Thomas the Tank Engine/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


I Have No Funnel, and I Must Steam

  • What happens to the engines when they're 'scrapped'? Do they die? This troper recalls one episode that showed the aftermath of a train wreck (of which there are many on the show) where all that was left of one of the train cars was his face, and it was obviously still alive.
    • I think being scrapped is when they die, I know there's a bunch of times where a freight car or whatever will have a massive accident and will then be completely rebuilt.
    • Which raises another question: How completely do they have to be broken apart before they 'die?' Will sufficient damage kill them or do they literally have to be smelted down first?
    • Perhaps the trains' AI is contained in a single component (the face itself or, looking at it as a 2000s adult, a hard drive located just behind it) and "being scrapped" refers to this component regardless of whatever else happens to the rest of the train unit.
      • this troper always saw the locomotives character to represent the quirks of the locomotive and driver. such as how the tender engines saw shunting as below them, IRL driving a tender-engine tender first is difficult as your view is obscured by the tender, Also drivers where promoted up from low importance duties such as shunting up to more important duties such as express trains.
    • The impression I got from the books is that they die. Usually it seems to be fairly quick (SCRuffey seems to die at the moment he's pulled in half) but one wonders about Godred, who, we're told, was dismantled for spares over an extended period of time.
      • Godred wasn't actually scrapped, the railway couldn't be bothered to repair him, so they gradually cannibalised him. The way I see it, he was like a human/animal left for dead, injured and without treatment, die slowly and painfully. Judging from the illustrations I've seen in the original books, I think this is what happens to all of the scrapped engines.
      • Godred didn't exist an engine made up that story.
    • The creepiest part of this show for me, hands down, was one episode when they go to the scrapyard and see dozens of engines, in various stages of being broken down. None of them had faces (thank God!) but I couldn't help but wonder if that was a Mercy Kill of some sort or if the engines were still in there...
  • In Stepney Gets Lost, why was there no explanation as to why the Fat Controller just happened to be at the scrapyard at midnight? Very suspicious if you ask me...
    • Maybe he got called down there to find Stepney after he didn't arrive back at the Bluebell Railway.
  • What degree of control do the drivers have over the engines? Sometimes they're responsible for starting them up and applying the brakes, sometimes they're just there to apply the brakes, sometimes they don't to anything useful, and in the newer seasons they've just ceased to exist. WHY?!
    • the early seasons are based on the books by Reverend W. Awdry and based on real events, as such the drivers and firemen have a role in the story. however the newer series aren't based on the books or any real events.
    • Maybe they switched to a CBTC signalling system.


  • If the humans on Sodor appear to know that the engines are sentient, why have so many of them (Hiro,Lady, Smudger (presumably), and Duke) been abandoned in the countryside? The scrapping episodes scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, for all the reasons cited above, but being scrapped almost seems merciful compared to the fate of being abandoned, slowly rusted and dismantled by nature, and, apparently, being conscious through it all.
    • Lady was left in the 'real world', where she apparently isn't sentient. So far as we know, Smudger was never abandoned, he was just converted into a stationary engine (in effect a permanent grounding), and it's likely he was moved when the line closed, or else by this point has been buried alive (which in itself is an unpleasant fate, but a lot harder to rectify). Duke (from Sleeping Beauty) was put away until his owners found someone to buy him, and at some point they apparently gave up (by which point he seems to have gone into some sort of hibernation). No idea about Hiro, but logic doesn't seem to apply to him in any way whatsoever, so he can probably just be ignored.
    • Lady's situation and Shining Times Station created a bit of a Continuity Snarl anyway. It's stated in the books, I think, and fairly well established in the earlier series, that while Sodor is fictional, it's supposed to be a part of the real world, and that all the engines are sentient. Sodor is clearly some sort of alternate dimensionin those shows.
      • The really strange thing was, Lady lost her face when she came into the 'real' world; Thomas didn't.
    • What bugged me about Duke is that IIRC the effort to find him had petered off and didn't pick up again until the other engines started talking about him. So his crew KNEW he was down there, and couldn't or wouldn't help him--for goodness sakes, his shed was so rotted that a guy didn't realize it was there and fell through the roof! (With Hiro this just reached Wall Banger status.) Whatever was going on with Duke, it's one of the creepier elements of the show that seems to indicate it doesn't matter how 'useful' the engines are, the humans still treat them like objects and have very little respect for their personalities and emotions.
