model) was going to be in a shot when she is seen laughing at Sir Topham Hatt's appearance. This would have been funny to see on screen.
Fun Fact.
Season 2 is the only season of the whole show in which Thomas was never seen at Knapford Station in any episode (not counting Season 5 when Knapford didn't appear of course).
Okay, so here's some crazy discovery you really need to see.
There's this map of the east of Sodor drawn with grid markers, and they match the grid refs from the concept arts. Look at the 2nd image.
Crovan's Gate is 7N. The map and concept art match (1st and 3rd images).
I counted all of Thomas' lines and words from each classic season. And ordered them from most to least.
S1: 114 lines, 874 words.
S7: 84 lines, 529 words.
S6: 81 lines, 540 words.
S3: 64 lines, 632 words.
S2: 61 lines, 624 words.
S5: 61 lines, 522 words.
S4: 42 lines, 368 words.
To add to this, the Daisy episodes were both clearly made during the end of production for S2.
Daisy was seen in very few sets that are proven to be filmed later on, such as Elsbridge. And her nameboard is at New Harbour, and not Tidmouth like the others.
Based on the episode numbers here:
1-9 are the same
21-26 are the same
10 is Percy's Promise
17-20 are The Twin Engines + Breakfast
So 13-16 are... Duck and Diesel + Better Late Than Never?
It appears Daisy and Percy's Predicament replaced Percy's Promise and The Missing Coach.
As promised, here is the screen time counter from Series 2. As explained before, the amount of time the characters appeared on screen. There is a bigger amount of characters, which is why their minutes on screen are less than in the previous series.
A few surprises are here too.
Bringing this back again for a bit.
When it comes to big engines pulling heavy trains on Edward's Branch, we see Henry casually doing it in "Thomas, Percy and the Dragon" in S3.
And a deleted scene from the same episode shows Gordon with the Express too.
I remember back then when people thought engines coming to and from behind Tidmouth Sheds was an error since they would be going towards the Little Western.
Now with the Mitton maps and the concept art, we know the line loops from Tidmouth to Elsbridge, so it was never an error.
Wait a minute... is Toby in this deleted scene taking the same consist from the one that he is taking throughout his intro in the beginning of "Toby and the Stout Gentleman"?
At Tidmouth?
Fun fact. In S5, Duck is never seen working on his branch line. He is seen on the Main Line, on Edward's Branch, and even on Thomas' Branch, but he is never seen on his own branch.
It is also the only season in the Classic Series when he is not seen taking passenger trains.
Following Thomas, now we have the number of lines and words Edward had in each classic season.
S2: 39 lines, 360 words.
S1: 28 lines, 267 words.
S3: 13 lines, 189 words.
S4: 9 lines, 58 words.
S6: 7 lines, 73 words.
S5: 5 lines, 102 words.
S7: 4 lines, 37 words.
Okay. Here is something special I did. This is a bar chart race of the amount of screen time the Thomas characters had during Series 1.
This only includes engine and road vehicle characters.
You can watch this and see how much the characters appeared. I'll do a Series 2 one next.
Out of all the engines introduced between Seasons 1 and 4 working on Sodor, the only ones who were never ever scolded by the Fat Controller throughout the whole Classic Series were Edward, Toby, BoCo, Mavis, Stepney, Rheneas and Duke (at least from what I can remember).
Here's a theory (I think someone pointed this out before). What if the yards with the turntable shown in S5 are actually the Knapford Sheds location from S1 but rebuilt over the years?
"Oliver's Find" calls this place the "big yards", and we see Gordon collect a coach from here.
After some research, I believe this map here is the map that David Mitton and the S1 crew actually used to make their TVS Sodor map.
First, there's the lack of the names "Toryreck", "Haultraugh" and "Arlesdale Green", and there's the mention of River "Merry" before Wellsworth.
I made a list of most of the Sodor geography info from the HIT bible. Quite a lot of interesting stuff here:
1. Knapford is the "biggest and busiest station" on Sodor.
2. Brendam Docks "long ago eclipsed" Knapford Docks, which is now used only for "minor goods export/import".
Just want to say this. I don't mind if anyone still uses the headcanon of Oliver discovering Toby's Line to this day.
