Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

As part of my 10th anniversary celebrations on ‘Bradley’s Basement’ today, I’ve decided to share a review to commemorate Thomas the Tank Engine’s 80th anniversary. It’s a quick review of a film I enjoyed watching in 2000. I hope to do an in-depth review in future.

Initially, I had in mind to review the first two seasons of ‘Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends’ from 1984 and 1986 with the stories narrated by Ringo Starr. Sadly, I couldn’t find time to review the seasons, which is a pity. 😦 Hopefully, I’ll get to review the seasons soon.

Thankfully, there’s this alternative. The 2000 film ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’. Just to explain what ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ is, it’s a children’s TV show based on the British children’s book series ‘The Railway Series’ by Reverend W. Awdry, which I’ve also read. 🙂

The books were adapted by the late Britt Allcroft for TV in 1984. I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying the first two seasons of ‘Thomas’ on VHS when I was a kid growing up in the 1990s. I’ve also enjoyed more ‘Thomas’ TV episodes narrated by Michael Angelis on VHS.

As of 2025, the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ TV series has 24 seasons in total. I’ve not seen all of them since I stopped watching ‘Thomas’ by the time the mid-90s came around. Plus, I’m not so keen on the CGI version of ‘Thomas’ and prefer the model version of the TV series.

‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ is the first movie in the series. It’s the only one to feature the model versions of Thomas and his friends and the only one released at cinemas so far. Although, some CGI ‘Thomas’ films have had limited releases at cinemas in the UK. 🙂

I did see ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ at the cinema when it came out in the UK. It was around August time I saw it before going to secondary school. I went to see it because Thomas the Tank Engine was in it and because Mara Wilson from ‘Matilda’ was in it too. 🙂

I enjoyed the film when I saw it on the big screen back in 2000. Although, on reflection, especially with revisiting the film on Amazon Prime Video recently, the film is rather a mess in terms of its execution of story and characters, which can be frustrating to watch.

The film didn’t do well at the box office, and it wasn’t warmly received by critics. Honestly, the film could have been so much better if it didn’t have so many elements to complicate its story and I think a straightforward plot matching the spirit of ‘Thomas’ would be better.

For some reason, it was decided to set the Island of Sodor in a pocket universe that’s separate from the real world where the humans live. The only way you could get to the Island of Sodor was by magic. Frankly, the magic element in the film wasn’t really needed.

Wouldn’t it have been better to have set the film in one universe where the talking trains interacted with the human characters? Yes, it wouldn’t have matched to the TV series where the human characters were models much like the trains were models with moving eyes.

But honestly, having model trains interacting with actual human characters is far better and more exciting. It would have helped the film to establish that it all takes place in one universe because of that instead of setting it within two universes and it’s done by magic.

It would’ve helped progress the TV series beyond the film if it was decided to have actual human characters interacting with the model trains rather than models interacting with models. I love the first two seasons, but the TV show needed to progress beyond them. 🙂

Apart from that, it was great to see my favourite Thomas the Tank Engine characters in this film after enjoying them in the series. As well as Thomas, Percy, Toby, James, Gordon, Henry, Annie and Clarabel, Harold the helicopter and Bertie the Bus appear in the movie.

A shame Edward the Blue Engine wasn’t in this film as well as Duck, Bill and Ben, Daisy, Boco and many others. Maybe having less focus on the magic element and the human characters would have permitted some more ‘Thomas’ characters to appear in the movie.

There are new characters, including Lady, the lost steam engine, voiced by the film’s director Britt Allcroft herself. There’s the film’s villain Diesel 10 joined by his minions Splatter and Dodge who are also diesels. A shame the original Diesel wasn’t the villain. 😐

As well as Mara Wilson as Lily Stone, it was great to see Alec Baldwin as Mr. Conductor in the film. There’s Peter Fonda as Burnett Stone, Lily’s grandfather, Michael E. Rodgers as C. Junior, Mr. Conductor’s cousin, and Cody McMains as Patch, who befriends Lily in the film.

There’s Didi Conn as Stacy Jones, the manager of Shining Time Station, and Russell Means as Billy Twofeathers, the driver and engineer of the Rainbow Sun, Shining Time Station’s flagship locomotive. I will cover Shining Time Station more in an in-depth review.

‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ isn’t a very good film. But that doesn’t matter too much for me since I enjoyed Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends in this film, and it was nice to see Mara Wilson in what happens to be her fifth and final film in her movie acting career.

Looking back, ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ would have probably entertained a lot of kids. But the film should have been called ‘Thomas and the Lost Engine’ instead and have its magic element removed in order for the story to take in one universe rather than in two.

Here’s hoping I’ll get to review Seasons 1 and 2 of ‘Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends’ and do an in-depth review on ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ soon.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