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[beforerailwayengines]

Chris the Live-Steam Engine #4: Welcome to the Club

In Welcome to the Club, Chris makes a friend.

To be clear to everyone, Lady Jane is a 7 1/4" Princess Royal, like the one pictured above (image from Steam Workshop)!

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Chris the Live-Steam Engine #3: Taking the Train

In Taking the Train, Ruth and Chris sit there.

(If you're wondering why I've skipped story #2 it has spoilers for another thing in it)

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Chris the Live-Steam Engine #1: Ruthless

In Ruthless, Chris sits there.

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Chris the Live-Steam Engine - Foreward

Hello everyone I remembered my password : )

It's been a while haha, sorry for the gap in posting! I've had college and summer adventures taking up my time lately - I passed all my classes and went to the Awdry Extravaganza again! I thought now would be as good a time as any to upload some more stories to this blog. I'm not going to upload the whole lot since some contain spoilers for other projects, but I thought it'd be worth uploading a couple, since they're stories I've been sitting on for a while.

Meet Ruth and Chris! This is meant to be my interpretation of Ruth from the CGI series. When I had the idea for Chris, I thought she'd fit in as her owner nicely, seeing as making things in her workshop is something already in the actual series - just taking it to a less BWBA extreme. This is the first intreme-type story.

Chris herself is a 7 1/4" gauge 1366 loco (image from Kingscale Live Steam)! I love live steam, it's such a wild west in terms of engineering and the kinds of rolling stock you'll see come together in one place. If you ever want to see something special, look up the Echills Wood railway and their Standard Gauge weekends (as well as Michael White's Miniature Railway Adventures! He's someone with actual hands-on experience with the gauge and his series is great!). I think it's so much fun to have a character like this in the Thomas universe, an engine who can go to places and get into situations that bigger engines can't.

I don't know if this is a question people are asking when they read these, but I thought it'd be worth addressing anyway: are these scripts canon to Video Workshop? The answer is Maybe! Idk 💀

I hope you enjoy these stories with a character of mine that I'm very fond of.

(Also I've started making an AO3 account for these but I'm not getting that invite link for like 2 weeks haha)

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Watch Carson's New Video!!!

Carson released the first installment of Forgotten Engines last night, written by Mike (The Buried Truck) - the first in a series that has been in production for 5 years. I was invited to join the Video Workshop in 2021 directly because of this project, and I ended up writing the following 6 stories of the arc as Mike was busy - with help from him, Carson, Luke Ryan and Dan (TardisRescue). I am so honoured to be involved in the project, and so happy to be able to talk about it publicly (no spoilers though!)

Please check Patchwork out, and keep an eye out for the rest of the stories when they're finished :)

(Also I wrote the trailer/foreward for Forgotten Engines, if you haven't seen that yet then watch it!!!)

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I'm still kind of alive yooo- Here's mine fanmade facial designs/interpretations. For original characters from fanfic Before Railway Engines, written by @ryansock, please check them out in @beforerailwayengines. Note, they are not related to TUGS but to TTTE.

I honestly would like to see how other people interpret those characters!

And I warn you there's wall of text ahead...

I hope designs are decent at least, it was quick doodle (even though it took long time for me, for no reason), although I see few flaws here and there. You're free to criticize me, since I'm TUGS fan and not TTTE fan.

I wanted Connie to be more colorful than her real life counterpart and have some contrast between shades of teal/turquosie, and to make her contrast with Naoise. But I'm not sure about her face and metal eyelashes. And I hope she looks okay in duet with her "sister" design-wise.

Naoise is weirdest one probably, technically having two doors, which doesn't make sense from practical view. One for the face, and another one (that is open) for solely decoration purposes (depicting castle, flowers, having golden ornament). But I kind of like it, since she got easter eggs (I just hope it's okay to include them).

With Tarquin I tried my best to avoid him being similar to characters from TUGS design-wise, the key word is tried. I don't know if he looks like one of them or not, I can only hope. Decided to simplify his "roof" (I didn't find original one appealing), mouth is a rope, and eyes are still windows (taken from other parts of his body).

I thought of giving Naoise square nose instead of pointy one, so girls would contrast with Tarquin more. But I'm not sure.

I wonder if I should've give them typical gray face like usually Thomas characters has, but I wanted to go with wooden faces. But maybe they would clash with other Thomas characters. I also could've draw them with more depth, while here they're simplified, and give them better structure of faces.