But you should not act as if Mitton and the crew actually had that in mind when making these episodes. Specially that we now have BTS stuff easily disproving it.
This slate for "Train Stops Play" shows that they were filming on the Bulgy's Bridge set on 28th November 1994.
By that point, the Season 4 episodes featured on the Rock 'n' Roll VHS had already been 100% filmed and released by 7th November 1994.
After watching
@TheUnluckyTug
's video of Henry, I noticed that in S17 Henry did have a bit of his original personality.
He complains to Cranky alongside James. He is part of the classic 3 big engine trio complaining about Scruff. He has a cheeky smirk with Gordon when... (1/3)
Am I the only one who used to believe "Little Engines" was a S5 song?
At least to me it feels a lot like a S5 song due to the amount of footage from S3 to 5 used there, while the only single S6 shot is this one of Oliver and Stepney pulling passenger trains over the Viaduct.
S2 is the only one from the show that features no Thomas and Gordon interactions.
And Gordon is literally the only one from the S1 main 7 engines who never exchanged dialogue with Thomas in S2.
"Gordon and the Famous Visitor" in S3 is their first ever interaction since S1.
S1-5 Edward Bio: Edward is kind and is always the one who restores order and calms everyone down.
HIT Edward Bio: Edward is frail, vulnerable and constantly afraid of being scrapped, and others need to feel protective towards him. No mention of his wise "restores order" persona.
Contrary to popular belief, "Thomas the Jet Engine" DOES have consistent geography.
Thomas departs Brendam Docks, passes Maron (I assume the junction to Gordon's Hill was retconned to be here), then goes through the Main Line, the Loop Line and into the back of Knapford Station.
Alright. I decided to finally release 3 route dioramas I made.
S5 Bertram's Mine:
S5 Standard and Narrow Gauge Tunnel:
S7 Cement Works:
These will be added to the Crovan's Gate Works site soon.
25 years ago, the final sets of S5 were filmed.
On 29th April 1998, they filmed the snowy windmill set for "Snow". Then on 30th April 1998, they filmed the final S5 set, the Narrow Gorge from "Horrid Lorry".
The shot of the lorry's driver is the final shot of S5 ever filmed.
These concept arts right here show that, at least during S1-3, they used to have some sort of logic when it comes to the placement of the TVS sets, and they must have had a rough map.
I'm sure there are other concept arts out there that give more clues about the TVS locations.
I have to say, if there is one engine that is the closest to be a "Brendam Branch" engine in the TVS, it would be Percy.
Percy is clearly the engine that was seen the most working at Brendam Docks (throughout S2-7), whether it's shunting or taking goods/passengers there.
Whenever I watch "Gordon and the Famous Visitor", I always wonder why was Henry not present during City of Truro's visit at Tidmouth Sheds? He is not even seen sleeping at the sheds in any of the night scenes.
He was only ever seen in a cameo pulling a train through Wellsworth.
Here is another original concept art drawing from Robert Gauld-Galliers recently posted on his site.
It is "Mountainside Runbye", one of the Skarloey Railway sets from Season 4.
Last year when all that BTS material was leaked, there was this concept art right here which says "Slate Quarry Set", and it belonged to S3.
This one I'm pretty sure is the quarry from "Heroes".
Notice the rocks falling down in the concept art, but not just that... (thread)
Another theory that I think was mentioned here before.
What if there's a junction at Maron for a line to Lower Suddery?
Not only would this allow trains from Brendam to go east, but it totally explains "Percy Runs Away" with Percy going from Gordon's Hill to Lower Suddery.
Let's move on to the Season 2 characters. We have Duck the Great Western Engine and his amounts of lines and words in the Classic Series.
S3: 54 lines, 473 words.
S2: 30 lines, 286 words.
S4: 18 lines, 114 words.
S6: 11 lines, 79 words.
S5: 8 lines, 69 words.
S7: 1 line, 1 word.
So after watching
@ThomasTankMerch
's amazing video of S5 footage, I decided to make a list based on the filming date of the episode scenes based on the video, which gives us good detail about the order of filming of each set.
