80th Anniversary of Thomas the Tank Engine

I know the 80th Anniversary of the original Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry was last year, but the most iconic character of them all in this franchise, Thomas the Tank Engine, are actually having his 80th Anniversary today! The Railway Series was first published May 12th 1945 and was entitled The Three Railway Engines and was about Edward, Henry and Gordon.

Thomas the Tank Engine didn't actually appear before the second The Railway Series book, 'Thomas the Tank Engine', which was published September 14th 1946. Actually Thomas is older than that, as he was created by Rev. W. Awdry as a wooden toy for his son for Christmas 1942. He initially planned to make a wooden toy of either Henry or Gordon, but due to wartime shortages he was only able to make a (new) smaller engine, which would be 'Thomas'. His 'No. 1' is not because he was first in this franchise, on the contrary,  but because it was simpler to write. After 'The Three Railway Engines' was published in 1945 it was decided that the next book was to be about 'Thomas'. In the foreword to the book Rev. W. Awdry wrote:

Dear Christopher

 Here is your friend Thomas the Tank Engine. He wanted to come out of his station yard and see the world. These stories tell you how he did it. I hope you will like them, because you helped me to make them.

Your Loving Daddy

The Second book in The Railway Series, which was about Thomas the Tank Engine, was published September the 14th 1946, so I'll think this would be the right date for Thomas the Tank Engine's 80th Anniversary.

The wooden toy of the original 'Thomas the Tank Engine' by Rev. W. Awdry was initially made as a Class J50 engine, but the illustrator for the second Railway Series book, Reginald Payne, was living in the south illustrated the 0-6-0 'Thomas the Tank Engine' as a Class E2 0-6-0 engine, and gave him his iconic appearance.

The very original model of 'Thomas' made by Rev. W. Awdry 

One of the first illustrations of Thomas from the book were he first appears in 1946

Thomas the Tank Engine in my, or our, collection

So why dedicate a blogpost entirely to this Jubilant on this blog? Over the years we have collected some different Thomas the Tank Engine models at home and in different scales.

Thomas for wood trains

OO gauge Thomas by Hornby

G-scale Thomas by Bachman and N scale Thomas by Tomix

Although we got all these different Thomas-models for our sons when they were kids as they were fan of him and the tv-series, it was actually 'Thomas' that got me into garden railways in the first place (I just didn't know it back then). The reason for this was that several members in my model railway club who also had small kids back then, thought we could make an overseas order together (to save shipping costs) for Bachman Thomas the Tank Engine starter sets in G-scale to have running around our Christmas trees as it would be fun for our kids. This was my first ever G-scale model, and soon an interest for that scale and gauge was developed. Even if our sons are grown now, the large scale Thomas on a circular circuit of tracks underneath the Christmas tree has become a tradition and I got heavy involved in a 'G-scale'.

Thomas at the Norwegian Constitution Day at 17th of May on my small Garden Railway

There is a prototype for every thing. This photo was taken during a 'Day out with Thomas' arrangement at the Danish Railway museum in Odense back in 2018 when I visited it with my youngest son. 

Thomas the Tank Engine has spread joy and inspiration for generations the last 80 years, and I hope he continues to do so for the next 80 too!

Happy Birthday Thomas!!

Operation 'Fall Weiss'

This is not a Garden Wargame report, but one of the members in our Model Railway Club coincidentally invited to a Club-day out in his fully sceniced Garden Railway, Reichenbach, on the 1st of September. Since I was going to bring my Heeresfeldbahn train I was inspired to make the head photo looking like it was supporting the logistics under Operation Fall Weiss on the Polish narrow gauge network September 1st 1939 (with a little help from ChatGPT).

My military trains have been running on these lines before, but since then Gylmer has expanded it with a longer mainline and brancheline and easier gradients. On these links you can see more photos and videos from previous visits to Reicenbach:

• Reichenbach May 2024
• Reichenbach July 2024
• Reichenbach August 2025
• Reichenbach September 2025
  
  
  

September is also the first month of the fall and it's getting darker earlier now, but the weather was still pretty warm:

Before we could start running trains, I had to use my Heeresfeldbahn Diesel to clear the mainlines by shunting Gylmer's rakes and wagons into different sidings around his layout as he'd arranged a running session the previous weekend as well. I couldn't attend to that one due to my work.

After clearing the mainlines and a branchline we were ready to run trains. There weren't so many members bringing their trains to this day out unfortunately:

A 'premier' and maiden voyage for a new (3D-printed) RhB-engine:

Gylmer was serving coffee, hot dos and waffles...

After the 'lunch breake' it had turned dark:

Thank you Gylmer for inviting us over hand for your warm hospitality

Blog PostScript 

In the comment-section in my previous blogpost Michael from Wargaming with 54mm Toy Soldiers noted how effectfull and how modelling lights added to the atmosphere. I followed up and informed that the lights in Heine's HSB and DR coaches (which can be seen in this post's photos and video) are made by short strings of battery powered Christmas lights which he mounted in a tube and fixed it to the roofs inside. These lights are usually very cheap, and will soon appear in the shops I suppose:

Another Club-meeting in Heine's garden

The summer is about to turn into Autumn, but as we had som few really nice, sunny and hot days Heine suggested that we could hold one of our weekly MRC-meetings in his garden. Yet another day with BBQ, coffee, cakes and a lot of fun:

Heine's wife, Astrid, had made an Apple Cake with apples from their own Garden. Some of the ripe apples were still dropping from the trees, but luckily no trains were hit:

A sign that the summer is over is that the evenings are turning darker. After or break it was dark:

Now I can see how well 'grey trains' are camouflaged when it's getting darker. It's even more obvious in the video. I think I will need to add some car to my (military) fleet I can put lights into

When it became so dark that we didn't see our trains anymore it was about time to call it a day.  Thank you for inviting us over and for a delicious apple cake Astrid & Heine!

Blog PostScript 

Since this 'night out', Heine has taken the consequence of handling trains in the dark by mounting lights on his fiddleyard. Very effectful (no pun intended):