#reach out to the rest of the ttte community

[songbirdsengines]

Thomas In Name Only

Okay, you know how I posted a thing yesterday talking about “Season 25″ of TTTE?

It got worse.

I have the Sodor Island Fansite article here. Please read through it as many times as you need for comprehension and take a short break to keep from destroying your electronic device before returning to this rant.

https://thesifblog.blogspot.com/2020/11/thomas-2021-what-to-expect.html

Is everyone cool now? Good. Let’s talk about this. Even if you don’t want to read the rant under the handy “Keep Reading,” please reblog this post and share this article with every fan of the show you are in contact with. With what was revealed, it is almost guaranteed that Thomas will not see 100 if something doesn’t change for the better and soon.

Apologies for the length of the following rant, but I think this all needs to be addressed. If you make it through, I encourage you to reblog and add anything I missed. From what I’ve seen, the man who spoke doesn’t know anything about Thomas or what makes it tick.

To set the stage, this was a conference call arranged to talk about the new series. This was in the form of an interview with a Mr. Campbell Bryer, who will be one of the show’s directors on Nelvana’s side. While we did not get any new visuals, we got a mountain of information. And, once I read through it, I was glad we didn’t get any visuals.

First off, let’s make the tone of the show clear. This is a reboot, plain and simple. The stories will be more about the engines playing than doing their jobs. There will be little to no railway realism whatsoever, even less than the recent seasons have been showing. From what I am understanding, the engines will have little to no responsibilities and will be free to do whatever they choose.

I also want to mention how much of the heritage they are intentionally stripping away. As we all know, Sodor is located off the coast of England, Barrow-in-Furness specifically. However, in this new iteration of the show, Sodor’s location will not be mentioned, and characters who speak will likely not have an English accent. This is a grave insult to the history of this series, which started in England. EVERYTHING about Sodor and its history has been incorporated into British history. Even the name “Sodor” comes from a British bishop!

Not only does this remove the history, but it also cuts off an essential aspect of the engines themselves. A lot of the original and most popular engines are BRITISH locomotives. As an example, Gordon is an A0, the prototype to the A 1/3. His only surviving sibling, Flying Scotsman, was the first engine recorded at 100 mph. To strip the island’s location is to deny the heritage of the characters we know and love.

While we’re on the subject of characters, the line up of characters is looking likely to change. The article mentions that we are likely to see more focus on the childlike characters, like Thomas and Percy, and even less focus than currently on older, more mature engines. Who does this rule out? I can think of three engines on the standard gauge lines right now.

Edward - Edward is the classic example of the mentor character. In most of the stories and episodes he is featured in, he approaches things with a level head and a fair bit of logic. He will likely completely disappear.

Duck - Duck typically thinks things through logically, like Edward, though he gets into more scrapes than the blue tender engine. It’s safe to say that Duck will be relegated to cameo appearances if he doesn’t disappear altogether.

Henry - Henry’s been on thin ice for a while now. While he’s not typically portrayed as wise, he could be considered the more level headed of the Tender Trio of Henry, Gordon, and James. With this, Henry has a real chance of never being seen again.

With this revelation, I have to wonder about the Skarloey Railway’s fate, where many of the engines are more on the mature side. I have a feeling that any railway that is not standard gauge will also disappear.

This brings us to another aspect of Sundrian life. What about the humans? The short answer is that they will become nonexistent. To start, the engines will be moving without any assistance of crews. This completely removes an aspect that has been seen throughout the show’s run, even if the existence of an engine’s crew was downplayed in certain eras. In general, humans will not have a forward role, meaning we also lose out on essential functions such as stationmaster, guard, and signalman.

The only exception is, of course, Sir Topham Hatt. As we currently know him, he is the leader of the railway and a father figure to the engines on Sodor, doling out praise and punishment as needed. However, in this new series, Sir Topham Hatt is relegated to the role of a joke, despite supposedly still being in charge. The article describes him as “really flustered and all over the place,” nothing like what we would expect.

