Trivia / Thomas and the Magic Railroad

• Acting for Two: In the final cut:
  • Gordon, Diesel 10, Splatter and The Southern Tumbleweed are all voiced by Neil Crone.
  • Kevin Frank voices Henry, Dodge, Bertie and Harold. He also voiced Sir Topham Hatt^note voice only; character was not physically seen, but was not credited in that role.
  • Shelley-Elizabeth Skinner voices both Annie and Clarabel.
  • In the original cut, Michael Angelis voiced both James and Percy while Patrick Breen voiced both Splatter and Dodge, both of which Angelis did temp voices for. Keith Scott also voices Diesel 10 and Gordon in the workprint, much like Crone in the final product.
• Box Office Bomb: The film made $19.7 million worldwide on a $19 million budget, with its failure forcing Britt Allcroft to step down as head of her own company and set the disaster dominoes that lead to HIT Entertainment's purchase of the franchise.
• Content Leak:
  • A workprint of the Director's Cut was leaked in May 2020, a month before the supposed original Blu-Ray release of the film (which was delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it was then released on September 29, 2020). Britt Allcroft was not at all pleased by this when she became aware of it.
  • The Blu-Ray release itself was accidentally listed on Amazon around March 2020 before any sort of announcement was made about it.
• Contractual Purity: Mara Wilson, who was going through puberty at the time and already feeling awkward about it, recalled nervously overhearing the producers and crew members holding barely concealed side conversations about her appearance and, later, being outfitted with a special binding bra to flatten out her developing figure for continuity's sake. The scrutiny over her body both on set and in online forums proved hard and painful for her to cope with, and was a deciding factor in her leaving her acting career behind not long after the film was finished.
• Creator Backlash: In an interview for the 20th anniversary Blu-ray, Mara Wilson recalled that she was disappointed by the changes between the script and the finished film, particularly how most of the scenes intended to develop Lily and Burnett's relationship were cut from the movie. That being said, she still considers the film to be one of her favorites that she has ever worked on.
• Creator Killer:
  • Was one of only five films produced by the formerly-independent Destination Films in their barely-three-year existence. The film's failure, adding to a string of mediocre returns and poor financial decisions, resulted in the studio being closed up and their films being sold to home video partner Sony/Columbia. The name was eventually revitalized solely as another indie/arthouse label for the company's home video division (with some limited theatrical releases once in a while).
  • While she maintains a steady producing career to this day, the film's failure also forced Britt Allcroft to step down as the head of Gullane Entertainment (formerly The Britt Allcroft Company) in September of that year, which lead to the company's infamous purchase by HIT Entertainment. The film also essentially shut down Gullane Pictures, their film and distribution label that would serve as the basis for the rebrand (which had only produced a select few TV movies and distributed Britt's works and certain products from Catalyst Entertainment, their Canadian co-producer, prior to Magic Railroad).
  • The film's failure also caused Michael E. Rodgers to not star in another mainstream film, aside from a cameo appearance in The Patriot (2000), which was released around the same year.
• Creator's Favorite:
  • Mara Wilson, who portrayed Lily in the film, has stated on Twitter that James is her favorite engine.
  • Didi Conn, who played Stacy Jones, says that Thomas is her favorite engine.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Percy and James were respectively voiced by Linda Ballantyne and Susan Roman. This came about fairly late in the movie's production — both were originally voiced by Michael Angelis (then the narrator of Thomas & Friends in the UK), but test audiences thought he sounded too mature for either character. It is often agreed that this change created the issue of making them sound too feminine.
  • In the Japanese dub, Thomas and Percy are voiced by their actresses in the show's Japanese dub at the time, Keiko Toda and Chisato Nakajima. The Korean dub also has Thomas voiced by a woman (though given the Korean dub's rarity, who voiced him remains unknown).
• Deleted Role: Many of the criticisms for the film's scattershot plot can be directed at the fact that a major character was cut out at the last minute: a human villain named P.T. Boomer (played by Canadian actor Doug Lennox) who would have been Burnett Stone's main rival and the cause for his depression. Executives ordered him cut when test audiences got bored during his scenes (though some say it was because he was too frightening for a younger audience), which inadvertently removed numerous plot-relevant scenes. The order was so close to the film's release that several trailers featured the cut scenes, some of which even had Boomer himself delivering lines.
• Descended Creator: Writer/director Britt Allcroft herself voiced Lady.
• Early Draft Tie-In: P.T. Boomer's exclusion from the final cut was so late in production that a tie in coloring book featured him and another tie in storybook had an indirect reference to him. On top of that Patch's Wooden Railway figure included with the 100 Piece set was based on his appearance in a deleted scene.
