This page is for examples exclusive to Shining Time Station. For examples related to Thomas & Friends, go to this page
- Awesome Music:
- Pretty much anything the Jukebox Band performs, especially "City of New Orleans", which notably was the only Jukebox song to play during the end credits of an episode (Season 2's "Jingle, Jingle, Jingle")
- The opening theme is pure Sweet Dreams Fuel. Notably, it was one of Joe Raposo's last songs before his death in 1989.
- Many of the songs from the Anything Tunnel, The Magic Bubble and the Picture Machine count as this too.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Schemer was the most popular character on the show for his funny Draco in Leather Pants moments, even having a series of home video segments dedicated to his character.
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This show was huge in the Virgin Islands, to the point where it ran up until 2001, three years longer than it did in the mainland US.
- Growing the Beard:
- Around the second season when the main cast was revamped and the recurring cast expanded.
- The show's Nielsen ratings surged from 1.2 million viewers during the first season to nearly 7.5 million viewers each week during the second and third seasons, after George Carlin replaced Ringo Starr as Mr. Conductor.
- Harsher in Hindsight: In "Stacy Says No", Stacy goes overboard with enforcing new rules, and when Dan explains the problem to Mr. Conductor, he says that there's no rules against telling Thomas' stories, not yet, anyway. Since 2021, Mattel has been blocking uploads of classic Thomas episodes on YouTube, and in 2023, this has extended to Shining Time Station episodes due to Thomas episodes being part of them. Not helping matters is that Shining Time Station does not have an official release on DVD or streaming services.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: "Mr. Conductor Gets Left Out" has the kids learn firsthand not to watch too much television, especially not programming that exists solely to sell toys. Thomas and Friends itself would later go on to be Merchandise-Driven as a result of being owned by a toy company.
- Heartwarming Moments:
- The ending to the Christmas Episode "'Tis a Gift." Full stop.
- J.B. King got quite a few since his first appearance, in which he started out a cold businessman but warmed up when he realized that Mr. Conductor, a figure from his childhood, lived at Shining Time.
- The theme song
, which was Joe Raposo's last work before he passed away in February of 1989 (only a week after the show premiered). Also, the various performances by the Jukebox Band. - Some of the Picture Machine/Anything Tunnel/Magic Bubbles songs can also have this effect, with particular mention to Thanksgiving and Old But Wise.
- The ending to the Thanksgiving Episode, "Billy's Party"; Billy misses the party he plans to spend with the Boomers and the Hobos as a result of having to rescue Schemer, who gets stranded on a train, and drive Ginny to buy her a new Thanksgiving dinner after her dog ruins her old one. However, everyone at the station spends their Thanksgiving at the station with him so he doesn't feel all alone.
- Just Here for Godzilla: In a case of Tropes Are Tools, Britt Alcroft was banking on American children tuning into this spinoff mainly for the Thomas segments. The rest is history.
- Memetic Mutation: Three words: Mr. Conductor's Double.
- Moment of Awesome: Two for Stacy in the last episode:
- The two jewel thieves enter the station and accost Schemer, claiming to be undercover cops. Stacy enters the scene, and when the crooks won't show any ID, she wards them off with a baseball bat.
- In one of the last scenes, Stacy and Mr. King take a switcher out of the yard to head off the thieves, who stole Ginny's truck and were chasing Schemer down the road.
- Schemer himself gets one in the episode where he's trying to join a club run by the bigoted Hobart Hume III. Stacy, Billy and the kids can tell Mr. Hume is a bigot who looks down on people, but Schemer is too determined to join to notice. Towards the end, though, he tries to set it up so his friends can join as well, but Mr. Hume begins to list all the superficial "flaws" they have and Schemer slowly realizes what kind of club he's really joining. And then, when he is told he'll have to cut off his curl to be "one of them", he finally gets angry with Mr. Hume, tricks him into eating some very sticky toffee, and promptly tells him if his club "isn't good enough for my friends, then it isn't good enough for me!" then kicks him out.
- Moral Event Horizon: It's very difficult to get on Billy Twofeathers's bad side, which is why doing so is considered one in the context of this show; Hobart Hume III crossed it by calling him an "Indian".
- Nightmare Fuel: In "Mr. Conductor Gets Left Out," the kids have terrifying zombie eyes from watching too much TV, which horrifies Stacy Jones. Once she unplugs the TV set, they return to normal.Stacy Jones: (gasps when she sees the kids with zombie eyes) HOLY COUCH POTATOES! That's it, no more TV for you! (unplugs the TV set)
- Questionable Casting: Ringo Starr (the first Mr. Conductor) was an odd choice for the role, although the reasoning was sound — he had already provided the narration for the original Thomas episodes (that were made up to that point). But then they brought in George Carlin (yes, the same guy known for the Seven Dirty Words bit) to replace him... but amazingly, it still worked!
- Retroactive Recognition:
- Kara was played by Erica Luttrell, who later became the voice of Keesha on The Magic School Bus and Sapphire on Steven Universe.
- In the Schemer Presents episode "How To Apologize", the character Jayne is played by Jayne Eastwood, who would later star as Aunt Agatha in the show's Spiritual Successor The Noddy Shop.
- Jukebox Band leader Tito Swing was puppeteered and voiced by Jonathan Freeman, who is better known to most audiences as the voice of Jafar in Aladdin.
- Tear Jerker:
- A lot of "Is This the End?".
- In universe, Schemer finds the song Danny Boy to have this effect.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: The Chroma Key effects for Mr. Conductor. Very convincing.
