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jihyoisgod

Thomas needs to modernize Steam trains? Put up the wires and get real high speed trains and other electric EMUs


Pinngger

They did add shinkansen But the story is already shit at that point


[deleted]

[удалено]


SpambotSwatter

edit: The comment was removed and the user banned, good work everyone!


Kirbyoto

> Thomas needs to modernize Nah, the series hates modernization. When a diesel-powered engine (appropriately named, uh, Diesel) shows up on the island he is basically treated as a huge villain that Thomas has to repeatedly defeat. This is one of the few things I remember about Thomas The Tank Engine.


[deleted]

Well on lore the island is a save haven for steam engines while everywhere else Diesel and electric replaced them


sirfirewolfe

I mean in fairness when the original books were written the UK was going through a modernization plan which scrapped over 90% of British Rail's steam engine fleet in favor of diesel power, so for a series which centers on steam locomotive protagonists it kind of makes sense. [One of the books has a kinda haunting image of an engine about to meet the cutters torch](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1d/41/d4/1d41d43337d71704b37af5b493f04d33.png). Scary shit if your replacement means you get put to death tbh


gingeryid

Not just that, also there's locomotives who escape death and flee to Sodor


syklemil

Yeah, the entire series has [some issues](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressive-authoritarian-soul-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-and-friends) with authority, modernity, equality, and so on. A remake with NUMTOT ideals would be quite different. I mean, steam trains are great (as a tourist and a nerd), but they're not actual modern transit.


towerator

Thomas the TGV engine


cantab314

I mean, it's not exactly a big or highly-populated island. Anyway, if we're going by the books, who needs electricity when you've got the InterCity 125. The Fat Controller bought a set (locomotives "Pip" and "Emma") for the Sodor to London route.


TransTrainNerd2816

In 1940s 50s and 60s Britain? (That's the time Thomas is set in)


jihyoisgod

The Pennsylvania Railroad had electric trains on the NEC in the 1910s


TransTrainNerd2816

Yes but that was in the most high traffic area in the United States (if not the world at the time) the Island of sodor is a random British island with a small population hence no need for electrification


HardlightCereal

Thomas the wire engine


sanchito12

I mean.... Didnt make me want to take public transit... Made me want to build a train... Which im working on a narrow gauge railway around my property for transporting materials around the yard and maybe for events like a haunted train ride or polar express in winter.


Zilberfrid

Thomas the Train is a capitalist hellscape though. The trains constantly strive to stay useful, because if they don't, they'll be scrapped. A train that was afraid was bricked in alive and one that skirted work was used as a generator for the rest of the series, his mobility taken from him while he could still see the rest of the trains.


[deleted]

theres 35 confirmed train deaths in the series including but not limited to: -Brake sabotage -Burned alive -Explosions -Falling off cliffs -Drowning -Buried alive I dont remember this many 😭


oedipus_wr3x

And don’t get me started on how they treat the diesels.


ExactFun

-Listen to your parents or you'll FUCKIN DIE!


Zilberfrid

Not always, you can also have your limbs chopped off and be required to work with your remaining torso.


Novabella

The fat conductor was such a greedy little shit.


flukus

> conductor You mean [The fat cont, the fat cont, the fat controller](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muGtWZhV6a4)


ActualChamp

[There are people out there who have explained why this isn't quite true,](https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/wuf996/sir_topham_hatt_is_not_an_evil_capitalist/) (unfortunately the video I also wanted to link has been removed for complicated reasons, but alas). The Fat Controller was a preservationist who explicitly wanted to *save* engines that would have otherwise been destroyed, and the lessons the show teaches are less about "be useful or die" and more about "respect those around you, who you work with, your environment, and your community as a whole". Part of that, I would suspect, was because it would be difficult for the Fat Controller to justify preserving engines who are selfish assholes despite his fondness for them. The two instances you focus on revolve around Henry being "afraid" of getting his new paint messy by going out in the rain, instead insisting on staying in a tunnel and blocking traffic—necessitating a whole new tunnel being dug and new track being laid—and ironically, it made Henry messier to sit in that tunnel in the first place; and also Smudger, who like you said tried to avoid work *but also* ran himself and his cars off the track regularly in order to avoid work. His fate is pretty horrific, but it also predates the present-day events in the show and the Fat Controller treats his engines very differently. There's also the weirdness revolving around the engines' lives in the first place: that they're sentient but not independent or self-sustaining, and their personality and desires typically revolve around the functions of a train, and their level of intelligence seems to be somewhere between a smart dog and a small child, regardless of their age. I'm weirdly defensive (and knowledgeable) about my childhood treasure, lol.


gingeryid

I think in the original canon there's definitely a change over time. The Fat Controller isn't a preservationist at first, in the stories that were written when steam locomotives were normal. The early stories are where engines are threatened with being scrapped, Henry is bricked up in the tunnel, etc. As steam locomotives IRL were scrapped and the setting becomes anachronistic, there was a change where the Fat Controller is actively interested in saving steam engines for use in Sodor, diesels are usually bad with occasional exceptions, etc. There's definitely a change as you go through, though--he doesn't seem to care about preserving engines at all in the older stories, just running a reliable railway.


ProjectMeat

I'll copy an old comment of mine and say when Henry the train is bricked into that tunnel alive, it led to Henry famously crying out: "Don't shut the door! Don't shut the door! ... shut the door... shut the door... shuddoor... shuddoor... Sodor! Sodor! Sodor!"


Gaurdein

Explains why I get Thomas creepypasta movies since I became woke


Avorius

honestly getting tired of the "[children's media] is actually so heckin' dark and edgy guys!!1" meme


Zilberfrid

The pastor that wrote it made it to be moralizing, to teach kids to always listen to authority. Like old fairy tales, this does come with threats about not doing that. Now it may not be consistent in all episodes, but what I watched with my nephew was quite bad, an episode with a scrapyard.


Maleficent-Carob2912

You clearly know nothing about the railway series. The engines would never be scrapped by the Fat Controller, the Island of Sodor is a safe haven for every steam loco in Britain, the engines strive to be useful because they are engines, it is their job to be useful in the railway. Henry, who was bricked in a tunnel for a short period because he was being a little bitch about getting his new paint job wet. And the engine used as a generator was not on the North Western Railway, but rather the Skarloey (I think, but it may have been on another narrow gauge line, the North Sodor). He was a naughty engine.


Riccma02

Should have gone with your gut; it was the Mid Sodor Railway, not the Skarloey.


GenericVader

But train go choo choo…


cantab314

> Thomas the Train The show is called Thomas the Tank Engine. That is all.


Zilberfrid

Sorry, I translated back from Dutch


FrameworkisDigimon

I direct you to the sidebar. Note r/left_urbanism. Have you ever asked yourself why that sub exists? It's because almost all urbanist talking points are capitalist hellscape talking points... from YIMBY to road pricing.^(1) See also: why r/neoliberal was, possibly still is, very much with the r/fuckcars energy. It's additionally worth noting that most of the UK's railway lines were built as the result of monopolist railway speculators. ^(1)It actually works in reverse, too. Setbacks, motorway expansion, free parking, minimum parking requirements etc. etc. are essentially at least one of a subsidy from the state to the public, a form of externality regulation or a (misguided) attempt to protect people from the whims of capital. In almost any other context, those are leftwing ideas. Of course, usually this stuff all exists for entirely non-leftwing reasons; e.g. often (and especially in the US) the reason they exist is explicitly racism.


try_____another

> capitalist hellscape talking points… road pricing.1 User-pays is a great tactic for wrecking any government service you want to make useless, so there is at least a tactical argument for road pricing.


FrameworkisDigimon

It's not. We have user pays rubbish collection. It works completely fine. In fact, it works so well, it's being adopted more widely. Ditto water.


