HERE WE GO! Rushton's narrations of book 18 'Stepney The Bluebell Engine'. Audio donated by barttheanorak, dedicated to the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society
@@thecpmr6276 You know if they didn't want a boring Story, they could have stuck this on to Thomas & Stepney. Like they did with Edward's Day Out and Edward & Gordon
@@shirokumaotaku well awdry didn't like talking down to children and questioning their intelligence, hence why we have this illustration possibly resembling death.
I had no idea Donald and Douglas were blue until I was about 9. Before I couldn't quite read the books so I use to think that was Edward in some of the pictures.
1:00 if I was reading this book when I was about 5 years old and saw that, I would’ve just immediately closed the book and started crying in fear. I bet I would’ve had nightmares
It makes me sad to think that the greatest means of transportation in its original form were just wiped out by diesels on the British railways. If ttte was real and engines could talk, god heavens, what a cruel place and reputation England would be
From what I understand, and I may be wrong here, while steam was mass withdrawn in Britain (because of government involvement? Not sure), places like the USA phased put steam much slower, having it run well into the 70's.
@@thecpmr6276 The US rail system was still mostly privatized at the time, but the Class I (Major) railroads dieselized by 1960, with Norfolk and Western retiring steam on May 7th.
I wish to know if there was any real-life event that inspired this story, like Stepney’s escaping from diesel engines and being welcomed when he arrives
In some ways, I can see why Allcroft chose not to completely adapt this story. Rusty to the Rescue isn’t a great episode, nor is it realistic, what with Stepney's life being saved by a narrow gauge diesel rather than humans. However, it’s a lot more interesting than this story. In a nutshell, Percy and Douglas just stand around and talk. True, they could showcase the Bluebell Railway during the discourse, but would it be really worth it to make model replicas of the Bluebell engines and a set of their line if it was only going to appear once? From a financial standpoint, it’s not practical.
Rusty To The Rescue made more sense as being a story for a TV series. However they copied some aspects like escaping diesels and coming into view to welcome the other engines and before all of that, Douglas is the nominal character. It was an all right surrogate for this Awdry story.
The timeline for the TV series is a bit broken from that of the book, for example, Oliver is saved from scrap far earlier than he was in the book. So they had to bring Stepeney into the series in a slightly different way.
@@jaanshersaeed4541 They do bring each script from Bluebells Of England and Stepney's Special into both episodes each. By the way, what was the real-life event of Bluebell Of England? (It's already known that Stepney's Special was inspired by a 1905 event from the railway gazette.)
Who are you? I'm a sheds and sidings inspection diesel, have you any shed engines? No none Then what about the sidings? One. We have one. Where is he going? Just down the line.
Notably, the first story book under the superb illustrations of Gunvor Edwards along with her husband Peter. And man oh man, do their dynamic artistry looks so fantastic and real right up and down to the last detail? It all lasts until the final book, "Tramway Engines." Such a shame neither both couldn't be in the workings for Christopher Awdry's tenure part of the series. Gunvor and Peter are simply my favorite Railway Series illustrators, along with John T. Kenney as a honorable mention who illustrated several books before them.
What is the real-life event of this story? How Stepney was preserved at Eastleigh in 1960 and journeyed to the bluebell railway through diesel engines to be safe with other steamers, and was given a great welcomed arrival?
1:46 - It’s the basis of Adam from Wildnorwester’s series! And also my favourite Stories of Sodor character! So for those that say Adam didn’t appear in the Railway series, he kinda did.
With that maroon Class 52’s facial expression, I wonder if it could be interpreted as them not really agreeing with the idea of being anti-steam as those other diesels seem to be looking towards Stepney’s presence or if it’s meant to be a look of being just as disappointed and not happy as most diesels about being around a steam engine. Speaking of them, that yellow faced Class 31 for a fact definitely seems hateful about Stepney being around and while that must most likely also be the case for the green faced Class 40, there’s the fact Stepney and the other diesels are in the direction they’re looking in so while the picture is likely them being mad with Stepney, we could easily instead interpret them as being disappointed in one or two of the other diesel’s behavior(s) towards Stepney and is fond of steam engines.
“Oh dear, I couldn’t understand it all. But engines on British Railways aren’t safe now, their controllers are cruel! They don’t like engines anymore. They put them on cold damp sidings and then they c-c-cut them up....”
It's not very realistic, because the "other railway" mentioned there is implied to be on the mainland, which doesn't make much sense for a narrow gauge line to run all the way there. However, I really enjoyed it as the music and visuals were great, it gives Rusty a bit more character, it's aimed at a different target audience than the books, and it probably was impossible to directly adapt Bluebells of England for the TV series without incurring a large cost in model production.