      • Well, to be fair to the humans, most of the crews and controllers know that these engines are special, or they wouldn't go out of their way to help them, or, in the case of Duke, travel to an unused railway just to find an old engine. It's really the Other Railway controllers that don't care about their engines.
      • Yeah, kudos to them. Going out on a limb a bit, though, I wonder whether it's more that the Other Railway employees don't care about the locomotives, period, or they think the steam trains are inefficient and should be scrapped, like the diesels do? Too bad history seems to side with the Diesels...
    • In regards to Smudger, he's based on the character Stanley from the books, who suffered a similar fate (he was turned into a stationary pumping engine instead of a generator). When the line closed down, Stanley was simply scrapped. Based on that I think it's a good bet that Smudger suffered the same fate when the line closed in the show.
  • Why aren't the freight cars ever held accountable for their actions? They're smart enough to make up plans to annoy the engines and write irritating poetry, so I doubt they're too stupid to get it. You'd think Hatt and the others would have something to say to them, at the very least because cleaning up the messes they make has to get expensive after a while.
  • Is anybody else extremely confused on the specifics of how operating the steam engines work? Even though they have workmen, a lot of times they're blamed for their mistakes. My thought was that perhaps the workmen have to push them to start, and the engine has to consent to start moving, and vice versa for stopping. Any thoughts on this?
    • Glaring Continuity Drift. In the early episodes the plots worked around the driver's presence--like in Thomas Comes to Breakfast, he started going when his driver accidentally took the break off, and in this other one, I can't recall the title, the narrator stated that Thomas Wouldn't wake up because they couldn't get his fire started. In some episodes like Escape the crews join in on the engine's escapades; in Hero of the Rails the engines somehow, almost without human help, managed to rebuild Hiro. Basically, when after the Reverend's books ran out, the humans seem to be tehre only when they're convenient.
  • Building on this question, if we ignore the later episodes and assume that the engines can only move around when the humans are there to help them...it seems that it wold be quite easy to blackmail the engines!
  • Wrong Road makes no sense to me. Wouldn't Edward realize "wait, I'm on the main line" back up, and alert the signalman what happened? Nevermind the passengers being put on the wrong path...
    • It was at night. Also, Edward's driver probably did realise what had happened when he reached the next station, but Gordon was five minutes behind him and would have passed the junction by that time (bear in mind that a five mile climb of 1 in 75, which is pretty steep, lies between the two stations).
  • It's been suggested that engines are only really "awake" when their fires are lit. So what about the engines that have been kept for preservation, but are left in museums, with their fires dropped?
    • I seem to recall that Donald and Douglas found Henry completely covered by a snowdrift. He was able to ask them for help.
    • Also, Percy got stuck by snow in the middle of the town and his drivers left him there until morning. I think this also happened to Thomas and one of the Narrow Gauge engines, at some point. It wasn't explicitly stated that their fires were out, but it would stand to reason that they were--the railway probably wouldn't want to waste the fuel, and keeping them in steam might stress the metal parts.
    • Though many tropers won't count this example there's Hiro,who was definitely cold when Thomas found him.
    • And Lady, as discussed above. Her problem in The Magic Railroad was definitely that she couldn't get up steam.
  • Am I missing why this series has such a large adult fanbase compared to other toddler cartoons?
    • Two reasons: One, it's old enough that a lot of us who watched it as our kids are re-watching it with our own tots now. Two, as noted on the main page, the Visual Effects of Awesome (before the CGI, anyway) attract a lot of railway and modeling enthusiasts in their own right.
    • Let's face it: Cool Trains
    • It's worth nothing that the earlier episodes (and books) were also fairly well done in terms of continuity and world building. For many people it was sort of their first series that had that sort of overarching storytelling.
    • Additionally, as the YMMV page says, actual rail enthusiasts are quite fond of how (at least back when it was actively based on Rev. Awdry's books) accurate it was to the actual history and workings of the British railway system, sentience aside.
  • The entirety of Misty Island Rescue makes no sense whatsoever.
    • So the Rescue Center can only be made out of wood from Japan? There's no other wood that could possibly be used in its place?
    • Why did Thomas have to travel to the mainland to get the wood? Is there no better way to get it?
    • There's a perfectly serviceable rail link to the mainland, why did Thomas have to get hitched to the back of a boat, with his driver and fireman in there, while still in steam?
    • Not really an IJBM, but it seems pretty concidential that Thomas's raft aligned perfectly with the rails.
    • If this wood grows in Japan, why the hell is it growing on the island?