Also Connie and Tarquin has real-life counterparts and therefor exact references you can find (although Connie doesn't have much compare to Tarquin).

While Naoise doesn't have any, so here's pictures of references/inspirations I used (please, ignore that one of them is modern lmao). But I didn't try to find for her counterpart, let her be generic and vague one:

(I'm thinking of drawing full body for boats, horses and people characters, different design variations now. Even though I'm not the best at drawing equines outside of MLP:FIM style lol)

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(Click for Better Quality)

LESBIAN CEMENT MIXERS WITH WEAPONS!!!!!!!

Starting off this blog with an oldie (but still a goodie!!) :3

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I wonder if Horace, Mildred and Stefan belong to any breed(s) in particular? Or if they're inspired by some. Are they draught horses? Like Shire, Clydesdale, Sufflok Punch etc.

I didn't have particular breeds in mind, I basically tried to think of all the kind of horse descriptor-y words I could think of like Stallion, Mare, Pony etc. Sheila in the mines is a Shetland since they were commonly used as pit-ponies, but that's all I can think of. I did have an idea for a 4th for the Horace, Stefan and Mildred group called Jermaine the Jackass but he never ended up in any stories

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drawing bassed on this >:D

it's based on the scene 14, i loved it, it was beautiful aaaaa

and in human version because i suck at drawing coaches an backgrounds......

I don't know, during that scene I imagined Stepney cheering Annie in the background lmao

@beforerailwayengines

[beforerailwayengines]

drawing bassed on this >:D

it's based on the scene 14, i loved it, it was beautiful aaaaa

and in human version because i suck at drawing coaches an backgrounds......

I don't know, during that scene I imagined Stepney cheering Annie in the background lmao

@beforerailwayengines

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Thank you so much!!! That means a lot, there's a lot of me in this and I was worried a little about putting myself a bit too out there and being publicly vulnerable. I'm glad you had fun reading it :)

Comin' Out (Annie's Song)

Hello friends!

For a while now, my partner and I have joked about we see Annie and Clarabel as Thomas' lesbian aunts - gay mothers keeping their failson out of trouble. That was something that we joked about before we started going out, and as a demiromantic bi person, that was a lot of self discovery about myself. So I wanted to do a story that channeled some of my aromantic/demi experience, and I had the idea of a story about Annie and Clarabel meeting each other for the first time that was knocking about for a while. I decided to do both. I hope you enjoy :)

I went into a bit of a frenzy writing this this week tbh, it just kept getting longer with more moving parts 😅 I don't view Annie and Clarabel as sisters, it's not something that's ever said in the show, and the only places I found that said it was a post on the Thomas Facebook and a Take Along Card. So it's about as canon as there being no number 11 engine on Sodor or the Spiteful Brakevan being a Brown Guard's Engine who helps Donald and Douglas. Their bio in the writer's bible for S17 describes them as "slightly wacky maiden aunts", which... i mean.... y'know... to me that gives "they were best friends and lived together" energy. And if the coaches in the books were meant to be "dutiful wives" to their engines, I don't think they're sisters. That whole thing on its own is freaky and weird like Thomas is widderwally twee years old he doesn't have a polycule

I thought it would be worth addressing since other people interpret them that way. That's fine! But this is how I see them and I hope you can appreciate that 🫡

Again, hope you enjoy! :)

[beforerailwayengines]

I'll never be her but she's so me fr

[beforerailwayengines]

Comin' Out (Annie's Song)

Hello friends!

For a while now, my partner and I have joked about we see Annie and Clarabel as Thomas' lesbian aunts - gay mothers keeping their failson out of trouble. That was something that we joked about before we started going out, and as a demiromantic bi person, that was a lot of self discovery about myself. So I wanted to do a story that channeled some of my aromantic/demi experience, and I had the idea of a story about Annie and Clarabel meeting each other for the first time that was knocking about for a while. I decided to do both. I hope you enjoy :)

