2021 channel recap:
29 videos
4 Sodor's Finests
7 Tug's Trains
3 Timelines
2 Real Life Histories
1 MTAK (lol)

Milestones:
200K subscribers
100 videos
1 video to reach 1M views Biggest video of the year: The Railway Series Timeline

First video to hit 1M views since my return to Youtube. This was a fun collab project with @Expl_Cookie and I'm so happy it has gotten the attention it has

Thomas and Duck fucking hate each other. A thread: Thomas first becomes jealous of Duck when he takes Annie and Clarabel in The Runaway, and they tell him how much they loved him.

Ok folks, I’ve been trying to make sense of Quarantine 20 using the shot list and photos for reference. Not everything on the shot list aligns perfectly when you put it in order, but I think I’ve mostly figured the episode out. A thread: Episode opens same as the 15. Star explains the heatwave and how ships with the plague are being quarantined.

Trying to take my mind off stuff, so fuck it here's a thread of my least favorite face of each Thomas character Thomas had a lot of weird faces. This one I straight up don't like, it doesn't look like Thomas to me

I've talked about this with @wrduckdog several times and I want to share this

Gordon is the protagonist of The Railway Series.

He is the only character we follow the ENTIRE journey of throughout the course of the books. In the very first book, he's brand new. He's a hotshot- -and boastful. And in the last book, he humbly retires.

Gordon's journey is kind of amazing. He starts as a hotshot, his arrogance catches up with him in Off the Rails, and he grows up. We learn his history. We meet his family.

Like this tweet and I'll say something nice about Bwuhba The Royal Engine was pretty good

That fucking rabbit man #TATMRParody In all seriousness though, The Magic Railroad parody was excellent. The continued amount of work and dedication put into this thing for NUMEROUS from everyone is just humbling. Well done @MrConductorFan and all involved, you made quite a piece of art here.

James the Happy Red Train Pal Train Friend Building progress!

The base was a Bachmann J11. I had to hack off the buffer beam from the running board, which was made of die-cast. Hardest thing I've ever done in modeling

I tend to see confusion here about the harbours in the TV series when I ramble on about the Sodor map, so I decided to make a thread explaining each. Here's a TED Talk on Sodor's harbours.

A thread: First, Railway Series.

Tidmouth Harbour is the biggest port on Sodor in the books. Every time they go to "the harbour at the big station", it's this one. Henry and James collected the Kipper here.

Alright folks, big galaxy brain Alex Jones-tier conspiracy theory time

Knapford was obviously one of the first sets they filmed on for S2, as evident by the unfinished unpainted faces that appear on the Knapford set only.

BUT-

https://twitter.com/TheUnluckyTug/status/1292840294103228416

-then you have this photo of Percy at Knapford with the treacle/mud from Plunge on him, something he would've had on him on the Brendam set. Meaning, Brendam must've been built BEFORE. My conclusion is that Brendam was the first set they built for S2.

My bigger point: all-

It's little touches like these that make Classic Thomas so substantial.

It's like 2am. James is sent to do rescue work in the dead of night. He would usually be upset about having to do remedial tasks when he's supposed to be sleeping. But no, he's happy af to be there because- -Gordon made an absolute fool of himself. He couldn't be more overjoyed to witness this and he's laughing his ass off. This isn't addressed whatsoever but the fact they made the choice to put happy faces on him for these 2 shots instead of grumpy or nonplussed ones says so much-

Alrighty folks, after a few days of blood, sweat, and tears, here it is - the Seasons 1-4 map of the Island of Sodor!

Full quality here: bit.ly/38k9rDa I made this with a couple rules in mind:
1. All town locations are unchanged from Awdry's map - the line routes are changed to align with TV series canon.
2. Ruling out one-off times of characters in wrong locations, i.e. Percy at Brendam once doesn't mean there is a branch line-

I watched every single one of those new episodes that came out today and, like, nothing happened in any of them lol It sucks they reintroduced one of their best international characters just to throw him away, but whatever. I thought it was implied Hiro came back and forth from Japan, but.... fuck it, whatever. Literally who cares anymore

This has been said a million times before, but I hate Sam Wilkinson's Sodor map so much it's not even funny.

How does this work? How is Great Waterton on the main line? Does Gordon travel to it, and then have to back down the line to the junction to continue on? If Toby's old line reached Ffarquhar Quarry, why was Thomas' branch even built?

I rewatched Blue Mountain Mystery today for the first time in years, and god dayum man, I'd be lying if I didn't say this might be the best Thomas movie. It nails... everything.

A thread: It does everything right. Its story is original and uses none of the usual Thomas tropes. Every character is likable and in-character. Its cast is unique and different. Its plot is cleverly woven together. The pacing is perfect. The emotional beats hit. All the music is great!

THIS right here is the best shot in Classic Thomas.

No narration, the low music tones. The heavy focus on sound effects and the low camera angle as Henry whooshes steam makes him seem like a beastly metal machine here, not a happy smiley train pal.

This feels real This is the appeal of Thomas, man - its ability to ride the line of happy funny train pals and grounded realism is what makes it so timeless. No other kids shows were or are like this. I don't think there's another shot in Thomas that embodies that as much as this does.

The Royal Engine was nice. Not great or anything all that special really. It was just nice. For a special focused on Thomas going to London to meet the Queen, it didn’t feel all that grand of an event. Story was incredibly predictable, visuals have taken a huge dive, Duchess was barely in it, and the amount of specific references in it were overkill.

I was pretty harsh on Season 21 when it came out because we were aware of the Bwuhba stuff coming. I've been rewatching episodes and man... if you just remove A Shed for Edward from it, and view this as a finale season instead a transition, S21 really isn't that bad.

A thread: The episodes vary in quality, as per always. Hasty Hannah and Philip's Number are pretty bad, but the rest I'd say have their merits. Love all the Xmas episodes, the Daisy eps are bangers, and PA Problems is easily the best ep of the bunch. THIS is a perfect conclusive Edward ep.

As I've been working on my Gordon, I've been thinking about his history as established by Awdry. I'm going to pitch a slightly alternate history for the guy that doesn't radically change anything, but helps explain away some problems I've always had with him.

Enjoy this thread: Gordon was allegedly the prototype A1 that preceded Great Northern, and was sold to the NWR in 1923 before the majority of his A1s would have been built. I never liked this because he would have barely met the brothers he later says he loves so dearly.

Saved the best for last - the Silver Bullet himself, Bert Spencer! (Or just Spencer for short 😉)

I adore Spencer and think he's the perfect contender for a TV character in the books' universe. Just like Salty, I've developed an alternate history for him. Bert Spencer is the seventh preserved A4, and was given as a gift from BR to the Duke of Boxford in the late 60s. As a railway enthusiast himself, the Duke had the engine renamed in honor of the real-life Bert Spencer; Nigel Gresley's lead designer on the A4 project.

And now we're onto the more nutty models. Here's one I wanted to do forever. One of my favorite characters - The Salt

He's a Heljan Class 07 painted into red and weathered to Hell and back! I've given Salty a bit of an alternate history, hence the THB decals. The real 2991 was withdrawn in 1973 before receiving its TOPS number. In need of a new short wheelbase shunter to navigate the tight quay curves, the Tidmouth Harbour Board (or THB for short) snatched 2991 up and repainted it in their red livery, maintaining the original number.