The LNER Encyclopedia

Hi all

This May we see a big date marking 75 years since the first publishing of The Railway Series by Rev W Awdry, the first of 26 books he wrote

Does any of the members here know if there are any plans or events to celebrate this historic date?

Now I know that it will take second fiddle to the other 75th also in May (and rightly so) but I am sure many of us grew up with these stories, and sparked our interest in steam railways, and I'm enjoying reading them to my son now having made him the custodian of my books

Any help or pointing in a direction of any plans, will be gratefully received

I too have fond memories of these books, though, let's face it, they aren't very well written so in my view are hardly classics of children's literature. What interested me were the illustrations. Apparently the original artist, William Middleton was sacked by Awdry because his pictures were too childish. I'd love to see these. He was soon succeeded by C Reginald Dalby, who also drew the first polar bear for Glacier Mints.

The fascination of Dalby's efforts for me were the discontinuities. Examine the engine shed in the first story of the first book and you will soon see what I mean. As for poor Henry, no wonder he had so many psychological problems (until Crewe made him a Black, or, rather, Green Five) when he never knew whether he was supposed to be a 4-6-0 or a 4-6-2.

I believe Awdry himself was irritated by Thomas' image because of his buffer beam problem, being an LBSCR E2 at the front but not at the rear. Personally, I was more upset at the inaccuracy of Awdry's description of his "short stumpy funnel, short stumpy boiler and short stumpy dome". It was Gordon the Big Engine who had the short stumpy funnel and dome, while Thomas's, quite properly, were anything but.

Well written or not, the series made sufficient impression on me that when I included a section on tram locos in a series of articles for my local railway society magazine I wrote the following:

"Tram locos: If you are the right age you may recall how Thomas the Tank Engine was admonished by the officious village policeman for exposing his coupling rods on the public highway. The tram loco that replaced him on these duties bore a suspiciously close resemblance to those on the Great Eastern Rly, which had gradually built up a fleet of 18 between 1883 and 1921, starting with six 0-4-0Ts followed by 12 more powerful 0-6-0Ts. Thanks to the latter’s remarkably short 6ft 8in wheelbase (only 2ins longer than that of the 0-4-0Ts) the two types were indistinguishable to the naked eye save for a few detail differences.

.....

In his unfortunate encounter with the law Thomas got off to a bad start through his over-enthusiastic greeting on his whistle. The GE’s concern for the local policemen didn’t stop at fitting bells as well as whistles but even extended to muffling the output from the safety valves."

Kudu

I may have mentioned this previously but here goes; I was at a model railway show a few years ago and was stood looking at a rather nice O Gauge layout of a Scottish shed, a sort of cross between St Margarets and Dumfries I’d say. I was particularly enraptured with a lovely model of my favourite A4 Kingfisher when a little lad on a stool next to me told me “that’s a Spencer Train”......I’d not fully realised that he was referring to the streamliner on the Thomas TV show but I thought it was a nice nod to Bert Spencer, Gresley’s most able assistant.
Hope he’s grown up to keep the LNER faith