Hopefully I’m not in a minority as an adult model railroader who likes to watch this series? (I’ve recently discovered I can watch reruns of Thomas and his friends on YouTube.) Ringo certainly makes a great narrator. I’ve been called a rivet counter, do a bit of scratch-building in HO and model prototype U.S. railroads, but I find the series amusingly and refreshingly entertaining. I also need to find out more about how they’ve set up the props and what scale trains they use, etc. (It certainly looks like live steam.) I enjoy learning the British Railway terminology and appreciate that this was where our concept of railways started. It is as the Brits would say, “splendid”. Am I going through a “midlife crisis” over 50?
Nah. I don’t think you’re in any kind of minority. 10+ years ago I had a girlfriend who had a very young son. He went absolutely ape over Thomas. So in indulging his interest by watching the series, I became fascinated with it as well. It is a very entertaining series. I loved the model work and how the stories were built up.
My relationship went down the toilet and I no longer watch the series. I’ve since built a layout loosely based on the Reading and at times think about the Thomas series with a grin. I see them as DVD’s in the stores and have been tempted to buy a few…but have yet to do so.
I was told the series went from live model work to CGI…but don’t know for certain.
For the record…I’m an old 53 (a good bit broken down physically), but young at heart and mind.
I not only watch Thomas but I also go to Day Out With Thomas events when they come to local tourist railroads. I enjoy Thomas and I enjoy watching children around Thomas. It is a great diversion from black lookalike NS wide cabs! For the record I am 55 years old, no kids.
I don’t watch the show, but my grandchildren run Thomas on my layout and I took my grandson to Day Out with Thomas yesterday at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC.
Our grandson watched the Thomas programs quite a bit when we cared for him several days a week. I noticed they changed from live action models to animated ones in the recent past. I can’t blame them, as there was a lot of work to make the real models do their work. Found this website that shows a bit behind the scenes of the model series:
We must all be thankful for the number of young people who have been introduced to model railroads as a hobby through Thomas the Tank. With so many distractions these days for kids with all their electronic games and gizmos, its refreshing to have this great drawcard to get the kids hooked on trains. The Thomas the Tank events draw many worldwide to railways. We may loose a few along the way but those that stay are really welcome to the family.
My five year old Son LOVES Thomas! He has all of the DVD’s and a sizeable collection of the wooden trains and track. I watch with him and personally think that its a great series, educational, and wholesome. I enjoy it. They began switching to CGI about 3ish years ago, as most kids shows have. Oddly enough he preferred the model trains over the CGI trains…so we watch a lot of the older DVD’s going back to Ringos years as narrator. Good stuff in my books.
I enjoyed watching Thomas with my son back in the 90s and now my wife and I watch it together. The series used scale models and scenery. The curent series is CGI. I enjoy both styles.
While I do consider myself an “Old School” type of guy, I admit that I like the computer animation as it adds a lot of depth to the stories. Imho, it’s neat to see the faces of the locomotives contort as they verbally and emotionally express themselves. Also nice seeing “Sir Top-Em Hat” and the other human characters actually move about as they interact with the scenery and react to situations.
Imho, CGI technology is what has helped stir up interest in the Thomas series again as it seemed to wane for a while after the live action series ended. We have to remember that the target audience is the age 2 thru 10 crowd and these kids today are often exposed to technology shortly after they learn how to walk!
I grew up with Thomas and his friends. I stopped watching it after George Carlin left and entered Alec Baldwin within the first two tapes.
I slightly tried to boycott the CGI version when it out, but I watched it and it was good. I still had a little problem to many trains on a very small island of 100-150 miles of main line and four branch lines. Over 20 locomotives is way to many.
