thomas the tank engine train rides 2009

Thomas the Tank Engine's home on the web is a cyber-compendium of everything Thomas. Online visitors get to find their favorite characters in the Engine Depot, join in online games and activities, travel "Around the World" with Thomas the Tank Engine and visit Sir Topham Hatt's office.

This unofficial page is geared toward the older, more inquisitive among Thomas the Tank Engine fans. It provides budding engineers with easy-to-understand operational details about the coal cars and boiler tanks used to keep Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends running smoothly.

Discover the truth about Gordon... get the lowdown on Toby... learn Edward's "family secrets"... and find answers to what you always wanted to know about Thomas the Tank Engine but were afraid to ask. Martin's personal site sheds light on the true-to-life locomotives that inspired the various engines making up the Thomas fleet. Backgrounds include prototype engine descriptions, wheel arrangements, gauges, more.

Don't expect to find the world's only Thomas the Tank Engine theme park in the UK or the US... it ain't there! Instead, head for Tokyo's bustling Shinjuko Station and hop the Chuo Line's Limited Express to Yamanishi Prefecture. Detrain at Otsuki and catch the Thomas Land Express (Fuji-Kyuko Line) to Kawaguchiko where -- in the shadow of Mt. Fuji -- Thomas and friends like Percy and Sir Topham Hatt welcome young and old to a land with trains to drive and ride, thrill rides and other Thomas attractions.

It was Reverend Wilbert Awdry's experiences while working for the Talyllyn Railway that inspired him to write "Thomas the Tank Engine." But the TR would still be celebrated even if it had not formed the basis for the childrens' classic. The rare narrow-gauge line still operates its own original locomotives and cars along a rail trail extending from the Welsh coast into the rolling green forests of Snowdonia National Park. The four-season timetable schedules daily runs from late March until late October; selected holidays and special runs late autumn through winter.

Tales of talking steam engines, spun by a loving father for his bedridden son; such are the origins of Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. The legacy of Reverend W.V.Awdry's creative storytelling is kept alive within the pages of this site. Later-day titles by son Christopher are also commemorated. The site -- unaffiliated with today's entrepreneurial blitz -- intermingles family history with stories accounting the evolution of Thomas the Tank Engine and his world.

Thomas creator Reverend Wilbert Awdry completed over two dozen titles before his son Christopher took up the mantle, authoring an additional 40 Thomas the Tank Engine stories. Since then, Britt Alcroft has emerged to guide Thomas to celebrity status through a carefully crafted market mix ranging from playthings to in-home media to her successful production of "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends."

The train station that inspired the Thomas the Tank Engine stories is to get a £1.2m facelift and a new museum. Talyllyn Railway in south Gwynedd has received a substantial Heritage Lottery grant to redevelop the station at Tywyn and improve visitor facilities.