• Executive Meddling: After preview audiences were bored by P.T. Boomer and thought some of the engines (Thomas, Percy, and James specifically) sounded "too old", Britt Allcroft had to remove Boomer and recast the engines. Allcroft also had to voice Lady herself and Lily's role as the narrator was given to Mr. Conductor.
• Fake American: Canadians Neil Crone and Kevin Frank play the featured engine antagonists with American accents.
• Fake Brit: The Island of Sodor residents speak with British accents. Edward Glen (Thomas), Neil Crone (Gordon), Susan Roman (James), Kevin Frank (Bertie, Henry and Harold) and Linda Ballantyne (Percy) are Canadian, Shelley-Elizabeth Skinner (Annie and Clarabel) is American, and Colm Feore (Toby) is American-Canadian of Irish descent.
• God Never Said That: For years, people who disliked the film tried to insist that Mara Wilson herself was ashamed of it too. The actress however said in an interview with Doug Walker that making the film was "one of the funniest times" in her life, also praising Britt Allcroft in her autobiography as a "wonderful" person to work with, and even saying in a 2016 PBS interview that it was her second-favourite movie to make in her whole career, the first naturally being her most famous role in Matilda.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Footage of the original version, including the P.T. Boomer chase sequence near the end of the film, was made available through different media platforms, which included YouTube. Luckily, a lot of the footage from the dropped scenes was included on the 2020 Blu-Ray.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Subway released a set of four pull-back toys of Thomas, Percy, Lady, and Diesel 10 as a tie-in with the film's theatrical release. These toys had a hook-and-eye coupling system so they could connect to each other. In the UK, Thomas' toy was bundled with specially marked copies of the film's VHS release.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": In many countries, this film saw the debut of characters from Shining Time Station, which was only ever exported to a handful of countries. This was largely the case for the United Kingdom, making the film a Recursive Import for the Shining Time characters.
• Milestone Celebration: The long-awaited Blu-Ray release was made to commemorate the film's 20th anniversary.
• The Other Marty: The film originally had John Bellis voicing Thomas, Michael Angelis (the UK narrator of the show) voicing James and Percy, Keith Scott (who would go on to voice Bullwinkle J. Moose in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle) voicing Diesel 10 and Patrick Breen voicing Splatter and Dodge, all of them recording their lines together. Bellis was replaced with Canadian actor Edward Glen and Angelis was replaced with fellow Canadians Linda Ballantyne (as Percy) and Susan Roman (as James), as test audiences found that Thomas, Percy, and James sounded too old and their Liverpudlian accents were too thick. Scott, meanwhile, was replaced with Neil Crone because, according to Scott himself, the producers felt his voice would scare younger audiences. Crone and Kevin Frank also replaced Breen as Splatter and Dodge. However, on the image section of the IMDB page for the film, where the actors are named instead of their characters, both live-action and animation, Thomas is credited as "John Bellis", James and Percy both "Michael Angelis", Splatter and Dodge both "Patrick Breen", and Diesel 10 is credited as "Keith Scott".
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: There are numerous rumors about the film, largely due to its troubled production:
  • The nature of cut villain P.T. Boomer. Originally he was only known from a Missing Trailer Scene and brief mentions in a tie-in product. One rumor was that he would try to tear down Shining Time Station to build a highway, and some sources corrupted his name as "Pete Boom". A lot of these misconceptions were cleared up once the screenplay was found.
  • Whether or not scenes from the script including George the steamroller and Cranky the crane were ever filmed.
  • The existence of a finished "director's cut" from before the film was re-edited.
  • According to a Reddit user, he said that he remembered seeing an earlier Thomas the Tank Engine film when he was a kid. He mentioned that the film was similar to Thomas and the Magic Railroad and had the Kylie Minogue version of the song "The Locomotion" at the end of the film. It is unknown if this film is true or not, but it did sound like he was telling the truth. If this film is true, then it might've fallen into obscurity and might've been easily forgotten. A possible theory to this might've been that either he was one of the test audiences that watched the director's cut of Thomas and the Magic Railroad, or he saw a screening of the 1997 test footage that was edited into one whole film, and the original cut used the Minogue cover instead of the Atomic Kitten one that was used in the final product.
    • Another user from a reply saw the exact same film with his mother in theaters once, and was traumatized by it, which makes it seem like that the film the Reddit user was talking about was Darker and Edgier.
  • There is a rumor that David Mitton (the director of the main Thomas and Friends show as well as the director of the Sodor scenes in the film) had his own pitch for a Thomas the Tank Engine film that was rejected in favor of Magic Railroad, with the pitch allegedly being a crossover between Thomas the Tank Engine and its sister show TUGS that was far closer to the original show. However, no evidence points to this rumor being real. This likely stems from the (genuine) fact that the characters from TUGS were planned to make a cameo in the film, until it was scrapped due to legal circumstances and a feud between Mitton and Allcroft (who allegedly hated TUGS at the time) over their usage.
