The authors claim the material to be based on Awdry’s writings, which I have no reason to doubt, though I can’t verify it myself.Īll of this information would likely overwhelm most preschoolers, but might interest older siblings (as well as history-geek parents like myself) who have outgrown the Thomas stories and shows.

I also came across a site titled The Real Lives of Thomas the Tank Engine, which has a detailed history of Sodor and a number of maps, as well as a correspondence between the fictional engines and their real-life counterparts. has a boxcar’s worth of Thomas items in their special Thomas and Friends Store, however.) Wilbert’s son Christopher tried to cover some of the same material in his Sodor: Reading Between the Lines, which has not been published in the U. They described it in The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways, which is unfortunately out of print. Wilbert and his brother George worked our further details of Sodor, including language (“Sudric,” based in part on Manx), geography (Thomas’ branch line runs from Knapford to Ffarquhar), and history. Man is part of the Church of England diocese of Sodor and Man, but there is no real Island of Sodor. de 2018 Once you try TRS 2019 Addons, you wont. Wilbert Awdry, based Sodor on the British Isle of Man. According to the article, Thomas’ creator, the Rev. It’s not quite world-building on the Tolkien scale, but it’s a step in that direction, and more than I would have imagined.

As both the mother of a train-obsessed child and a refugee from grad school in history, I was delighted to find a Wikipedia article on the history and geography of the Island of Sodor, home of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Sodor island 3d 2018