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The Railway Series is a British book series created by the Reverend W. Awdry from 1945 to 1972, 1984 when he wrote Thomas' Christmas Party, 1985 when he rewrote Thomas Comes to Breakfast, 1987 when he wrote The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways, and one more time in 1990 with Thomas and Gordon Off the Rails. His son, Christopher Awdry, wrote books from 1983 to 2011. The series' last book was 2011's Thomas and his Friends. The series was later adapted into the TV show, Thomas and Friends in 1984 and was a global success ever since.
| The Railway Series | ||||||||
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 All of Wilbert Awdry's books (1945-1972), as well as Christopher Awdry's books (1983-2011).
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Why It's Really Useful
- Absolutely incredible and smooth detailed illustrations for an illustrated book! Clive Spong did an incredibly good job capturing the aesthetic of a railway and a society.
- Incredibly likable characters, such as Thomas, Edward, James, Percy, Annie and Clarabel, Toby, Bertie, Sir Topham Hatt, and tons of others
- Very accurate to how railways actually should be, and it imitates real life very well.
- The engines and road vehicle characters are mostly based off their real life counterparts. Thomas is an E2 Billington class, Henry is a hybrid of a 4-6-0 (4-6-2 in later years), and Duck is based off the GWR Pannier Tanks.
- It spawned the TV series based off the books in 1984, known as Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, created and adapted from the books by none other than Britt Allcroft herself. While the show is now nowhere near as good as it once was, the show still had lots of great moments, especially the classic series.
- Without her, Thomas would not have become a worldwide success from the start.
- This series has a gold mine of some very good stories, such as Edward's Day Out, Thomas and Bertie, Thomas and Gordon, Bulgy, Escape, Toad Stands By, Thomas, Terence, and the Snow, Henry Sees Red, Triple Header, Super Rescue, etc.
- The audio narrations from Johnny Morris, Willie Rushton, and Ted Robbins are all very well voiced and well narrated. Out of all of them, Johnny Morris has the best storytelling out of all the Railway Series narrators.
- The road vehicle characters, while less good, are also very likable and interesting, characters like Terence, Bertie, Caroline, and Bulgy.
- Almost everything has aged very well.
- One word: Stepney.
- The book series has gone so far enough to advertise out real life railways such as the Talylynn Railway in Wales and the Bluebell Railway in England.
- The 2011 book Thomas and his Friends was a mostly incredible way to end the 66 year old series itself.
"Disgraceful, Disgusting, and Despicable" Qualities
- Some characters were unlikable, such as D199, Old-Stuck-Up, D261, George the Steamroller, S.C Ruffey and Bulstrode. Though, all of those characters were made to act unlikable.
- Though the series has mostly aged very well, there was one moment that didn't. A controversy occurred when an early print of Henry the Green Engine had a really offensive line that said "They ran away as black as a n*****s". The Reverend W. Awdry has later apologized for the use of the N-word in 1972 after getting in trouble with the public for his racist line. The line has since been removed in every reprint of the book since 1972 and then on due to its racist nature. If he hadn't apologized for his racist comment, he would have been viewed as a racist today than he was back then, even in the same year he retired.
- C. Reginald Dalby, as fun as he was, was constantly bullied and mistreated very often by Wilbert Awdry himself because of his inconsistent illustrations and mistakes (most notably with the illustrations with Henry), it got so bad that he even resigned as illustrator as a result.
- The story, Buffer Bashing from Thomas and his Friends (as written by Christopher Awdry), is one of the few bad stories from The Railway Series mainly due to the Fat Controller telling Douglas off for ruining a new set of buffers that only happened to be an accident that just happened, Donald even gets made fun of by the other engines for having busted buffers. Signals Crossed from James and the Diesel Engines is not any better (depending on your view), the Fat Controller tells off James for damaging a signal, even though that accident was something James had no control over.
