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Post by Chris on Mar 25, 2014 19:18:18 GMT
I've had these images bookmarked and have been meaning to post about them for well over a year, so I may as well do so now before I forget again! Not quite trains, but still falling under the anthropomorphic vehicle umbrella, was the "Favourite Motor Car Stories" series by Barbara Hayes. The four titles in the series - Maurice Minor, Bertie the Bentley, Mickey the MG and Freddy the Ford - were first published in the mid 80's, according to Amazon. Their appearance and artwork is rather more evocative of children's books from a much earlier era, however. As you can see, they match the RWS in terms of size and feature illustrations by J.B. Long that could easily be mistaken for Dalby or Kenney's work. Personally, I never knew them as RWS-size books, and was first introduced to them through a larger tome that compiled all four tales. This was published in the mid/late 90's, I believe: The only story I really recall in any detail is Bertie's: A bit of a Spencer-like character, he considered himself far better than all other cars. Then WWII arrives and due to petrol rationing, Bertie is left alone in a garage for a long time (IIRC, it mentioned his owner going off to fight in the conflict). Finally, he is requisitioned for war work by a Doctor and, now much humbled, is able to prove his worth. All in all, they were pretty decent little stories with a fairly Awdry-esque tone to 'em. I certainly wouldn't mind re-reading them again if I found them going cheaply enough!
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Post by PercyFan1998 on Mar 26, 2014 3:04:16 GMT
That's quite an interesting find Chris. Here's one I've always been fond of as a child:
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Post by Looney Conductor on May 26, 2014 16:50:07 GMT
The locomotive, Shelby Brown, that you see in my signature actually had a book based on it. I've had this book for many years and I wouldn't be surprised if my copy was the last surviving one. The story was very charming, and unlike most children books about trains, it contained railway realism and explained aspects of real railroad operation. There was even a part where Shelby Brown explained to Baby Cinders that most locomotives only have numbers and do not have names. There was also a part where B.C. tried to comprehend how such a small engine could have strength equal to that of 1,100 horses. Here is the real locomotive below that the book is based upon.
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Post by Gundam288 on Jun 1, 2014 13:34:55 GMT
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Post by 01Salty on Aug 3, 2014 3:13:02 GMT
Just stumbled across this simply charming series that premiered in the UK last year- Little Grey Fergie. Here's the official website. And here's the first episode: You can find the rest of the series on their Youtube channel. It looks like a blend of Brum, Herbie and Tractor Tom. I'm loving the fact they're using real tractors, although for the life of me I can't figure out how the tractor's driving itself! The stories are short, simple, and don't require much or any dialogue. 'Clunky' seems a bit odd though. A robot scarecrow? Looks like it'd scare more than birds And just found out it's actually been around for a long time in Norway (under the name Gråtass)- since 1995! Apparently there's been several TV series, music albums, live theatre shows, and even two feature films. Not to mention merchandise: It's fascinating that there might be whole franchises out there in other countries that are similar to what we enjoy, that we have simply not discovered yet.
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Post by Galloping Sausage on Oct 3, 2014 18:49:37 GMT
There's a preschool anime I was watching the other day called "Anpanman" and they have two steam engine characters. Their names are SL-Man and Poppo-chan. www.veoh.com/watch/v23200678RYMzTCRgSl stands for "Steam Locomotive", while Poppo is the sound for an engine puffing. What's interesting about SL-Man and Poop-chan is that they have arms on the sides of their boilers and they lack crew members to operate them. (eg. Ivor), and their was a 1993 film where he can actually go underwater! Although their a few times SL-Man's boiler will get punctured and he can't move. BTW, SL-Man's current VA is Freddie from Thomas and Friends.