      • Hiro DID mention earlier in the film that Jobi wood grows on "only one or two islands" in the world.
    • The general insanity and No OSHA Compliance of the Misty Island railways- (bridges through hollow logs, WTF?)
    • The Shake Shake Bridge.
      • According to the writer of MIR, Sharon Miller, the bridge was originally supposed to be a wooden suspension bridge - perfectly safe, yet swayed with the engines' movement, and the logging engines were to be more helpful in helping Thomas cross it (a much more positive moral about helping friends overcome obstacles). What we got, however...
      • It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say the Shake Shake Bridge is made of Jobi wood. Jobi wood is said to be the strongest wood of supply. Jobi wood is found on Misty Island. Even though the stucture looks weak, it's made from strong materials. Then again, the way the engines swing over it says otherwise.
    • Why did nobody know about the three locomotives on the island? Why were there no people running it? How did the engines continue to run if they couldn't get fuel?
    • And then there's an underground tunnel that connects the two. How on earth did the crews (who I assume were using turn-of-the-century technology) manage to tunnel underneath the seafloor?
      • and, if the tunnel is underwater (as it would have to be) how is it that a hole breaks in its ceiling through which Thomas sends three puffs of steam to signal the engines back on Sodor? (wouldn't water come rushing in?)
    • Whiff claims to have once taken garbage to and from the islands. Yet Whiff only showed up a few seasons ago.
    • If they knew that taking the tunnel was dangerous and poorly maintained, why did the Logging Locos even bother to accompany Thomas at all?
  • It bugs me the way shunting is treated in the new series. All the engines now do is roll up to a line of readily assorted trucks, ram them a little, reverse back, and charge, then repeating. This is and looks dangerous, what with the loads spewing everywhere and probably getting damaged. Episodes like 'Hector the Horrid' show that shunting involves rolling towards trucks that are uncoupled and apart and pushing them into a line ready to be coupled up and taken away, whereas episodes like 'Splish, Splash, Splosh', 'Misty Island Rescue' and 'Thomas in Charge' show the engines just bucking them around a bit, and they somehow become sorted. How is this?
  • What's the deal with Woolly Bear? Thomas is waiting for Percy, but Percy isn't pulling a train or anything, much less any passengers. Why does he have to stick around?
    • Because Thomas' Branch Line is single track, and he has to wait until Percy meets him at the station (which has a passing loop) and clears the section.
  • If Lady's gold dust is supposedly what makes the Island of Sodor magic (and makes the engines come alive), then why are engines from other railways (Hiro, Hank, the logging engines) also alive?
  • How is it the trucks can push tank engines around, when it's clearly established that you have to have an actual engine to move? I can see the times they lock their brakes and refuse to move, but not the episodes where they shove the engines around.
    • Trucks (and coaches) are affected by more than just the engine pulling them. Static vehicles have inertia and frictional forces that must be overcome to move them, whilst those in motion have momentum, and will try and keep going when the engine brakes. Gravity will also act on stock on hills, pulling them downhill. Whenever an engine is being pushed, they are already in motion, and on level track or going downhill (whilst when they hold back the engine is usually starting or climbing), so whilst the trucks can't move themselves, they can take advantage of other forces acting on them to go against what the engine wants them to do.
      • In particular, the "trucks pushing an engine down a hill" event that seems to frequently recur is based on a real life concern of many railroad workers from the steam era. In Britain, most of the freight cars of that time period only had handbrakes and only the engine and brakevan had brakes that could be applied while the train was in motion, so if the train crew wasn't careful approaching a downgrade, the weight of the loaded and unbraked trucks could cause a Runaway Train.
  • Why does everyone refer to the controlman as "The Fat Controllman"? he's been explicitly called: "Sir Topham Hatt".
    • "The Fat Controller" is a nickname for the various Topham Hatts seen throughout the series. It has been around before his official name was ever given, from the third book (in the previous two, he was referred to as the Fat Director, due to the different structure of UK railways at the time).
  • In Day of the Diesels, why did Diesel 10 or one of the other diesels not just go and ask Sir Topham Hatt to repair the Dieselworks?
    • They don't think he'll listen to them. They explicitly want Percy to do it because the Fat Controller will listen to a steam engine, whereas he won't pay attention to the diesels. This probably isn't true, but given the attitude of Thomas towards diesels can you blame them?
    • Maybe its because Diesel 10 has been shown to be a complete jerkass. That whole, "Scrap all Steam Engines" ting might have had somethign to do with it.
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