Thomas &amp; Friends
Thomas & Friends (originally known as Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends or simply Thomas the Tank Engine; also known as Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures! in the twenty-second series) is a British children's television series. In the United Kingdom, it had its first broadcast on the ITV network in Great Britain in 1984. In the United States, it had its first broadcast on "Shining Time Station" in 1989. It is based on "The Railway Series" of books by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher Awdry.
Thomas the Tank Engine
Awdry claimed that this stood for "No Where", but later works would identify the railway Thomas and his friends worked on as the fictional North Western Railway. Christopher Awdry lost this model when he was in the US, although it was recreated for a sizzle promo for the 70th Anniversary. However, the Reverend was happy to endorse Payne's account that the locomotive was an LBSC E2, although the first Thomas on the Awdry's model railway, from Stuart Reidpath, lacked extended tanks. In the 1979 Thomas Annual, Awdry wrote: