What would it be like to drive Thomas the tank engine?
Many children have dreams of becoming a train driver, but if Thomas and his thousands of
acquaintances were alive, would it really be as fun as it sounds?
Today you get to see how I’ve wasted my time these last few days to find out what
a typical day could look like as a driver on Sodor.
This was spurred on partly by TomSka’s Thomas analysis and also UnluckyTug’s Unanswerable
Thomas Questions from way back when, so go and check those out after watching this TED
Talk.
Unlike other vehicle shows where the cast are fully self-controlled from the starting
line, the Rev Awdry’s fictional work is in fact set in the real world.
The trains are real, and they work to transport people and goods in the same way real trains
do.
There isn’t any magic or hallucinations involved, but the only difference in this
world compared to ours is that some of the vehicles have faces.
No idea why some do and some don’t, but people aren’t shocked at this, it’s just
how it is.
It’s like how parrots can talk or monkeys can replicate human movement.
It can be funny, fascinating or a bit weird, but we just accept that.
Although yes, it must have been strange when the first engine was built and it started
blinking.
You wake up at 5am and get ready for work.
It’s too early to say goodbye to the family but you’re probably aware that you may never
see them again because the risks that you’ll be going through today are un-nerving to say
the least.
You cycle through the sleepy village of Ffarquar and clock on at the loco shed.
Make a cup of tea, and start preparing your engine.
The fireman and cleaners are already there, and you quietly start going round oiling the
motion, trying not to wake the engines.
Some of the things they say in their sleep are disturbing to say the least whilst you’re
using an oil can in rather uncomfortable positions, but it’s worse for the fireman, who has
to open the door that the face is on to clean out the ash from the smokebox.
For anyone who’s first day it is at the railway, seeing this down the shed is enough
to haunt you for life.
They feed them a barrow full of firewood as it’s a healthy breakfast for steam engines,
high in protein, before adding a round of coal.
After a few hours steam has been raised and Thomas slowly wakes up.
After the good morning formalities, he begins bossing the cleaner about because they didn’t
polish his brass whistle enough and everyone is vain on this island, but you’re soon
ready to start your day.
After all the usual prep, open the regulator and out you go into the yard to get coal and
water.
Thomas is still waking up so when you get to the carriage sheds his temper is short
when Annie and Clarabel complain that they’ll be late.
It’s even worse when Percy overhears this and mutters how Thomas has it easy just pulling
passenger trains, and the town is awoken as they start arguing.
On the journey you get stopped by the usual hindrances.
A cow on the line, Mrs Kyndley wanted to stop for a chat, and despite the fireman’s best
efforts, Thomas just doesn’t want to steam today.
It’s only made worse when you see Bertie the bus, because everyone is competitive on
this island, and he jokes that Thomas is getting old.
Considering he’s well over 100, he’s not doing too badly to be fair.
At the big station the Fat Controller praises Thomas for being Really Useful, whilst you,
the driver, don’t get a word in or even a pay rise.
You’re by the seaside so it must be something in the air because you’re definitely not
salty about it.
You’re expected to be extremely fit to work on the North Western Railway, as proven by
the guard who you see running up the line to warn you that Percy has broken down and
you need to go and rescue his train.
You leave the passengers who immediately start shouting and throwing bricks, and head off
up the line.
Thomas is in a great mood when he sees Percy stranded on the siding because he’s been
practising his comeback speech for the past few miles.
Again, the poor cleaner has to get uncomfortably close to the giant, screaming face of the
truck to couple the train, but you’re then ready to take them to the harbour.
Oh no, but then there was trouble, because Percy wound the trucks up and they want to
get their own back on whichever engine is closest.
You realise what those documents were that you were asked to sign when you were hired
as they start forcing the train downhill.
You apply the brakes but they’re useless as the train hurtles down the line.
Nearing a bend you have no choice but to jump clear, leaping out at about 50mph as the train
derails and several trucks are destroyed in a pile-up, laughing with joy as wood splinters
everywhere.
Luckily, no one was hurt.
The 4th crash you’ve had in the past year but yet again everyone somehow gets away unscathed
and you dare not question why.
