Next time on Mid Sodor Gear: Jim who's badly damaged after a crash nevertheless gets rebuilt and sold to a sand mining tramway WITHOUT his cab Albert forgets to take on water after ignoring Duke's advice and gets scrapped And Stanley gets turned into a pumping engine after one derailment too many
I've always pictured Diesel 10 being taken away to a South American country after his fall and put to work on an Agriculture Railway where he had to use claw load freight cars full of manure to be taken to local farms along the line. As result Diesel 10 is always dirty, smelly, hot, miserable and sad.
@@gwrstudios5181 didn't he break down again being the actual generator for that mine, and caused the whole mine to flood. i think i heard that from another RU-vid channel (or maybe another video on this channel)
Stanley, MSR number 2: Has a grounded backstory and historical basis Fandom: Indifferent. Smudger: is literally just repainted Rheneas with none of Stanley's advantages going for him Fandom: Oh the poor engine! how could they leave him behind?
@@Soundwave3591 Yeah that’s because they’re memorable. What’s memorable about an engine mentioned once, who we barely see in the only time HE WAS mentioned, had 2 lines of text, and had no name until he was given one, YEARS later. Also smudger does have a basis, because at one point, dolgoch was green.
@@Soundwave3591 The fact that the engine you’re talking about ATLEAST has merchandise? Is seen in multiple books, unlike a certain engine he’s based off *cough* Stanley, wasn’t introduced in a book and instead in the show, where not only was he given more of a personality, but also shown with emotion? Maybe because his story is more interesting? Stanley was turned into a pumping engine because of his derailments due to his weight distribution, and was eventually scrapped. Smudger derailed because he was a fucking jerk, turned into a generator, and we don’t hear of what happens to him again. Was he scrapped? Was he left there? Was he turned back into a normal locomotive? Since it’s never addressed, we don’t know. Those are just a few reasons why smudger is a hell of a lot more memorable.
Turning locomotives into pumping engines, stationary boilers, etc. was a fairly common occurence. 'Lion' built in 1838, by Todd, Kitson & Laird, for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, was sold in 1859 to Princes Dock and Harbour Board. She was later to be found working the pumps there, in the 1920s, and in 1930 was restored, working some excursions. In 1952, she starred in The Titfield Thunderbolt, which re-enacted the water in buckets to loco shenanigans, with a 14xx. Titfield, by the way, is an extremely good watch for any railway enthusiasts. Lion still exists, looking gorgeous in a museum in Liverpool.
Extra little bit about sleeping beauty - the way the rescuers found duke comes from how Awdry's close friend, Rev. Teddy Boston, found his own locomotive named Pixie. The rescuer falling onto duke (in the book illustration) is even based on Teddy Boston!
Another extra fact to the sleeping beauty story. You know the engines Sir Hydan and Edward Thomas from Talyllyn Railway, they orignally came from the Corris Railway which closed in 1948. When the line closed they were both left under tarpaulin, in their shed at the rear of Machynlleth Station, like Duke. They were then found and bought by the Talyllyn Railway in 1951 when it became a heritage railway.
@@shayleebell9206 Oh I see, that's interesting, thinking it over I think I have heard about locos being abandoned in their sheds after their railways closed. But anyway the other thing is that Sir Hydan and Edward Thomas are the real life versions of Sir Handle and Peter Sam (Falcon and Stuart) from the story. The Talyllyn Railway is the real life version of the Skarloy Railway where the engines moved to, and the Corris Railway is the real life version of the Mid Sodor Railway where they originally came from. Therefore it's possible that this is where Wilbert Awdry got much of the inspiration for the story.
@@shayleebell9206 Yes, same here. I prefer Wilbert and Christopher's stories due to being based on real events. I don't like the stories that were made up due to their lack of realism. This is exactly how Wilbert felt about them, especially the episode 'Henry's Forest' from season 3 of the series where Henry was stopping to admire the forest without alerting the signalman, you just cannot stop like that on the railway due to the danger of a collision from an oncoming train.
I always thought Dukes story of being shut away and eventually being found had a striking resemblance to that of the loco called 'Fire Queen' A loco that worked on the Padarn Railway in Wales. When the quarry line updated their engines in 1886 her sister engine was scrapped and Fire queen was placed in a shed which was bricked up and remained there until 1969 when the quarry closed. At which point She was recovered and placed in Penryn Castle as part of their museum. The museum staff seemed pretty certain the engine was also saved due to the Quarry owners daughter liking the engine, although I can't find written record of this. Whether that helped inspire Dukes story I'm not sure. But I thought the story might be interesting for people :)
The narrow gauge stories were some of my favorites as a kid. Being that I grew up in the US, I had George Carlin as the narrator... The narrow gauge stores were his last. Sometimes I wonder if that's one of the reasons I look back at them so fondly. It was the end of an era. In more ways than one!
