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mean-scarlet-deceiver · 4 years

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were none of you smart train brains going to mention this? i had to find out for myself? ? ?

All of my headcanons for Edward’s backstory assumed that he was mixed-traffic from the start?

Even primarily goods? As from what I’ve read the F.R. was heavily goods-oriented even by the standards of the day...

And he was brought to Sodor precisely because, as they rushed to build up the N.W.R., almost from scratch, they needed at least one experienced, adaptable, jack-of-all-trades engine who wouldn’t have a steep learning curve...? The Wikipedia article on Larger Seagulls certainly didn’t give any other hints... ?

But it turns out Larger Seagulls were the 19th-century version of express engines:

(F.R. #36, one of Edward’s real-life identical brothers. Note the inscription.)

?!?!?!?!

I’m down the rabbithole, but, if I’m understanding correctly:

1) 4-4-0s are not designed for mixed traffic. You don’t put four leading wheels on an engine unless you’re planning on having them run at high speeds. (more wheels = more maintenance).

2) In the early 1900s, engineers figured out how to make reliable 4-6-0 engines, so they began slowly replacing the previous high-speed 4-4-0s in the south. Although the small, northern Furness Railway (much like our favorite fictional railway, probably?) did not even begin to acquire the bigger kind until 1920, sooooo...

You guys Edward literally had Gordon’s job for the first 20-odd years of his life. The exact. same. job. On the F.R. and probably even for a while on Sodor.

Okay, I now need fic of Edward arriving on the island in 1915 having never even touched a truck before and making adorable, hilarious, plot-powering mistakes as he learns. Just four wee little stories? A bootlace equivalent. Hubris and humiliation. Redemption.

It would be just like James’s intro arc only the trucks/coaches are inverted.

I don’t wanna write it, I just want it to exist.

I want it to be a Railway Series book.

#dear santa #i understood most of Fact No. 2 but the piece i've been missing completely is Fact No. 1 #like i knew the seagulls COULD have done this but i did not think it was LITERALLY THEIR PRIMARY PURPOSE #corrections welcome #Y'ALL #i'm actually bizarrely upset because this upsets ALL the edward headcanons i have underpinning The Big One #so i don't even know if this falls under the category of:#this is all going in the early n.w.r. fic #maybe i'll just pretend i didn't know this long enough to finish the fic #by the way princeluckybug13 i blame you for this rabbithole <3 #the railway series #ttte edward #ttte #thomas and friends #okay other possible new headcanon that this info suggests #and it seems a little less likely to me than the one in the post but still quite possible:#edward hadn't ever done ANY shunting until the story when he gets out of that shed #like 'okay you want to come back to work? well you'll be getting a whole lot of this from now on like it or lump it'#(edward god bless him is just like: FUN!)