With the mature engines leaving and Sir Topham Hatt reduced to an idiot, who will take charge of the engines and fill in a father figure’s role? Well, that would fall to Gordon, of course!

No, I’m serious. Stop laughing.

Gordon will be the father figure the other engines look up to. Gordon, the bully. Gordon, the snob. Gordon, the engine with one of the shortest fuses. Gordon, the engine that refuses to do work outside of what he prefers. Gordon, the engine who is known to harass engines (namely Henry) who are having problems. Gordon, an engine who is not known for being a role model, will be the father figure in this reboot.

One of the most significant causes of controversy in the latest few seasons of the show was the engines’ movement. While this was disorienting, the article promises that it will look tame compared to the reboot. We have been promised that not only will the engines twist and move similar to how they currently do, but those movements will be even more exaggerated than before. The engines will also be able to jump. Yes, you heard that right. Ant this is not described as small hops, no. The article mentions explicitly the engines turning while jumping. The only minuscule relief is the promise that the engines will not “use [their] wheels as hands.”

While those are the primary concerns, there’s more stake here. To start, this reboot will not have a narrator. Thomas’s stories began as bedtime stories to children and have had a storyteller in some shape or form throughout the show’s run. The series will also lean heavily on action and fun to convey stories, instead of the more action-and-consequence type of storytelling we see in the Railway Series and early seasons.

Probably the thing that is the most unforgivable to me is that they think this monstrosity will appeal to a “broader audience.” They say this as if older fans of the show haven’t been telling them for years what has or hasn’t been working well. We have posted and shared our concerns and they have either tossed them aside or did not take them into serious consideration. This is the worst I have ever seen Thomas, and this is saying something, considering the engines bouncing in the last couple of seasons made me feel PHYSICALLY ILL.

We can’t let this continue. If you have any method of contacting Mattel, utilize it. If you know someone who works at Mattel or Nelvana who might have any say in this, talk to them. Don’t directly attack, but bring up your concerns in a calm, rational manner and be willing to listen. If this new format does make it to air, don’t watch it, don’t buy any merchandise, and don’t go to Day Out With Thomas so Mattel can see just how much we are displeased with them. If this is the end for Thomas and the North Western Railway, we can at least say that we did just about everything we could.

And not only are we losing a beloved franchise, but we may also lose rail travel as we know it. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can easily look back and say that Thomas was my gateway into a lifelong love of rail transportation, especially steam engines. A lot of heritage railways rely on the Day Out With Thomas events to bring in visitors. If this franchise fails, they will eventually lose out on a significant amount of revenue. This will likely significantly hurt them and, while railways like Strasburg in Pennsylvania might be able to handle it, others may be forced to close down.

All I can say now is that it saddens me to see what has happened to the show that started a lifelong love of rail travel. I have to wonder what the Awdrys and Britt Alcroft have to say about this...

[joezworld]

📁

Specifically, any headcanons of the Sodor Engines interacting with the internet, or the internet in general?

For some reason, I’d imagine that podcasts and the like are popular among vehicles in general.

That is a question that I've been working on for some time - because I'm workshopping my own Tornado headcanon (and boy oh boy does she use the internet a lot) - but I have some ideas for the Sodor engines as well: 

Henry is probably the most "plugged in" engine on the island, weirdly enough. One of his drivers gave him an iPod back in the early 2000s, and kindly preloaded it with a bunch of torrented music.

 BTW, that works because all the engines are now equipped with automatic train warning systems, and the little on-board computer has a USB port - as a nice side effect it allows music players to work with the engines in the same way as bone-conducting headphones do. The computer also acts as some kind of computer interface, which I am not going to explain how that works because Jesus Christ I don’t know how it does either.  