I would argue that the Mid Sodor had more than one basis, the one you mentioned, and the Corris railway. It was the railway where the Talyllyn railway (Skarloey railway Basis) got there original #3 and #4 locomotives (Sir handel And Peter Same Basis), as well as some rolling stock. They bought the loco's and rolling stock after the Corris railway closed. It was built a short distance away from the Talyllyn railway IRL, but in recent years has been reopened as a heritage railway, and now are making replica's of their former engines.
The Mid-Sodor Railway was such a mysterious territory in the Thomas universe. It's feels so right for these darker and sadder real stories were used for Awdry's stories.
on Palmerston, he doesn't just look like Duke, he and Duke are the same model of engine, IE Brothers, like Gordon and Flying Scotsman. the George England 0-4-0 Tender Tanks were 6 engines built for the Ffestiniog Railway, and Duke was based on their design.
i remember one of those engines stood in the car park for several years in Portmadog, before being moved into the new station cafe, as a kind of museum piece.
@@terencewilliammckenna6121 that could simply be a matter of Duke's age: he wasn't exactly a young Engine, and the MSR wasn't swimming in wealth to affect repairs all the time.
The Mid Sodor has some similarities to the narrow gauge portion of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad. Both closed down shortly after World War 2 and both only had 3 known engines at the end of its working life.
Another inspiration is the Corris Railway. It was the railway were the real life counterparts of Stuart and Falcon worked before it too closed down and it's engines went to the Talyllyn who were in need of more engines to keep services running due to the poor conditions of their engines. Just like the Skarloey Railway. The names Stuart and Falcon come from were they were built. Falcon was Hughes engine built at the Falcon works, Stuart was built by Kerr Stuart. It's little details like this that Awdry included that make the books and show so interesting. Plus Smudged was not found in the book and used Rheneas' model instead there was Stanley, a WW1 surplus American engine built by Baldwin. Stanley Baldwin was the UK prime minister between 1935-37. Hence the name.
If he wasn't speaking in such a rush, he might have been able to get his tongue round the correct pronunciation! I had to rewind to try to understand what he said!
You forgot that smudgers story was also based on the welsh highland railways 590, and dukes rediscovery is also partially based on prince being locked away in his shed mid restoration when the ffestiniog was closed
Great video, and nice research - I'd never known the true origin of the Sleeping Beauty story before. I'd just like to add a couple of background details here... A key thing to remember about the "Mid Sodor Railway" is that it was mostly inspired by The Talyllyn Railway in north Wales. This notable for two important reasons here - it was the first 'preserved' railway in the UK, ie it was closed by its owners but volunteers bought it out and returned it to service as a tourist attraction. But more importantly - The Reverand Wilbert Awdry was one of the founding volunteers there. Many of the stories of the Mid Sodor are directly inspired by early incidents on the newly preserved line (such as when Awdry himself, as a volunteer guard, started the last return trip of the day before the station's refreshment lady had finished up and gotten on board!) Going back to Sleeping Beauty, in the original books it is a "fat clergyman" and "thing clergyman" who are on the search for Granpuff. This was actually Awdry including himself (the "thin" clergyman) and one of his best friends, the Reverand Edwin "Teddy" Boston (the "fat" clergyman) in his own stories. In the book, the fat clergyman is so heavy that it is HE who crashes through the shed roof and discovers the sleeping engine! The illustration - thomas-and-friends-encyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty_(RWS)?file=SleepingBeauty3.jpg - is a remarkably good likeness of the real-life man. Teddy Boston was such a rail fan that in the grounds of the church where he was the minister he built full-sized narrow-gauge steam railway which opened monthly, for free, to visitors - He called it the Cadeby Light Railway, and there are many videos of it available here on RU-vid. Luckily for me, this was only about 5 miles from where I grew up, so my dad took me there regularly when I was a child. Of course, the real prize for me was when Teddy's friend Wilbert was there on a couple of the open days - eventually I remembered to take a couple of my RWS books along to the events, and soon enough I managed to get Wilbert Awdry to sign two of them for me. :) The fat and thin clergymen appear again in the RWS book "Small Railway Engines" story "Tit for Tat" where Bert deliberately splashes them in mud - Awdry casting he and his friend again as slightly obsessive railway nerds. :)
The other thing about Smudger is that in the original stories he was meant to be a surplus trench locomotive from the First World War, most likely an American-built Baldwin or Davenport loco. These engines were built on the cheap as hundreds were needed to support the supply lines along the Western Front, and many were expected to be destroyed by German artillery fire. When the war ended, the civilian market was flooded with cheap surplus locomotives that had survived the war, but were often in very poor shape, with the American engines gaining a particularly bad reputation for essentially working themselves apart. It's telling that very few trench locomotives survived into the Preservation Era. A common fate for engines that were no longer useful in their intended role was indeed as stationary boilers or as pumps; it's possible some were used to power generators as said in the TV series. The use of a repainted Rheneas model for Smudger in the TV series was largely a cost cutting choice; most of the narrow gauge episodes had been filmed by the time Granpuff came up for production, so a Rheneas model was just painted green and given a new face rather than trying to make a whole new model that would only be needed for less than one episode.