I went into a bit of a frenzy writing this this week tbh, it just kept getting longer with more moving parts 😅 I don't view Annie and Clarabel as sisters, it's not something that's ever said in the show, and the only places I found that said it was a post on the Thomas Facebook and a Take Along Card. So it's about as canon as there being no number 11 engine on Sodor or the Spiteful Brakevan being a Brown Guard's Engine who helps Donald and Douglas. Their bio in the writer's bible for S17 describes them as "slightly wacky maiden aunts", which... i mean.... y'know... to me that gives "they were best friends and lived together" energy. And if the coaches in the books were meant to be "dutiful wives" to their engines, I don't think they're sisters. That whole thing on its own is freaky and weird like Thomas is widderwally twee years old he doesn't have a polycule

I thought it would be worth addressing since other people interpret them that way. That's fine! But this is how I see them and I hope you can appreciate that 🫡

Again, hope you enjoy! :)

[beforerailwayengines]

Do characters Connie, Naoise, Tarquin have a reference sheet/concept art? Or smth like that. And would it be ok to draw doodle of them/one of them?

If anyone wants to draw Connie, Naoise or Tarquin, please do! I'd love to see fanart :) They don't have a reference sheet, but I've written up descriptions of them with the kinds of boat they're based on in a previous post called "Before Railway Engines: Brief". I point to some sites and blogs that have pictures of the boats Connie and Tarquin are based on there - with Naoise, she's a general type of unpowered narrowboat (she gets a stack when she's given an engine though)

The only additional info I'd give for anyone who wants to draw them is that they don't have tugs-style flesh faces, they're more like Caroline's face from Thomas. Sorry I can't be more specific with details, but I'd be so happy to see any fanart at all :)

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What would you all like to see from this account?

I thought it'd be good to ask everyone if there's anything in specific that they'd be interested in seeing/hearing my thoughts on :) Just let me know!

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Check out Carson's new channel trailer!

It rules and it has a couple of teasers for a project that was the reason I joined the Video Workshop :)

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Starting a Story - Express Permission Outline

New post yippee!!!!!!! My friend BiggerdogZaBigDoggo was asking me about how I start writing a story last night and I thought you'd all be interested too, with the example I showed him - the outline for Express Permission that I wrote all the way back in September of 2023 (I was 17 at the time, shit's crazy)

So there's two kinds of ways that I start a story - one is that I just wing it, I start at scene one, then just keep trying to keep the ball rolling into scene 2, then scene 3, etc, without really a structured plan. Sometimes this works! Sometimes it doesn't. Which is why I use the second technique!

Sometimes, you come up with a story idea, but don't really know how to get from point A to point B - you just have the holistic idea. What I like to do is write out a short synopsis of the story as a paragraph to get the idea down onto paper. Then, I keep that at the bottom of my document so I can quickly check it to see how I should be writing scenes to get to the plot points that I want to happen.

Another thing that I find helpful too is to break up this synopsis into shorter chunks, and divide them by scene - so say that the first sentence of the Express Permission synopsis is scene one. I add Scene 1 to the script and insert that sentence brief of what happens. Then, the next sentence is Scene 2, the next scene 3, etc. Sometimes the scene synopses are more than one sentence, which is fine! Sometimes you just have an idea for one cool scene and the rest is details to be figured out another time. Breaking up the script into its individual parts like this helps with linking everything together, and also allows you to work out of order - you can start with the scene you have the big idea for, which might be at the start, or the end, or the middle, then work backwards to construct the set-up and push the characters in the right direction.

Another thing which helps with starting a story is taking your idea for a scene and going 'how would X character react to this?'. So say I have the idea of Murdoch getting and then losing the express after reading about the 9Fs and their operations. How would Murdoch feel about that? I view him as a bit of a reserved character, someone on the Autism spectrum, so maybe he's nervous at first, then finds he really enjoys it, he feels proud to have a job he can do so well. Then, he's embarrassed and upset that he's disappointed The Fat Controller after losing the express. How would the Big Engines who usually pull the express feel about that? How would they feel about Murdoch getting it in the first place? Once you know the emotional reactions/back and forth/dynamics between the characters, you can put those emotions into words, and build up the actual text of the story.

That's my two cents anyway! We've only just started Creative Writing in college (I study English and Sociology) so this is an amateur's viewpoint, this is just the process which I've gotten used to myself. I learned a lot of what I know about writing from my friend Suddy Soap Bar Productions (Hoovy) while we were/are writing partners on various projects. I'll do another post talking about the other stuff I've learned from those experiences, but until then, I hope this was an interesting and informative read! Bye!