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Post by {REDACTED} on Oct 4, 2014 6:35:57 GMT
Personally, I never knew them as RWS-size books, and was first introduced to them through a larger tome that compiled all four tales. This was published in the mid/late 90's, I believe: The only story I really recall in any detail is Bertie's: A bit of a Spencer-like character, he considered himself far better than all other cars. Then WWII arrives and due to petrol rationing, Bertie is left alone in a garage for a long time (IIRC, it mentioned his owner going off to fight in the conflict). Finally, he is requisitioned for war work by a Doctor and, now much humbled, is able to prove his worth. All in all, they were pretty decent little stories with a fairly Awdry-esque tone to 'em. I certainly wouldn't mind re-reading them again if I found them going cheaply enough! I remember this, I've still got my copy of it on my bookshelf
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Post by Looney Conductor on Dec 24, 2014 21:32:19 GMT
Here's a strange example I discovered. This was a book created by Ursula Hourihane in 1953. The artwork looks very similar to the early Railway Series books.
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Rexeljet
Passenger Engine
Red dude with attitude
Posts: 964
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Post by Rexeljet on Jan 1, 2015 19:51:18 GMT
Here's a strange example I discovered. This was a book created by Ursula Hourihane in 1953. The artwork looks very similar to the early Railway Series books. After reading this post I went to search up on this series of books. I noticed that in some of the books the main character looks like a cross between James and Edward: Though in other instalments he looks more like Gordon with a GWR styled streamlined casing (and a somewhat less feminine-looking face): Speaking of artwork looking similar to Thomas characters, here's a picture of an engine from a 'railway map' present in The Book of Trains by Archibald Williams: As you can see, this is a Gresley Pacific painted blue, with a modified running plate and a six-wheeled tender- pretty much a dead ringer for Gordon. But what if I told you that this book was published in 1926? Is it a coincidence, or is poor Gordon a knockoff?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2015 0:06:25 GMT
Stumbled upon this.
Its more Chuggington-esque than anything, although they do not stay on tracks, which bugs the living fire out of me. Also the first episode above deals with railway safety. Faceless trains and these trains. It doesn't make sense.
This was made in Russia I think, judging by the writings.
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Post by lightandsteam on Apr 25, 2015 1:05:50 GMT
I wonder, do you any of you think that the motor car stories or the little blue engine stories were in any way RWS influenced. I'd say there's no way the comparison didn't at least come up during the publishing stage.
Edit to add: On an unrelated note, there's a train book I remember liking very much as a child called "The Little Engine that Laughed." I can't get a picture of the original illustration to show up in this thread but the illustrations were in a similar style to "The Little Red Engine Gets a Name." Anyway the book was about a little green engine named Smokey who always laughed while he worked. One day he gets sent to a new line and is separated from his driver, sending him into deep depression. They try painting him yellow with roses but nothing cheers Smokey up until they bring his old driver back to work with him.
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Rexeljet
Passenger Engine
Red dude with attitude
Posts: 964
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Post by Rexeljet on Apr 26, 2015 11:00:54 GMT
Stumbled upon this. Its more Chuggington-esque than anything, although they do not stay on tracks, which bugs the living fire out of me. Also the first episode above deals with railway safety. Faceless trains and these trains. It doesn't make sense. This was made in Russia I think, judging by the writings. It's so confusing! So the main characters are trains, but then there are these other trains that aren't sentient and run on different rails? what? the trains sometimes run on rails and sometimes they don't? Trains can have grandparents? this is definitely the epitome of what I was talking about in the post I made on the "Is Railway Realism a good or a bad thing?" thread. Why are the characters even trains if they lack any semblance of actual trains and the way they work, outside of how they look? I thought Chuggington was unrealistic, but it's like watching a documentary compared to this! Out of curiosity, I went and watched some other episodes. Apparently trains can snowboard now. The CGI isn't horrible, I can definitely see the Chuggington and Cars influence, but it's certainly not a patch on the stuff we're seeing in Thomas. In the "Good Deeds" episode, a steam engine shows up (predictably, not rail-bound) and, well, see for yourself. His wheel and siderod animation doesn't loop properly so it looks all weird. I'm not an expert when it comes to computer animation, but I can animate a siderod better than that! I'm not ranting, by the way. I'm actually quite liking this series if only because of how strange it is.