Thomas is sobbing as he’s put back on the rails and giving a monologue on how he shouldn’t
have been so cheeky.
The fat controller arrives and scalds him, but you get a right telling off too for losing
control of the train and your salary gets cut.
Not only that, but to teach him how to handle trucks properly, you’re all to be stuck
shunting in the yard until you can be trusted again.
Could be worse, at least the boiler didn’t explode.
That night at the sheds the fireman gets the unfortunate job of climbing into the pit and
emptying Thomas’ ashpan.
It’s unpleasant to talk about what this would be as a human analogy.
They rake out the firebars from clinker, which is pretty much the equivalent of cleaning
Thomas’ teeth, and put the engines to bed.
Your family ask how your day was at work?
They’re amazed you get to work with the actual world-famous Thomas the tank engine,
but you just smile and try to recover for the day ahead.
But that night your dreams are haunted by the worries that the shed might blow up from
a rather explosive boulder, you’ll fall into the sea, get lost at sea, nearly tumble
off a bridge, fall down a mine, get stuck underground, or be put in A&E because of some
projectile fruit.
I’m no engine driver myself, but I have been lucky enough to volunteer on the footplate
of engines big and small, including some of the ones that the characters are based on.
I’m still very much learning, but I’m pretty sure that if there was the added element
of them being alive it would make things a whole lot more difficult.
The decisions of the crew are doubled when they have to agree with the decision of the
engine too.
If the driver wants to go but the engine wants to put the brakes on, who wins?
As in reality, trains cannot operate without their crew, but they do get some degree of
self-contained movement, and their selfish emotions often mean that they end up in a
mess.
Thankfully they do generally have good intentions and seem to get genuine gratification from
being useful, so most of the time they don’t mind doing their intended jobs.
Like we all learn in life, not every job is as fun as you’d like, but it still has to
get done.
This is where the line is drawn between seeing the engines as slaves to the oppressing fat
controller and as having their own freedom.
It's like having a horse running in the wild and not having to pull carts or gallop in
wars for humans, only, the catch is the horse isn’t actually able to do anything on its
own and just has to stand there.
Railway engines are literally nicknamed Iron Horses and in that sense they’re more pets
to their owners rather than slaves to their masters.
There’s still a lot of ethical red flags about this but the bottom line is the engines
were not intended to be slaves personified as trains, they’re just actual trains who
happen to have faces.
The whole lore of the Island of Sodor was made from a children’s bedtime story in
the 1940s, so not everything makes sense and not everything has aged well, but Awdry wasn’t
some Charles Dickens villain ordering people about in a Victorian textiles mill, he was
just a reverend and a part-time author.
You have to remember the reason why he personified the trains at all, they felt real.
You’ll hear it from anyone who’s worked on a steam engine, they are such temperamental
and demanding machines that they feel almost like they’re living.
There are thousands of ways in which you can compare the ways a steam engine works to human
biology, and even two identical machines can act differently.
Unlike cars or diesel locos, a driver and fireman must really work with a steam engine
to get where they’re going, and it’s all the more rewarding when they get there.
That said, there will be times when for seemingly no mechanical reason at all they will just
refuse to work.
Even without a giant grey face, they can get tired and run out of steam, where you’ll
have to just sit and wait until they’re ready, and they can kick up a fuss if you
feed them a different kind of coal.
They can get short of breath if the fire doesn’t get enough air, and they need to be cleaned
to avoid damage.
It’s very elemental-based technology, and if treated right they can last 100s of years,
but it’s a full-on, hands-on job.
If I worked on the railways of Sodor, I’d definitely want to be on one of the quieter
branch-lines just in case, but to me it’s pretty clear that in the books the teamwork
between the engine and the person is always there.
The crew get annoyed if the engine go against their advice, and the engine gets annoyed
if they can’t stop to go fishing or do prestigious jobs.
Still, it’s a great life on the footplate of an engine, and it’s great to be an engine,
so I’m sure living on Sodor isn’t as sarcastic and sinister as I painted it out to be.
What do you think?
Which character would you stay clear of working with, and what sort of day would be your ideal?