So we've all heard about the 1983 Pilot of "Down the Mine". But what you haven't heard of is the O gauge pilot made briefly beforehand, and that is the topic that I cover in this video.
I forgot to mention it in the video, but in Season 1. The scrapped model of Thomas can be seen right next to Toby’s shed, which gives us a good idea of the scale of the model, next to a Gauge 1 model. Link to image: ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Toby%27s_Shed_(T%26F)/Gallery?file=TobyandtheStoutGentleman41.png
Man... to think we thought the Down the Mine Pilot is the Holy Grail of earliest-known Thomas "lost media". Along comes this. Granted, the DTM Pilot still pretty much is as we've got a lot surrounding it, but it'd be interesting to see whatever news comes of this O Gauge Pilot.
Wow. The more I watch your videos, the more I learn about obscure facts of the classic series! This was really interesting to see! Love your vids man, don't stop doing them!
I knew about the O Gauge test pilot thanks to the Thomas wiki. It could even be possible that we may see the test officially released to the public like the down the mine pilot in a 80th anniversary dvd in 2025.
Possible, although extremely unlikely given that we believe only a few shots were filmed from the O Gauge "test". But it's possible some images may turn up one day.
Very interesting. I know of the Down The Mine Pilot, but the fact the rabbit hole goes deeper amazes me. While there’s a half a chance the aforementioned pilot will be revealed in the near future, there’s not enough to suggest we’ll see this emerge any time soon.
Wow, that's interesting. I never knew there's another pilot being made but with using O gauge models. I honestly thought the well known one was the only one produced.
Another thing to add, there's a small green and yellow double decker bus, it appears in thimas and the guard I think? This bus was found to be a modified off the shelf toy noticeably smaller than gauge 1. I reckon myself that it was bought for the original pilot
this was a great video, hopefully we will find out more and maybe it will get leaked, there is a rumour about Mattel releasing the gauge 1 pilot at the 80th anniversary
The Original pilot was filmed in O gauge, but only a few shots were filmed since the models were so bad. The second pilot was filmed in Gauge 1, but it’s unlikely that the whole pilot was filmed. The models were better than their O Gauge counterparts, but still very bad. So they were refurbished and given Marklin Chassis’ for the first season in 1984.
@@clayv5422 I believe you're referring to the one from 1976, however that was just a few sketches made for a cartoon. It took a little while to get the show off the ground to say the least.
Shame the models from the Down The Mine pilot episode from the early 1980s were used as set dressing as scrap engines. As the pilot was reshot and redone.
I doubt it, although the footage from the Gauge 1 Pilot exists. I find it unlikely that the few shots that made up the original test “pilot”, still exist. But to answer your question, I don’t think so. There’s a very high chance that they were discarded, although possible that they still have them, it’s unlikely. Or some other individual may have an image or two, but we just don’t know yet.
Well we know that the crew in Season 4 had such a hard time with the narrow Gauge models, (which were O Gauge). That they switched to large scale versions of the narrow Gauge engines for Season 5 onwards, and this was over a full decade after the pilot. So in short, if it was hard to use a small scale such as O Gauge in the 90’s, it was even harder to work with these models in the early 80’s.
They should make a one off special using the original models once again.Because when watching the early model series you can see lots of care and commitment in the production of it
You mentioned the cancelled documentary, I remember seeing how much that was being promoted years ago but I can’t remember who was making it. Does anyone know why it was cancelled?
It was TomsProps who was making it, I think he got burnout or lazy and was low on funds so he cancelled it. So he'd then disappear from Twitter, he's been selling stuff on eBay as of recently. The thing is, all the O gauge narrow gauge engines were being brought to the "Unlikely fandom" event in November, by their respective owners. But since he owns Duncan and Rheneas it's unlikely that'll happen now.