Wait a moment... correct me if I'm wrong but, judging by the filming dates seen in the footage, I think that this shot right here is the last shot ever filmed in S5, before they started filming the shots for the Magical Adventure game.
If that's the case then... wow.
So... it's been 25 years since this famous scene was filmed.
The scene with Stepney arriving at the scrap yards, with the two yellow and mysterious diesels coming to scrap him.
So according to the clocks shown in "Lady Hatt's Birthday Party", the Fat Controller's crazy journey in the episode took around two hours and ten minutes.
We all know that Brendam Docks is the terminus of Edward's Branch Line.
But what if I tell you that in the Classic Series, Edward was ONLY ever seen at Brendam Docks a total of FOUR times?
Okay, silly little headcanon here.
Duke is sent to the stone quarry alongside Sir Handel after S4. This is to personally mentor him so he could be a better engine. And it's what leads to Sir Handel's personality change.
This is also also why Duke is not seen again after S4.
A reminder that Duck in Season 6 had more lines, more mentions and more screentime than Edward and Henry (individually) in the same season.
Edward: 6 lines, 19 mentions, 2.9 screentime
Henry: 10 lines, 17 mentions, 4.98 screentime
Duck: 11 lines, 37 mentions, 5.42 screentime
Here's a thread about the S5 Brendam Docks set and how it changed over time during filming as seen in the S5 rushes.
First they built the Brendam Docks set on 16th September 1997, first used in "Horrid Lorry", then "Trouble with Trees", "Make Someone Happy" and "Put Upon Percy".
If I were to write a Classic Series styled S8, I would use many ideas mentioned in the HIT Bible that were not used:
- BoCo working with Mavis, Bill and Ben at the quarry, and being a mentor to Mavis.
- Godred the Impaler at Black Loch on Toby's Line.
If Thomas ended after S7, and you had to write an 8th season (in a classic series style), how would you do it?
Here’s what I would do:
I would make it a season focused on the past. Have some backstory about the SKR, or an ep where Edward and Fergus meet and talk about the-
Here's a question that I haven't seen anyone talk that much about:
How did the other standard gauge engines react when they heard about the crazy and terrible stuff that happened with Boulder and the narrow gauge engines?
How did Henry, Gordon and James react for example?
These are very interesting. There is even a deleted scene from "Thomas, Percy and the Dragon" of Thomas whistling goodbye to Percy.
My guess is that it belongs to this shot.
…over the next several weeks so please be patient. I’m thrilled to be able to share all these with you, especially the Thomas scripts as they were a completely unexpected surprise. I’m still giddy!😁✨ Thanks for the support all!🙏🚂
I find it interesting that every character that had these S5 promos of them taken, except for Mavis, all appeared in TATMR.
What's more, all the engines (not just Thomas, but also engines 3-6) have lamps, which are only shown in TATMR.
Well, apparently Twitter is going down, so I'd better post this before that happens.
25 years ago between 17th and 18th November, the Crosby Station scenes for Season 5 were filmed.
These are the scenes from "Bye George!" and "Busy Going Backwards".
Given how there are at least 3 episodes that were originally going to feature different characters to the ones that finally appeared on screen, I wonder if there was any other episode that was going to feature a different character and we are not aware of it yet.
I think I managed to figure out why Mitton and the TVS crew made “Percy Takes the Plunge" take place at Brendam instead of the branch line harbour (or "New Harbour" as it's named in the TVS) like how it was meant to be in the RWS...
This is just a theory, but it's very possible.
Here's a route I've been working on these last couple of days. It's the Culdee Fell Railway.
I made one years ago. This would be a V2, with the mountain a bit more accurate to the real Snowdon one.
So far it's done between Devil's Back and Summit.
25 years ago, the sets featured in "Toby and the Flood" were filmed.
First, the Dam set was filmed on 16th and 17th March 1998. The village set was then filmed on 18th and 19th March. After that, the bridge set on 20th and 23rd March. And finally the rescue scene on 24th March.
Turns out the "Bye George!" station was never a redress of the "Haunted Henry" station as many thought.
According to the BTS footage, the "Haunted Henry" one was filmed in 12th January, while the "Bye George!" one was filmed in 12th March, with many other sets filmed in between.