- You know, these stories are unlike any other stories from the main book series where the engines get punished, and you know something? The engines get punished or told off basically due to karmic reasons such as engines like Henry and Duncan having stories where both act like stubborn nuisances respectively, Thomas going fishing, Falcon and Stuart making fun of Duke's age, James making rude remarks about Toby and Henrietta, Thomas falling down a mine, Skarloey refusing to shunt trucks in his first days on Sodor, or even circumstances beyond their control.
- Clive's older illustrations were very ugly to some readers. Mainly the illustrations from the book, Really Useful Engines from 1983.
- Christopher Awdry's books can be hard or expensive to get as of 2021. None of Christopher Awdry's books were released and translated in Japan as of now either. This could be due to Christopher's books running out of print on the poor guy. No matter how hard he would try to keep his books in print, Christopher's luck would always get stumped on whatever the cost.
List of Illustrators
- William Middleton (1945)
- Reginald Payne (1946)
- C. Reginald Dalby (1948-1956)
- John T. Kenney (1957-1962)
- Gunvor and Peter Edwards (1963-1972)
- Clive Spong (1982-2011)
- Stephen Lings (1990-1992)
List of Books
- The Three Railway Engines (1945)
- Thomas the Tank Engine (1946)
- James the Red Engine (1948)
- Tank Engine Thomas Again (1949)
- Troublesome Engines (1950)
- Henry the Green Engine (1951)
- Toby the Tram Engine (1952)
- Gordon the Big Engine (1953)
- Edward the Blue Engine (1954)
- Four Little Engines (1955)
- Percy the Small Engine (1956)
- The Eight Famous Engines (1957)
- Duck and the Diesel Engine (1958)
- The Little Old Engine (1959)
- The Twin Engines (1960)
- Branch Line Engines (1961)
- Gallant Old Engine (1962)
- Stepney the "Bluebell" Engine (1963)
- Mountain Engines (1964)
- Very Old Engines (1965)
- Main Line Engines (1966)
- Small Railway Engines (1967)
- Enterprising Engines (1968)
- Oliver the Western Engine (1969)
- Duke the Lost Engine (1970)
- Tramway Engines (1972)
- Really Useful Engines (1983)
- James and the Diesel Engines (1984)
- Great Little Engines (1985)
- More About Thomas the Tank Engine (1986)
- Gordon the High-Speed Engine (1987)
- Toby, Trucks and Trouble (1988)
- Thomas and the Twins (1989)
- Jock the New Engine (1990)
- Thomas and the Great Railway Show (1991)
- Thomas Comes Home (1992)
- Henry and the Express (1993)
- Wilbert the Forest Engine (1994)
- Thomas and the Fat Controller's Engines (1995)
- New Little Engine (1996)
- Thomas and Victoria (2007)
- Thomas and his Friends (2011)
Trivia
- Michael Angelis narrated a few of Wilbert's books from 2006-2011 starting with The Three Railway Engines and concluding with Stepney the "Bluebell" Engine.
- Henry was originally going to be written off the books due to Awdry getting constantly angry and frustrated with the character. But due to the character's popularity with many British children nationwide, Awdry decided not to remove him from the franchise after all. Henry was here to stay ever since.
- Nearly all of The Railway Series stories were based upon real-life events. As a life-long railway enthusiast, Wilbert Awdry was keen that his stories should be as realistic as possible. The engine characters were almost all based upon real classes of locomotives, and some of the railways themselves were directly based upon real lines in the British Isles.
- With the exception of William Middleton, through illustration errors, each illustrator of the Railway Series has drawn Thomas both with and without the dip in his running board.
- The Railway Series books were published in South Korea, but never in North Korea, likely because of North Korea's infamous ideals.
- When correctly translated the German name for the Railway Series (Wilbert Awdrys sprechende Eisenbahnen) translates to Wilbert Awdry's Speaking Railway.
- Wilbert did not have a favourite character in his books; he felt like they're all family to him, and he says that "in a family, there are no favourites"
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