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daikenkki · 6 years

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You know what? I'm going to talk about Thomas, the books and the show. I want to share my thoughts on it all. Read this if you want, or ignore it, I don't care. The Railway Series was clever. What set it out from other children's books was its age-wide appeal. When writing the stories, Wilbert Awdry did have the children's thoughts in mind, but also those of the adults, who would have to read these stories an untold number of times. So, unlike the basic sentences or "fantasy" worlds, Wilbert kept it close to reality. Think about it, if the engines and vehicles didn't have faces, you could easily take the series as being real. All accidents were based on fact, and the engines acted like engines. They didn't have hands, or bent around. They acted like real locos, but felt human. They have all human emotions - joy, sadness, anger, envy, you name it. Characters would often bicker. They didn't always get along. There was a sort of locomotive hierarchy on Sodor, with big express engines at the top, and grubby shunters at the bottom. Despite being children's books, the Railway Series was never afraid to go to more mature areas. Scrapping (death) was occasionally mentioned, along with other darker tones. And the language. How many children do you think knew words like "deputation", "indignation" or "sagacity" before reading the books? That's what made the books clever. It was a series for children, but why stop at appealing to just them? Obviously the TV series soon followed. Allowing a new generation to meet Thomas and his friends, but also letting the adults, who have known the early books, reunite with their old friends. Being older, obviously one sees that the series is made with models, but to young children, it seemed real. I hope I'm not alone here when I say I used to think Sodor was real. I remember being 4 or 5, and seeing a helicopter high overhead and thinking "It's Harold! He's going to Sodor! I wish I could go too!". Britt Allcroft, David Mitton and all the other team members clearly cared for Thomas. Seasons 1 and 2 kept to what the Awdrys have written. But they would soon run out of stories, they even commissioned Christopher Awdry to write a book so they could have stories to use. Obviously, they would soon have to make their own stories, and with Season 3, they did. It did lead to some controversy. Wilbert wasn't happy, because it strayed from his books and some of the new stories weren't the railway realistic world previously established. Episodes like "Henry's Forest" stuck out. Yes, they weren't super accurate, but still tried keeping the balanced, real world of the seasons and books prior. With Season 4 they went back to the "real" routes. "Rusty to the Rescue" was controversial, in that it ignores the Bluebell Railway routes of Stepney and having Rusty star was an odd choice, though it helped the season flow from narrow to standard gauge. A few flukes, some may say, but all in all, true to Thomas' routes. Sadly, in March 1997, Wilbert Awdry passed away. After that was the series' first major change, Season 5. Praised by some, disliked by others, but it has to be agreed. Season 5 was the first to shake the series' formula. No RWS adaptations, while not as a bad thing, it was the first of many changes for the show. Then came "Thomas and the Magic Railroad". It flopped. No longer was Sodor the realistic railway, but now supported by magic. Magic. Keeping an island of 6 (then 9) engines running aimlessly about, with a human population of 1. Engines can now drive themselves, no engine crews needed. The movie failed. Britt Allcroft soon had to sell Thomas, and in the eyes of the public, it was now just another kids show. Season 6, ignoring TATMR, tried to keep on like Season 5, but without the dark tones. It was a cosy, and friendly world now. Then, Hit Entertainment bought Thomas. Season 7 was in production, but changes clearly showed there, with the new title "Thomas & Friends", and helped teach kids that friendship matters. Don't be rude or disrespectful, but help one another, and be a team. It was now plainly shoving the morals. But it was more apparent with Season 8, Hit's first season. Engines now travel where they please, no one is assigned to one branch line, engines roll around light or with silly loads. Fish in open wagons, huge sailboats on a flatbed, balloons, streamers, all sorts of things. It had extra runtime for episodes, but it was basic now, a show just for kids. It slowly fell from season to season. Yes, it wasn't completely terrible, there was still the odd good story. But it wasn't the realistic, complex world it was. Toy sales started to drive parts of the show. Characters who appear once, have 5 different merch lines sell them, and never appear again. It had to make money. It had lost its charm. It dropped further with the CGI switch in "Hero of the Rails" and Season 13, becoming even more kid-friendly, the 3 strike plots were more frequent, morals were pushed more, and everyone would always be happy and smile. If someone was rude, they had to learn their lesson at the end. The realism went away again, with more aimless driving, the drivers apparently being driven by the engines, not the other way around. Thomas was at a new low. Of course, it didn't last. Mattel then bought Thomas, changed the formula again, by bringing in a new head writer, Andrew Brenner, who had previously worked on magazine stories, which were the basis for some Season 3 episodes. Brenner and his team brought life back to Thomas, they made it feel more real, kept to its roots, Sodor started to feel like it was a real railway again. Yes, it wasn't perfect, but miles better than what came before. In 2015, the RWS turned 70, and was a great year for the franchise. It even gained another special, "The Adventure Begins" to mark the anniversary. Thomas was getting back to what it had been, continuing with Season 20 and a little of Season 21 as well. Come 2017, and it suddenly fell down. With Mattel in full creative control, toys would be made, but they wanted to cut corners, redesign TrackMaster to be cheaper to make, redesign Take-N-Play to be cheaper to make, start forcing ridiculous scenes in specials so that big playsets can be made, because gotta make money. Then Thomas Wood happened. Why paint the full model? Saves money on painting parts. Oh, and let's get rid of TNP, rework the couplings, released as a new range called Adventures. They introduced new toys, that weren't so comparable with the older stuff, so people didn't buy as much. Mattel then thought redesigning them again would fix the problem. They got lazy. They wanted Thomas to generate stacks of cash, but it didn't, so they cut corners. Mattel started to waver, they needed more money, so they redesigned the show as "Big World! Big Adventures!" which also saw Edward and Henry scrapped from the main cast for two new female replacements named Nia and Rebecca, designed to please the extreme feminist groups who slammed the lack of women in the series. The series had been going for what, 33 years? All of that was Thomas and his friends on Sodor, with the occasional trip to the Mainland. But it failed to make enough money, so Mattel sent Thomas round the world to China, Australia and India, for a new marketing opportunity to make more money. It was said the team were stuck with keeping the stories on Sodor, but were they? BWBA fixed something which was never broken to begin with, they ignored what was established, they ignored everything, except Thomas and minority-pleasing international characters. They feel having him tour the world will make the series better, but that's not the true Thomas. First of all, the characters are a mess. Thomas loves his friends, yet he is fine with ditching them in an instant? It wasn't thought properly, just dived right in. Thomas was a world with talking trains, as real as possible. It had age-wide appeal anyone could enjoy. It wasn't a fast-paced bouncy kiddies' show. The Season 22 finale taught kids about numbers and counting, which is something those other shows do. Thomas is now just a run-of-the-mill kids' show, where being trains is a hindrance, and lost everything that made it special. They kept trying to change Thomas, even when it didn't need changing, and now Thomas has forgotten what it was, and run its course.

BeattieWell

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