I think no one realizes this, but Sir Handel and Peter Sam are clearly the most important and relevant characters in Season 4.
They have the most lines, the most mentions and (only in Peter Sam's case) the most screentime out of EVERY character featured in that season.
This shot always fascinated me.
I think it's like the only time we see the Skarloey Railway at night (other than the Lakeside shot from "A Bad Day for Sir Handel"), and it's a quick shot from "Fish", an episode featuring the standard gauge engines.
It has such a nice vibe.
Fun Fact: This shot from "Not So Hasty Puddings" (filmed during S6) is the only time Duncan is seen taking a passenger train after S4 in the Classic Series.
Not counting that shot, he only took goods trains throughout S5-7.
S5 is one of the best seasons of TTTE, with great original stories by Britt and David. Personally it's my favourite alongside S3 and S4.
But I wanted to ask. What is that one thing you didn't like about it or that you would change/remove from it?
Post your answer down below.
I have this little headcanon that "No Joke for James" takes place sometime during "Thomas Gets Bumped".
While Thomas' line is repaired, he is sent to shunt in the big yard. That is why in "No Joke for James" we see Thomas shunting, instead of being on his branch line.
So it seems that some pages from that book that features a Sodor Map from 2010 have been put on the Wiki recently and has some very interesting (while at the same time, confusing) information.
Not sure if anyone who has that book could show more pages other than these four?
When you think about it, the Sodor Suspension Bridge totally replaced the Viaduct in the CGI series, both in terms of usage and in terms of location placement (you know, since both are located between Crosby and Wellsworth in the TVS).
I wanted to point this out for a while.
Emily is not really meant to be an "old engine" similar to Edward just because of her basis.
If she was, the show would've mentioned her old age at least once.
In fact, the HIT Bible literally states she is as young as Thomas.
Happy New Year 2024 everyone!
So recently last month TANE was made to be free, so I took that opportunity and I was finally able to get TANE.
I have to say I find making sets in TANE a lot easier, more so with the variety of assets I can now use.
Here's Tidmouth Sheds from S1.
I like how in concept art there is actually a track going directly from the branch line sheds towards the stationmaster's house, explaining how Thomas would reach it from the sheds in "Thomas Comes to Breakfast".
This wasn't the same in the TV set itself.
I've seen this whole Percy talk recently.
Personally, I don't have issues with Percy asking words in S6, because the words he asked weren't really that common in the show.
The HIT era is where things go weird. There's no way Percy wouldn't know what a "Railway Inspector" is.
25 years ago on 24th, 25th and 26th February 1998, the Standard and Narrow Gauge Tunnel set was filmed.
This includes the episode "Snow", which features Gordon's Snow Machine.
I'm gonna say this.
The real reason why Freddie recognized Sir Handel but not Skarloey and Rheneas is because in the HIT era canon, Sir Handel and Freddie were the oldest and first engines on the Narrow Gauge Railway, while Skarloey and Rheneas were new, young and inexperienced.
In "Train Stops Play", Stepney mentions Ffarquhar Quarry, which means he most likely went there, and met Mavis for the first time.
It explains why Stepney and Mavis seem to already know each other in "Stepney Gets Lost", despite never interacting on-screen before.
Something I find very funny about Calling All Engines is that the movie was just 3 small diesel shunters (Diesel, Arry and Bert) against a bunch of steam engines of all sizes (basically engines 1-7).
Like, it was just 3 vs 7 or 8 engines. Only 3 diesels were confronting them.
Watching "Better Late Than Never" and looking at the S1-3 maps, it made me realize how the railway was so heavily affected by the Viaduct's repairs in the TVS version of the story.
The Viaduct is literally in the middle of everything. Every line coming from elsewhere joins here.
It's Gordon's turn. How many lines and words did Gordon receive in each season of the Classic Series?
S1: 64 lines, 877 words.
S3: 53 lines, 491 words.
S6: 37 lines, 234 words.
S2: 34 lines, 300 words.
S5: 31 lines, 297 words.
S7: 28 lines, 172 words.
S4: 17 lines, 108 words.