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Percy The Small Engine
This article is about the characters that have appeared in the books of ''The Railway Series'' by the Rev. Wilbert Awdry and Christopher Awdry. Unless otherwise stated on this page, the technical notes come from actual notes laid out by Wilbert Awdry when he was developing the characters and setting for his stories; these notes are cited in his publication ''The Island of Sodor: Its People, History, and Railways''. North Western Railway These are the main rolling stock of the North Western Railway (NWR), commonly referred to as the Fat Controller's railway: Steam engines The Eight Famous Engines =Thomas (Number 1)= ''Thomas'' is a blue ex-London, Brighton and South Coast Railway E2 class locomotive. =Edward (Number 2)= ''Edward'' is an old blue ex-Furness Railway K2 class locomotive. He is the first character to appear in ''The Railway Series''. =Henry (Number 3)= ''Henry'' was originally a designed by Sir Nigel Gresley. He was built circa 1919 and arrived on Sodo ...
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Thomas & Friends
''Thomas & Friends'' (originally known as ''Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'' and later ''Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures!'') is a British children's television series that aired across 24 series from 1984 to 2021. Based on ''The Railway Series'' books by Rev. W. Awdry and his son Christopher, the series was developed for television by Britt Allcroft. The series follows the adventures of Thomas, an anthropomorphised blue steam locomotive on the fictional North Western Railway on the Island of Sodor, and several other anthropomorphised locomotives on the North Western Railway, including Edward, Henry, Gordon, James, Percy, and Toby. They work for the Fat Controller, who always wants his engines to be "really useful". In the United States, it was first broadcast along with the spin-off series ''Shining Time Station'' on PBS' PTV Park block in 1989. The rights to the series are currently owned by HIT Entertainment (a subsidiary of Mattel), which acquired Gullane En ...
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Soot
Soot ( ) is a mass of impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolysed fuel particles such as coal, cenospheres, charred wood, and petroleum coke that may become airborne during pyrolysis and that are more properly identified as cokes or char. Soot causes various types of cancer and lung disease. Sources Soot as an airborne contaminant in the environment has many different sources, all of which are results of some form of pyrolysis. They include soot from coal burning, internal-combustion engines, power-plant boilers, hog-fuel boilers, ship boilers, central steam-heat boilers, waste incineration, local field burning, house fires, forest fires, fireplaces, and furnaces. These exterior sources also contribute to the indoor environment sources such as smoking of plant matter, cooking, oil lamps, candles, qu ...
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Great Eastern Railway
The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923. Formed in 1862 after the amalgamation of the Eastern Counties Railway and several other smaller railway companies the GER served Cambridge, Chelmsford, Colchester, Great Yarmouth, Ipswich, King's Lynn, Lowestoft, Norwich, Southend-on-Sea (opened by the GER in 1889), and East Anglian seaside resorts such as Hunstanton (whose prosperity was largely a result of the GER's line being built) and Cromer. It also served a suburban area, including Enfield, Chingford, Loughton and Ilford. This suburban network was, in the early 20th century, the busiest steam-hauled commuter system in the world. The majority of the Great Eastern's locomotives and rolling stock were built at Stratford Works, part of which was on the site of to ...
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Tram Engine
A tram engine is a steam locomotive specially built, or modified, to run on a street, or roadside, tramway track. Legal requirements In the steam locomotive era, tram engines had to comply with certain legal requirements, although these varied from country to country: * The engine must be governed to a maximum speed of ( in the UK) * No steam or smoke may be emitted * It must be free from the noise produced by blast or clatter * The machinery must be concealed from view at all points above from rail level *Most of the locomotives must have a cab at each end To avoid smoke, the fuel used was coke, rather than coal. To prevent visible emission of steam, two opposite systems were used: * condensing the exhaust steam and returning the condensate to the water tank * Reheating the exhaust steam to make it invisible Builders United Kingdom ;Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway built ten Class G15 0-4-0T trams from 1883 to 1897 and twelve Class C53 0-6-0T trams ...
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HIT Entertainment
HIT Entertainment Limited (commonly written as HiT) was a British-American entertainment company founded in 1982 as Henson International Television, the international distribution arm of The Jim Henson Company, by Jim Henson, Peter Orton, and Sophie Turner Laing. Orton alone took over the company in 1989 upon learning Henson's intent to sell the company to The Walt Disney Company. HIT owned and distributed children's television series such as ''Thomas & Friends'', ''Fireman Sam'', ''Bob the Builder'', ''Pingu'', ''Barney & Friends'', and ''Angelina Ballerina''. HIT Entertainment was one of several partner companies, alongside NBCUniversal, PBS, and Sesame Workshop, that founded PBS Kids Sprout, with many of HIT's shows airing on the channel as a result at the time. On 1 February 2012, HIT Entertainment was acquired by Mattel, as Mattel was initially only interested in the ''Thomas & Friends'' brand in its acquisition, according to ''Deadline Hollywood''. Mattel absorbed the compa ...