 Henry has managed to upgrade his iPod a few times since thanks to hand-me-down units from NWR staff, so he eventually got his buffers on a wifi-enabled iPod Touch and now downloads new music from the station wifi. He does listen to podcasts, but as every other engine will tell you, you could show Henry ten thousand new and exciting songs from the best artists in the world, and his top ten played songs are still going to be Genesis, Phil Collins, and Yes. Bear considers it a win that he managed to convince Henry to regularly listen to Rush after a mere twenty years of convincing. 

 Mavis and Daisy listen to a very interesting program called The News, because as stated elsewhere, they invest a shitload of money and need to be on top of things. Thomas and Percy wish that Daisy would use headphones or something similar to that, instead of listening to Bloomberg TV at loud volumes in the middle of the night. Toby frankly doesn’t mind, as it’s very nice to be kept up-to-date on the outside world.  

In a move that surprises no-one, Bill and Ben have a podcast where they talk about whatever they think about at that moment - usually horse-racing, investing, and clay mining. As such, they have a wide audience, almost none of whom know that they’re that Bill and Ben, as their podcast is audio-only.  

 In an also unsurprising move, Edward and BoCo have been made very much aware that Bill and Ben have a podcast, but are still unsure as to what the hell a podcast is, despite being frequent guests on it.  

Of the main line diesels, only Bear has shown any real interest in the internet, and was immediately put in charge of the Amazon Alexa when a unit was installed in the diesel shed. He also has an iPod that he got for Christmas a few years back. (The NWR has a very good personal  electronics recycling program called give it to Henry, he’ll make use it.)  

Bear does listen to podcasts as well as music, but his choices are so insufferably boring that even Henry refuses to listen to them. (I don’t really listen to podcasts - despite making one - so insert the most boring podcast you can think of here.) 

 As for other internet uses... 

Gordon is very up-to-date on the newest social media trends - somehow - but only really cares when he is involved. He won’t admit it, but he’s been trying to figure out how to work a camera/selfie stick for some time so he can start up his own Instagram account. So far he has been unsuccessful, but one day he will manage it. 

 James has had an ongoing feud with his own Wikipedia page for about a decade now. The article sourced most of its information about his construction off of some out-of-print book about the L&Y. The book in question is accurate about James’ class, but not James himself - as he was a prototype engine. There’s no other primary sources available, so the very dedicated Wikipedia mod who created the page won’t change it - no matter how much James complains that he was there! He knows what happened! 

Every now and again a TTTE fan blog/tumblr will make a post about hypothetical “ships” of the Sodor engines. Most of the time it’s shipping the core characters like Gordon and Henry, much to Gordon’s bafflement and Henry’s amusement! 

Only one blog (a ttte fan tumblr by the curious name of @mean-scarlet-deceiver  ) has gotten it right. Henry actually reached out to congratulate this blogger, but was unfortunately mistaken for a very dedicated roleplay account.  

James is very annoyed by these blogs, as they have never once correctly guessed who he is “shipped” with! He has tried several times to be seen in public with Delta, but these events have never gone as planned - the “best” instance is when Edward rolled by at exactly the wrong moment, leading to months of speculation that JamesxEdward was the ship to look out for! 

Thomas, being a generally oblivious sort of engine, was totally unaware of the online fan community around the TV show until he started getting actively harassed by vloggers and Instagrammers in the early 2010s. He’s fine with it now, but it was a deeply unusual experience for most of 2012.  

Toby has developed an unexpectedly popular following on social media following his collab with Stormzy. His official twitter is huge now, with over a million followers, even if he has no idea what to do with it. He posts rarely, but usually manages to make an incredible post when he does.

No-one is sure who told Oliver what a “fan-production” is, but if you manage to get ahold of him for any period of time and ask him nicely, he will lend his voice to your TTTE fan-project, so long as it isn’t about [INSERT TERRIBLE SOCIAL/POLITICAL VIEW(S) HERE]. This means that he has 100% voiced dramatic readings of NSFW Fanfics before, which is always an absolute riot to spring on people unannounced.

