Meet Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine, written and created by Reverend W. Awdry, is a collection of magical stories starring Thomas the Tank and his friends, which have been favourites of children and parents for almost 60 years. The star of the show is Thomas the Tank Engine who is a cheeky, fussy little tank engine that often gets into scrapes, usually by being over eager to do things best left to Thomas's friends, who are bigger and more sensible engines. It doesn’t take Thomas long to get back on track and bustle about on his very own branch line, of which he is very proud, “choo, choo Thomas!” Set on the imaginary island of Sodor, a place where all vehicles have their own personalities, Thomas’ world is an idyllic place with a willingness to embrace good manners, hard work and a desire to be really useful – the ultimate steam engine praise!
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Thomas the Tank Engine is a cheeky little tank engine with six small wheels, a short funnel, a short boiler and a short dome. Thomas often gets into scrapes, usually by being over eager to do things best left to bigger and more sensible engines. But it never takes Thomas long to get back on track and bustle about on his very own branch line, of which he is very proud.
Annie and Clarabel are his coaches and two of his closest friends along with Toby, and Edward. Despite their arguments, he is also very good friends with Percy.
Thomas is actually over 60 years old and first appeared in 1946 in the book Thomas the Tank Engine as a station pilot, whose job was to shunt coaches and trucks for the bigger engines. He longed for more important jobs such as pulling the express train like Gordon, but his inexperience prevented this.
After heroically rescuing James following an accident, Sir Topham Hatt (then known as the Fat Controller) decided that he was a Really Useful Engine, the highest praise for a steam engine. Thomas was also given his very own branch line to look after and has remained in charge of this line ever since.
Like all of the Thomas and Friends characters, Thomas is actually based on a real steam train, the E2 Class 0-6-0T built for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway between 1913 and 1916.