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Post by Looney Conductor on Jul 20, 2015 21:30:21 GMT
Its more Chuggington-esque than anything, although they do not stay on tracks, which bugs the living fire out of me. Also the first episode above deals with railway safety. Faceless trains and these trains. It doesn't make sense. Oh! I have an idea on how to explain the above. The characters are not actually locomotives. They are just cars cosplaying as trains. What? It's the only explanation I can think of. I was browsing around when I stumbled onto this masterpiece of a commemorative ad. It was animated by Aleksandr Konstantinovich Petrov to celebrate the 175th anniversary of Russian Railways. Its amazing on how well crafted the animation is with its use of oil paints and three dimensional perspective. It's difficult to find traditional animation of this quality in this day and age.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2016 1:46:58 GMT
Stumbled onto this:
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Post by Looney Conductor on Dec 30, 2016 23:21:57 GMT
I remember this animation being used to demonstrate the Nintendo 3DS's 3D effects.
A neat little gem I found tucked in an obscure corner of Youtube. This is the first time I've seen a steam locomotive go into super saiyan mode... Reminds me a little bit of Escape and the TATMR chase scene.
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FlyingFordFalcon
Goods Engine
I challenge you to do the impossible; make me happy.
Posts: 229
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Post by FlyingFordFalcon on Sept 17, 2017 9:45:00 GMT
I'm sure this engine has been brought up previously, so I won't go too far into it and hope that this kind of post is allowed here. Given how popular 3D animation is now, I thought along the lines of what if Play Safe, a cartoon from 1936, was made or even remade with today's technology? Well, below is my interpretation of what it may look like as a full 3D model. Finally, just for that added 'Dayum, son!' effect, imagine this bearing down on you: Thanks. Mods feel free to move or delete if it's in the wrong place.
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Post by heimchen on Sept 21, 2017 22:56:53 GMT
I'm a little shocked that nobody has yet posted this little beauty... Although the text and a single illo were originally part of Stephen King's multi-novel Dark Tower series, the story of Charlie the Choo-choo, 'the tale of a relentless steam engine who is determined to stay on track', is also now available as a stand-alone children's picture storybook, which'll likely be in the horror/Stephen King section at your local bookstore right now. I consider it a very good subtle parody of the sort of writing and illustration that typified 1940s children's lit. Creepy, of course, but you could get away with pretending you don't see it ("What do you mean the train looks mean? Look! He's smiling! And he has big brown eyes--what's mean about that?") and handing out copies as gifts to your least-liked relatives to read to their brats. And if you want to read it for yourself, you don't even have to buy it. The link below should lead you to a early gallery of the complete story...it was a fan item before it went mainstream... ew.com/gallery/dark-tower-charlie-choo-choo/2
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Post by Christopher on Mar 25, 2018 19:34:03 GMT
Well, I reckon we can chalk this one up as most bizarre train-themed animated show of the year From what I can find out, this show, according to Amazon and IMDB, is " ...Set in the "Train World" where all citizens are trains. However, among the residents there are special trains that can transform into robots, the Robot Trains. Featuring our 5 train heroes, with special powers: Kay, Alf, Duck, Selly and Victor - and their exciting adventures. Can the Robot Trains save the village from the evil dark forces that be?"Seems to have originated from South Korean with English dubbing. Was released last year and has apparently been announced for a second series; www.cjenm.com/business/animationThe fact that the first episode and some of the characters share the same names of those from Thomas are entirely coincidental...we hope!
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Post by Galloping Sausage on Mar 18, 2023 21:56:14 GMT
Wanna share this cartoon I found out 15 years ago after joining the Thomas fandom.
It's a Czech Republic cartoon called "Pohádky o mašinkách", or translated as "Fairy Tales About Machines". It was originally a Czech Republic book series that came out in the late 1940s about a series of anthropomorphic vehicles. It's compared to the Railway Series as they came out around the same time period, though it didn't gained much traction as Wilbert Awdry's series.
Much like Thomas, it had a animated series in the late 1980s that only lasted for 10 episodes according to the wiki page and is animated similar to Smallfilms' Ivor the Engine, due to the way it uses paper cutouts and stop motion.