There is a series of slice-of-life TTTE fanfics on Ao3 that have been written with such accuracy and innate railway knowledge that people are sure it was written by a Sodor engine, but nobody knows which one.

The Culdee Fell Railway has very active Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts, with all of the engines and coaches showing up regularly. It’s about the closest any of the railways on Sodor have come to what those outside the UK would call “normal locomotive social media”.

The Skarloey Railway has social media accounts too, but they don’t really feature the engines in any meaningful way, instead being used as a normal service announcements page.  

 The SR is a real working railway that doesn’t rely on tourism money as much as the others do, so they get a bit of a pass here.  

 The Arlesdale Railway has Twitter and YouTube, which didn’t usually get a lot of hits until 2020, when Ivan and Amanda Farrier started badgering the staff to make some videos just to alleviate some boredom. So far the most popular videos on the channel are a front-mounted camera video of the entire line slow-tv style, Bert explaining how steam engines work, and a video of Mike complaining about Justin Bieber for a solid half-hour.  

 That’s about it as far as Sodor goes, but before we’re done, I want to take a moment to talk about Tornado, because I have some fun ideas for her... 

First of all, we need to establish that Tornado is very young. Her construction only started in late 90′s, and she was steamed to life in 2000, putting her firmly into the “Zoomer” category. Add in the fact that she was built by a bunch of old men who didn’t really know how to treat a new engine, and she was raised much more like a human than a locomotive - I’ll get to this much more in the proper Tornado Headcanon post, but what this means here is that when social media started being a thing in the mid-to-late 2000′s, the people at the A1 Trust decided that they needed a young person to run things like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace... and, well, Tornado was the youngest person in the trust by a large margin.

I should state here that in the rest of the world, locomotives are on the internet at roughly the same level as humans are, so there’s plenty of equipment to connect a phone/computer/camera to an engine - being English, the A1 Trust didn’t know how common it was, but they managed to get it up and running just the same.

 So Tornado has very quickly become attuned to the internet, just like any other teenager would. (yes, let’s let that settle into our minds for a moment - Tornado is barely old enough to drink in the US!) Quite naturally that means that she knows social media inside and out, and is actually quite a proficient social media manager for the trust, managing all of their social pages. More than one person who has complained about the trust on twitter has unknowingly been complaining to Tornado herself! 

 “On the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog Engine”. 

 Tornado has her own personal social media accounts too, but most/all of the time she gets mistaken for a very dedicated role-player, as the general perception of British Locomotives is that they don’t tweet. This has resulted in some amazing reactions from podcast hosts (because, as you might expect, Tornado is very knowledgeable about steam traction in the 21st century, and tweets about it often, so train podcasts want to talk to her) when she gets invited onto video calls, turns on her webcam, and is met with screams from people who suddenly realize that her profile picture is accurate.  

 By far the best instance of this is when she was invited onto a video call with a railfan podcast. She was at the NRM at the time and managed to convince them to let her use their Skype setup. A wide-angle lens was needed because she was on the turntable in the Great Hall, so that podcast quickly got sidetracked when her webcam was turned on and revealed Tornado, with Mallard, Evening Star, City of Truro, and Green Arrow visible behind her. Whatever the original topic was quickly got thrown out in favor of a 2-hour Q&A with some of the most famous engines in the UK. 

[myketki]

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Time Sensitive Networking Market Overview

Global Time Sensitive Networking Market Analysis and Forecast by Type

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North America Time Sensitive Networking Market Analysis and Forecast

Latin America Time Sensitive Networking Market Analysis and Forecast

Europe Time Sensitive Networking Market Analysis and Forecast

Asia Pacific Time Sensitive Networking Market Analysis and Forecast

Asia Pacific Time Sensitive Networking Market Size and Volume Forecast by Application

Middle East & Africa Time Sensitive Networking Market Analysis and Forecast

Competition Landscape

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