Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

Thomas the Tank Engine is a talking, thinking train engine first created in 1945 by Reverend W. Awdry of Great Britain. The Railway Series contained forty books, which were written by Rev. Awdry between the years of 1945 and 1972, and then by his son, Christopher Awdry, until 1996. In the books, Thomas the Tank Engine was part of a train system that existed on the make-believe island of Sodor.

Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, or Thomas and Friends, is a children's television series based on the books that first aired in 1984 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the show is broadcast on PBS and first appeared in 1989. The first two seasons of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends took their material mainly from the first eight books of the Railway Series. The second season continued along the same lines, moving from the ninth book, Edward the Blue Engine, to the 30th book, More about Thomas the Tank Engine.

In the third season, the show began using scripts written especially for television along with material from the books, and by the fifth season, all of the material on the show was original. Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends is currently in its tenth season.

 A number of notable celebrities have provided narration for the show, including Ringo Starr (from 1984-1986), George Carlin (from 1991-1998), and Alec Baldwin (from 1998-2003). Aside from Thomas, other recurring characters in the show include Edward the Blue Engine, Henry the Green Engine, Gordon the Big Engine, and James the Red Engine, among many others.