So the live steam Thomas mainly stays at Strasburg, and only goes to Greenfield Village?

After spending some time in the cab, the crew at a local operation agreed that my description of “ a 55 gallon drum strapped to a skateboard” fit well.

A good friend of mine used the term 'dumpster on wheels'. Sounds about right-

A six-wheel goods wagon with delusions of locomotion.
Forwarded on behalf of Great Granddaughter Number 1 :

Note: Julie entered her first appearance here on the matter of Thomas on July 1, 2009 (Re: Trivial Pursuit at the Strasburg Rail Road) and another on December 18, 2013 (Re: Thomas 'to blame for lack of female train drivers'?). It will be six more years before she is old enough to actually file an application for employment at the Strasburg.

Never underestimate the influence of Thomas.

Recently, the State of Illinois released the design of their Bicentennial Coin. Thomas somehow wound up on it as a representative of the state's railroad industry history. The State heard lots about it and is now considering a more appropriate 4-4-0 from the Lincoln era. The designer, who is in his early 20s, probably used the only steam locomotive he has ever seen.

Bwahahahahahaha! It is!

https://illinois200.com/projects/illinois-bicentennial-medallion-design-contest/

What is it about people in the US not recognizing the differences between British and American steam locomotives?

Well, actually, it does work the other way, as can be seen from this news report about a "Thomas" that was stolen from Lowestoft earlier this week......
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 ... -scotsman/
Looks suspiciously US outline to me... (but it does say "Thomas" on the side!)

We're getting a bit OT here, but it's not just locos. I see more and more references in US railroading trade pubs that refer to ties as sleepers, switches as points, switching as shunting, grade crossings as level crossings, engineers as drivers, etc. I'm not sure how much of it's the globalization thing or how much is Thomas' influence on the younger generations, but I'd bet its both. Of course you can't say anything to anyone about anything anymore, less you're accused of bullying and hurting someone's feelings (or they turn a gun on you and you end up on the evening news), so we'll only continue to lose our identity and dilute our history until it's completely irrelevant and we're all out of a job. I suspect that's the reason so many museum/preservation types rolled their eyes for so long when the Thomas thing reared it's money-making head, realizing it was just one more step in the process.

Getting back to how noisy it is to ride in an unpowered Thomas, I had to ride in it before we ran 120 to it from the train. That supposedly quite generator, is diffidently not.

Folks,
I sure got a lot more interest in this question than I expected! Over five pages of comments.

In the end, I think it is a good thing for kids to be introduced to steam trains. If Thomas the Bank Engine is declining; he sure has brought a lot of cash to many cash strapped railroad museums.

At my museum, it amazes me how many people on my tours tell me that it is the first time they have been on a train of any kind. Our book store manager is still re-ordering the Thomas Line of stuff.

By the way, I am old enough to have seen the Brooklyn Eastern District in steam and have seen the BED locos at both the Long Island Museum and the State Railraod Museum of Pennsylvania.

The Illinois Railway Museum now has a Porter 0-6-0; I do not recall what railroad she is from.

Ted 66

It has gone to other east coast railroads as well.

There was a clip shown on the local news (Pittsburgh area) last night showing the grand opening of Thomas Town at Kennywood Amusement Park. If the opening day is any indication of future attendance, it looks to be a big hit.

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/07 ... kennywood/

I find it interesting that Thomas moves along the track with his rods frozen in place. I guess that saves on maintenance.

"Has" being the key word. It used to visit Chattanooga TN & Union IL as well.

Not nearly as much as the saving in treadwear, avoidance of sharp flanges, etc. that comes when the flanges are completely outside the gauge. Just think of the savings if Class I railroads were to adopt this engineering innovation!

But for some reason I remember one of the little aphorisms in the series being something like "may you keep your flanges within the rails". I'm a bit sensitive on this particular point because when I was a very young steam enthusiast I thought that side rods had to go the way children's book authors illustrated them. I would hate to have to answer some young child who wondered why this Thomas' flanges and rods weren't behaving like the familiar videos...