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Nationalisation Of British Railways
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets or to assets owned by lower levels of government (such as municipalities) being transferred to the state. Nationalization contrasts with privatization and with demutualization. When previously nationalized assets are privatized and subsequently returned to public ownership at a later stage, they are said to have undergone renationalization. Industries often subject to nationalization include the commanding heights of the economy – telecommunications, electric power, fossil fuels, railways, airlines, iron ore, media, postal services, banks, and water – though, in many jurisdictions, many such entities have no history of private ownership. Nationalization may occur with or without financial compensation to the former owners. ...
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List Of Books In The Railway Series
This article is a list of books in ''The Railway Series'', a British series of children's books written by both the Rev. W. Awdry and his son Christopher Awdry. The Rev. W. Awdry Era: 1945–1972 The first 26 books in the series were written by Rev. W. Awdry. ''The Three Railway Engines'' * Book no. 1 * Published 12 May 1945 * Illustrated by William Middleton, later by C. Reginald Dalby ; Stories * Edward's Day Out * Edward and Gordon * The Sad Story of Henry * Edward, Gordon and Henry This is the first book in the series, and introduces Edward, Gordon, Henry and The Fat Director (then later became The Fat Controller; also known as Sir Topham Hatt). ; Notes * These stories were first told to the young Christopher Awdry when he was sick with measles in 1942, but due to wartime conditions, they were not published until 1945. * Two of the three shed engines are not mentioned again. * These stories were not intended to take place in a single volume, or even on the s ...
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Skarloey Railway
The Island of Sodor is a fictional island featured as the setting for ''The Railway Series'' books by the Rev. Wilbert Awdry (and his son Christopher), begun in 1945, and for the popular ''Thomas & Friends'' television series since 1984, although the Television series depiction of the island is significantly different and is widely understood that the Railway series and the TV series are different canons. It is depicted as being located in the Irish Sea, between the Isle of Man and the English mainland near Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, with the real-life Walney Island depicted as part of Sodor. Inspiration and creation The need for consistency in the locations for ''The Railway Series'' necessitated the creation of a suitable location. Awdry required a setting for his books that would be within Great Britain, but would be sufficiently isolated from the rest of British Railways to allow him to do as he wished with the location. Inspiration came on a visit to the Isle of Man, ...
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London Midland & Scottish Railway
The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMSIt has been argued that the initials LMSR should be used to be consistent with LNER, GWR and SR. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway's corporate image used LMS, and this is what is generally used in historical circles. The LMS occasionally also used the initials LM&SR. For consistency, this article uses the initials LMS.) was a British railway company. It was formed on 1 January 1923 under the Railways Act of 1921, which required the grouping of over 120 separate railways into four. The companies merged into the LMS included the London and North Western Railway, Midland Railway, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (which had previously merged with the London and North Western Railway on 1 January 1922), several Scottish railway companies (including the Caledonian Railway), and numerous other, smaller ventures. Besides being the world's largest transport organisation, the company was also the largest commercial enterprise ...
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Mixed-traffic Locomotive
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, motor coach, railcar or power car; the use of these self-propelled vehicles is increasingly common for passenger trains, but rare for freight (see CargoSprinter). Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, push-pull operation has become common, where the train may have a locomotive (or locomotives) at the front, at the rear, or at each end. Most recently railroads have begun adopting DPU or distributed power. The front may have one or two locomotives followed by a mid-train locomotive that is controlled remotely from the lead unit. __TOC__ Etymology The word ''locomotive'' originates from the Latin 'from a place', ablative of 'place', and the Medieval Latin 'causing motion', and is a shortened form of the term ''locomotive engine'', which was first us ...
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L&YR Class 28
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Class 28 was a class of 0-6-0 steam locomotive, designed by George Hughes for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR). It was a rebuild of Aspinall's Class 27, with the addition of a Belpaire firebox and the extension of the footplate and front sandboxes. It was similar, but had larger cylinders and a superheater. It had wheels. Ownership changes The locomotives passed briefly to the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) in 1922 and then to the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) in 1923. The LMS gave them the power classification 3F (12515-12556) and 4F (12557-12619, rebuilds of Class 27). Their LMS numbers were 12515-12619. In 1948, the surviving locomotives (35) passed to British Railways (BR), which numbered them 52528-52619 (with gaps).''Ian Allan ABC of British Railways Locomotives'', 1948 edition, part 3, page 43 In fiction The Class 28 was the inspiration for the character James the Red Engine from ''The Railway Se ...
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Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) was a major British railway company before the 1923 Grouping. It was incorporated in 1847 from an amalgamation of several existing railways. It was the third-largest railway system based in northern England (after the Midland and North Eastern Railways). The intensity of its service was reflected in the 1,650 locomotives it owned – it was by far the most densely-trafficked system in the British Isles with more locomotives per mile than any other company – and that one third of its 738 signal boxes controlled junctions averaging one every . No two adjacent stations were more than apart and its 1,904 passenger services occupied 57 pages in '' Bradshaw'', a number exceeded only by the Great Western Railway, the London and North Western Railway, and the Midland Railway. It was the first mainline railway to introduce electrification of some of its lines, and it also ran steamboat services across the Irish Sea an ...
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