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Post by Nicholas on Sept 27, 2023 13:11:35 GMT
So, another 'suspiciously similar to Thomas' train-related program has cropped up, this time in the form of 'Mighty Express'. I happened to catch the tail-end of an episode on (I think) Tiny Pop a few days ago. The episode I saw was, I believe, looking over story synopses 'Robot on the Run', which felt like an unapologetic carbon copy of 'Marvellous Machinery', with a runaway giant robot that ends up getting captured with a giant magnet. A few other things of note might be that if you feel this show has a similar vibe to Paw Patrol, that's because the producer is British television writer and producer Keith Chapman, who created Paw Patrol, as well as Bob the Builder and Fifi and the Flowertots and served as executive producer on Roary the Racing Car. I see that Marc Seal, who contributed just under a handful of episodes for series 8, 9 and 10 of Thomas and Friends seems to be accredited with one episode. Mighty Express certainly doesn't seem to be looking to steal the crown of a realistic show about locomotives, something that, shamefully, could be said of all railway-related programming aimed at children these days. The "trains", note: not engines, themselves are seemingly being more-so stylised on road vehicles that, suspend your disbelief..., just so happen to run on playset-style 'rails' (although one story also makes particular reference to a zipline that a character uses), such as fire engines, diggers, police cars and cement-mixers. Very much sensing the 'Paw Patrol' vibes here! These alleged "trains" often come with various gadgets and attachments, such as magnets, cranes and claws that can be deployed in a stretching-the-anthropomorphism arm-like or hand-like fashion. Each one seems to wear an oversized hat associated with their role. The citizens of this world seems to, from what I can tell, be exclusively comprised of children, too, bar, of course, Santa Claus, who I believe appears in an episode. The world they occupy seems to include the array of environments one might expect on a global adventure, from farms to big cities to big dusty, rocky canyons. I'm not sure if there are more than a few intentional shout-outs to Thomas and Friends in the styling and specifics of the show. For instance, I note is that there is a character called Diesel, although Mighty Express's version seems to be a dog. There's a location called 'Bugle Bridge' which gets damaged in an its featured episode, which rather much puts me in mind of 'Bulgy's Bridge'. There's also an episode called 'Rocket and Roll'. Several episodes seem to revolve around the 'difficult special delivery' or time-sensitive loads. 'Missions', or deliveries, can be cited as involving such loads as performing pigs, beachballs, popcorn, a giant decorative doughnut, rollercoaster cars, Halloween candy, 'Chug-a-Love' Day (I believe this world's equivalent to Valentine's Day) cards, pirate treasure, a baby octopus (in a leaking aquarium wagon, no less), dinosaur bones, large helium balloons, a rocket booster, salt and pepper (with the peppershaker losing its lid, causing the protagonist to sneeze), a suit of amour, a large wheel of cheese, pogo sticks, maple syrup, melting ice, a decorative dragon prop, a bubble blower, a bouncy castle, a bull, a model volcano, a glowing crystal, a giant magnet, a huge telescope, solid gold bars, pizzas, dominos, a giant rubber duck, a windmill, giant wind-up toy robots, a doghouse, ice pops, a giant piñata, giant tomatoes, an oversized teddybear, skunks, a pirate ship and a big bathtub. Many episodes feature the element of the load breaking away and causing havoc throughout the town. Within the synopses I've read over, I can spot episodes that seem stylistically similar to such Thomas and Friends episodes as 'James the Super Engine', 'Rangers of the Rails', 'Thomas and the Treasure', 'Rheneas and the Dinosaur', 'Bulgy', 'Up, Up and Away', 'Thomas the Jet Engine', 'Whistles and Sneezes', 'King of the Railway', 'Thomas and the Stinky Cheese', 'Sticky Toffee Thomas', 'Something Fishy', 'Too Hot for Thomas', 'Thomas, Percy and the Dragon', 'Slippy Sodor', 'Millie and the Volcano', 'Stuck on You', 'Thomas and the Shooting Star', 'Toby's Windmill', 'Marvellous Machinery' and 'Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure'. *** All in all, they were pretty decent little stories with a fairly Awdry-esque tone to 'em. I certainly wouldn't mind re-reading them again if I found them going cheaply enough! This one actually piqued my interest, so I went looking and it does seem that there are a fair few copies knocking around on eBay for as little as £2-£3, if you were still interested in revisiting these ones, Chris . www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=favourite+motor+car+stories&_sacat=0&_sop=15
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