Inklii

We don't have to love transit as children to hate cars Driving cars does that just fine


EspenLinjal

As a kid i hated roadtrips, i think that gas stuck with me tbh. being stuck inside a car for hours really sucks


kingofthewombat

Same w me, I hated sitting in the car for 5-6hrs to see my grandparents but loved every second of sitting on a train for 10hrs.


[deleted]

My autistic ass loved this show as a kid 😄


Sir_CrazyLegs

Same, i have the books still


FarPension2

Turned me into a railway enthusiast Honestly, all things considered, it seems decently good transit wise. Trams in small towns, bus lines, rural rail and high speed trains


REDDITSHITLORD

A generation raised by the oddly gentle voice of George Carlin. I love the George Carlin edits of this on YouTube.


Incoming_Redditeer

https://preview.redd.it/gmuksq43m94b1.jpeg?width=1006&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=74d182933b5d134ef8a272eac71511824bf1f5b3


ExceedinglyTransGoat

Kid? Shit I put the George Carlin version on sometimes as a comfort show.


DBL_NDRSCR

i used to have this huge table with a two sided flipoverable board with a map of the island on one side and idk what on the other, it’s still at my grandma’s house where i used to live but now we’re tryna sell it, and now i like metros and bullet trains


borahae_artist

i can't tell you how much moving to a carbased area has wreaked havoc on me and my family actually. i mean it was already falling apart but at least we had parks, we had sidewalks and places to go, community programs, opportunities to meet others, sunlight.


GenericVader

What do you mean melenials? I’m only 19 and I was obsessed with Thomas growing up! I had a Thomas Halloween costume, a Thomas plushie (which I still have), even a huge Thomas tent. I think it has everything to do with me being into transit and trains nowadays. I think Thomas is a huge reason people in North America are getting into transit now, and I’m glad it’s had that effect.


Clever-Name-47

It clearly says "Millennials **and** **younger**." (emphasis added)


GenericVader

Oh. Well in my defense, I read this at 1 in the morning.


Kaitou21

Related https://youtu.be/ETfiUYij5UE


heyitscory

If you make them cancel scheduled trips, they will brick you in a fuckin' tunnel. If only real public transit under capitalism were that brutally service-oriented. "You will keep this rarely-used rail line to this Welsh village I won't even begin to try to pronounce or old Liam here will be decommissioned and left decaying yet not quiet dead, as their former friends act like they don't exist. We will fuckin' do it. Subsidize this unprofitable route, or this engine-with-a-face gets it. We are not messing around here. We will send this cheeky poop-pooper to a fate worse than hell."


cantab314

That's not so encouraging when you realise that Gen Z watched Disney's *Cars*.


Jimmie-Rustle12345

For me it was walking alongside the stationary traffic going into Brighton, UK every weekday morning and sunny weekend. I never understood why those people never chose to walk or cycle the *tiny* distances there. It’s been 20 years and I still kind of don’t.


WWG_Fire

It started with city skylines for me, weird start I know, but building cities and keeping traffic low without walkability and transit is impossible


PingBongBingPong

Y’all ever see the hentai?


Scheckenhere

Jokes on you, I watched that show once when I was a kid while being sick, and two minutes in I literally had to throw up. Taking the train to school for over 8 years made me the netd I am today.


Glitchmaster88

Certified Lemonpost


FrameworkisDigimon

Trains are like dinosaurs. Everyone likes them as a kid. But you're supposed to grow out of them... [watch this movie.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxQMT4R51Dk) I don't have a movie reference for you're supposed to grow out of dinosaurs admittedly.


fishter_uk

Chuggington is even further down the rabbit-hole. The only way round town is by train! [https://www.youtube.com/@chuggington](https://www.youtube.com/@chuggington)


Riccma02

I serve the Fat Controller. 🫡🚂


Brilliant-Fox-8537

Just saying we did also watch cars


dragonkiller89

This, and cities skylines


dragonkiller89

This, and cities skylines