Could you see if there is a real life equivalent to Peter Sam getting smoked by mine cars who broke free from their chains or losing his funnel in a tunnel. Or maybe one about a train sinking a boat like Percy did to Bulstrode the Barg lol
I can recommend the movie The Titfield Thunderbolt. It came out 17 years before the Duke the lost engine RWS book and features a scene where passengers getting water to a steam engine very simular to the scene from bulldog. It may also feature the inspiration for the TVS story Bye George.
It’s funny because usually in the other videos this info would be new to me XD But I already knew all the real life inspirations for Duke the lost engine. Note: (isn’t prince still alive/not scrapped?)Because him and Duke have to tell eachother their stories about pulling and engine to safety lol
Rev. W Awdry took most of these stories from those he experienced as a volunteer at Talyllyn Railway (where we have his study) The discovery of Duke is actually following volunteers at Talyllyn going up to find the lost Ffestiniog Railway and discovering the locomotives in the sheds there. Allan Garaway was a TR member and part of that group, and went on to start the movement to restore FfR to what it is today.
Hey bud I know your not gonna get a clear pronunciation for the welsh names of the narrow gauge railways but i descended to show you how there actually pronounced because it makes me cringe every time you say it wrong Talyllyn = tally clin ffestiniog = fest tin e og I hope this helps keep up the quality content
Well great video as always but I think I've been watching to many of your videos. I had a dream that I met you it was pretty weird. I didn't see your face but you gave me a Tomy diesel 10 such a weird and interesting dream. Lol
Also in the Railway Series it was originally Stanley who was turned into a pumping engine instead of a generator and Smudger replaced him in the TV series by being turned into a generator instead
I just realized, the main cast think the narrow gauge are like the train versions of elves. What if it turned out that model trains were also sentient.
There is important thing to note about Smudger and his story that wasn't touched on in this video: In the original Railway Series book the character was simply known as No. 2, and that he was an American engine and we didn't get a good picture of him. Smudger is an invention of the Tv show which used a repainted Rheneas. Why do I bring this up? Because years later some digging by some other people gave us more insight into No. 2 (smudger's basis) and the historical basis for why Awdry gave him such a dark ending. Apparently No. 2 had the name of Stanley, and that he was a Baldwin 10-12-D. What kind of Engine is that you ask? An engine built by America and exported to Britian, to serve in the light railways supplying the British troops in the trenches of the Western front of WW1. After the war, the surviving 10-12-Ds were either abandoned or ended up in all kinds of weird places, and they weren't regarded well by British train crews. In fact, American steam engines sent to Britain were never liked much by British crews, who viewed them as cheap, crude and markedly inferior to British engines. The 10-12-Ds specifically were noted during the war for bad steaming, and for potentially toppling over off the tracks, and to be fair they are very ungainly machines. You can see where Rev. W Awdry got his inspiration for No. 2/Smudger riding roughly and often coming off the rails. Also, we living today don't have many steam engines left and said engines are living history that cannot be replaced if lost, and since Smudger was a living creature we can't imagine anything but a cruel devil turning him into a generator and making sure he'd never move again. But we forget that back then, steam engines were just as commonplace and financially frought as trucks, planes and ships. Steam engines had to turn a profit or the railway would get rid of them somehow, as you don't keep something that's actively losing you money. "Then one day manager said that he was going to make him useful at last, Smudger stopped laughing then." Awdry reflected this hard truth with the story of smudger, and later with the railways closure where Duke is left in the shed because no one wants him because no one thinks Duke's profitable anymore. Of course in the grand scheme Awdry probably wasn't trying to be sadistic with Smudger, but wanted to teach kids that your actions have consequences, and if you continually do bad things and don't start being better, karma will come back to bite you and bite you hard.
Do another MSR true stories video, with the real events of you can’t win, how Sir-Haydn and Edward-Thomas were named Kerr and Hughes after the companies where they were each built and worked on the Corris, the inspiration of the grand-puff name, and other MSR engines, too.
Plus, please, list the real-life events of very old engines, too, including if Talyllyn ever had a faulty firebox and/or caused someone to fell off the footplate due to bouncing, if an engine got stuck in a mud slide, and if the Talyllyn had a centenary in 1965.
hey man i really appreciate these videos! there fantastic. fun thing though i volunteered on the Ravenglass and Eskdale railway witch is what the book small railway engines is based on and a lot of the stories are true there. the good rev w. awdry features. keep up the great work! i hope you can do a video on them one day as i literally grew up with them on paper and in person.
Two other examples of locos discovered in their sheds are "Alice" and "Fire Queen" at Danorwic Quarry, Llanberis, North Wales. Both found tucked up in they're sheds Alice half way up the mountain side and "Fire Queen" down by the lake in her orginaln shed. Look both locos up and they're history, fascinating survival stories.
It’s significantly more likely that the story of Duke’s discovery was based the discovery of the Rvd. Teddy Boston’s loco, Pixie, who was found in an almost identical manner to Duke. It is noble that in the original RWS, the exhibition to find the Mid Sodor Railway was led by the “Fat and Thin Clergymen” - aka Boston and Awdry - with the Fat Clergyman falling through the roof.
