Thomas and Friends

The Railway Stories - The Little Old Engine and other stories

based on Reverend W. Awdry's stories

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Thomas and Friends - The Railway Stories, The Little Old Engine and other stories - Audio Book CD  

Brand New ( 1.25 hours 1 CD):  

About The Little Old Engine and other stories

A collection of stories featuring Thomas the Tank Engine.

Duck and the Diesel Engine -

Duck the Great Western Engine has settled in well on the Island of Sodor, so much so that the other engines are getting a little tired of his know-it-all attitude. They are pleased when a smooth-talking diesel engine – simply known as Diesel – arrives to help out. When Duck shows him up, Diesel vows revenge, and starts spreading malicious lies about Duck. Luckily, the Fat Controller has a plan to clear Duck’s name…

The Little Old Engine -

More adventures on the Skarloey Railway. Skarloey returns from being repaired to discover that there are two new engines on the railway. Rusty the diesel is friendly and helpful, but Duncan is boisterous, careless and rude. Sir Handel is still his old self. A television crew comes to film a documentary on the railway, and Skarloey tells them about the Talyllyn Railway

The Twin Engines -

The Fat Controller orders an engine from Scotland to help out with goods work, but is surprised when two engines arrive instead. To confuse matters further, the engines claim not to know their British Railways numbers, or which of them should have been sent. The engines are Donald and Douglas, and are twins. As whichever one of them is sent back will be scrapped, they are determined to stay. Despite some misadventures, the other engines convince the Fat Controller to keep both of them.

About Reverend W. Awdry

Wilbert Vere Awdry, OBE, (15 June 1911 – 21 March 1997), better known as the Reverend W. Awdry, was a clergyman, railway enthusiast and children's author. He is best known as the author of The Railway Series of books in which the character Thomas the Tank Engine originated. Reverend W Awdry was born in Romsey, Hampshire in 1911. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Dauntseys School, West Lavington, Wiltshire; St Peter's Hall, Oxford (BA, 1932), and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He was ordained into the Anglican priesthood in 1936. In 1938 he married Margaret Wale, and two years later took a curacy in St. Nicholas' Church, Kings Norton, Birmingham where he lived until 1946. He subsequently moved to Cambridgeshire, serving as Rector of Elsworth with Knapwell, 1946-53, and Vicar of Emneth, 1953-65. He retired from full-time ministry in 1965, and moved to Stroud, Gloucestershire.

The characters that would make Awdry famous, and the first stories featuring them, were invented in 1943 to amuse his son Christopher during a bout of measles. After Awdry wrote The Three Railway Engines, Christopher wanted a model of Gordon; however, that was too difficult. Instead, Awdry made a model of a tank engine from odds and ends and painted it blue. Christopher christened the model engine Thomas. Then Christopher requested stories about Thomas and these duly followed and were published in the famous book Thomas the Tank Engine, released in 1946. The first book (The Three Railway Engines) was published in 1945, and by the time Awdry stopped writing in 1972, The Railway Series numbered 26 books. Christopher subsequently added further books to the series.

Awdry's enthusiasm for railways did not stop at his publications. He was involved in railway preservation, and built model railways, which he took to exhibitions around the country. Awdry wrote other books besides those of The Railway Series, both fiction and non-fiction. The story Belinda the Beetle was about a red car (it became a Volkswagen Beetle only in the illustrations to the paperback editions). Wilbert Awdry was awarded an OBE in the 1996 New Year’s Honours List, but by that time his health had deteriorated and he was unable to travel to London. He died peacefully in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 21 March 1997, at the age of 85. He is interred at Gloucester Crematorium. A biography entitled The Thomas the Tank Engine Man was written by Brian Sibley and published in 1995.

Thomas and Friends - The Railway Stories, The Little Old Engine and other stories - Audio Book CD