• Prop Recycling: Splatter and Dodge were made by repainting Arry and Bert's models, Dodge also used Diesel's wheel chassis.
• Role Reprise:
  • Didi Conn is the only actor to reprise a character from Shining Time Station, in her case, Stacy Jones.
  • Not in the film itself, but in the 20th anniversary live reading, Rob Rackstraw reprised his role as James while Keith Wickham reprised his roles as Sir Topham Hatt and Gordon (two of his many characters in the show, including Henry, Harold, Bertie, and Edward, all voiced by other actors in the reading).
• Star-Derailing Role:
  • Mara Wilson, whose acting career was already on its last legs, quit acting after this film to focus more on writing.
  • While he still acted after this film, Michael E. Rodgers suffered through this too due to the film's infamy, but not as much as his co-star Mara Wilson due to him being less well-known.
• Stillborn Franchise: According to one paragraph of this article, Destination Films originally developed a sequel to this film, but unfortunately, due to the poor reception and box office of the movie, the sequel was cancelled.
• Throw It In!:
  • Neil Crone ad-libbed most of Diesel 10's dialogue. Crone and his improv partner Kevin Frank, in addition to serving as creative consultants, both improvised a lot of Splatter and Dodge's lines as well as the Troublesome Trucks in the original cut.
  • There were also some moments where some of the actors (mostly Alec Baldwin and Michael E. Rodgers) ad-libbed their lines/scenes.
• Troubled Production: Most of the examples that would fit this trope are already mentioned below, but another is how James' model accidentally fell off the set during the filming of the smelter's yard scene resulting in very hasty repairs. The film was constantly undergoing script revisions on the fly, Britt and David Mitton were getting into politics behind the scenes regarding how much model work would be featured in the film, and lack of control with Britt making constant changes (with the film being her first theatrical production) and plans going in and out. likely didn't make things any smoother.
• Uncredited Role: Kevin Frank is not credited for his voice role as Sir Topham Hatt.
• Vacation, Dear Boy: Mara Wilson says in her autobiography that her main reason for agreeing to do the film — as she had been trying to distance herself from children's media — was that she'd get to visit the UK.
• What Could Have Been: Arguably enough to make an entire other movie!
  • Two words: P.T. Boomer. The film's original villain was to be a terrifying Knight of Cerebus and the first human villain of the Thomas franchise. He was cut out because of the test audiences being bored during his scenes, the only scene of him in the proper movie being as a motorcyclist asking directions with his line redubbed by another actor. The very concept of a human villain wouldn't resurface until Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure in 2015, with the villain in question, appropriately enough, being something of an expy of Boomer.
  • Scenes with George the Steamroller and Cranky the Crane were cut during script revisions. George was also originally planned to be a third lackey to Diesel 10 before making a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Lily's backstory, which explained why she was at Shining Time Station, was also cut after test screenings.
  • At one point, Lily was going to be the narrator, telling the story to her children while looking through a photo album 20 years in the future. However, in the theatrical cut, Mr. Conductor serves as the narrator.
  • There were originally going to be some self-deprecating jokes about the perceived Americanization of the film.
  • Mr. Conductor Jr was originally going to be British. This was handwaved when Michael E. Rodgers didn't bother to change his natural Scottish accent.
  • Mr. Conductor Jr's bandanna was originally magical in the first draft of the script, and he would have used it to straight up murder Diesel 10 and Boomer by turning them into sludge while they were being towed away.
  • According to the second draft of the script, Junior was originally going to briefly talk to the viewers at one point, but that moment was scrapped for unknown reasons, either because of time, lack of interest, or creative differences. It is unknown if this moment was even filmed or not.
  • Neil Crone originally recorded his lines for Diesel 10 in a Russian accent, only to have to re-record them with a New Jersey one later because test audiences found that too scary, as well.
  • Early drafts of the script included a scene called "Thomas' Sea-side run by" which would've featured the reused models from TUGS. Sadly, the scene never materialized past this point, in part to Britt and David discussing how much model work would be featured in the film.
  • Bob Hoskins and Ewan McGregor expressed interest in voicing Thomas.
  • John Barry originally signed on to score the film, but quit late in production. Hummie Mann replaced him at very short notice.
  • While Really Useful Engine is the only pre-existing Thomas vocal song to be in the final film, the original draft reveals that Thomas Anthem, Island Song and Night Train were all originally planned to be in the film at one point. It is unknown why they were cut.
• Voices in One Room: John Bellis, Michael Angelis, Keith Scott, and Patrick Breen all (allegedly) recorded their lines together.

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