Thomas & Friends is a British children's television series developed for television by Britt Allcroft. Based on The Railway Series children's books by Wilbert and Christopher Awdry, it centers on various anthropomorphic steam locomotives as well as other vehicles living on the fictional Island of Sodor. Over the course of twenty-four series, the series produced a total of 584 episodes.

Allcroft discovered The Railway Series in 1979 during her research for a documentary film about the Bluebell Railway. She quickly became intrigued by the characters, the relationships between them and the nostalgia they invoked, and wanted to adapt the books to television. She formed "The Britt Allcroft Railway Productions" company in 1980, with her then husband, Angus Wright. She spent four years raising the funds to make the first 26 episodes of the series, which included mortgaging her house to gain a bank loan. After searching for a proper voice for narration, she hired Beatles drummer Ringo Starr to help narrate the show, having found his voice perfect. David Mitton was hired as director, with Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell signing on as composers for the show's music. The episodes were filmed in live action and utilised radio-controlled models and static figures, with stop motion being used for certain characters. A pilot episode, titled "Down the Mine", was produced as an early version of it in 1983.

The first series began airing in the United Kingdom on ITV on 9 October 1984, under the title of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. Ratings for the series were high, with the first episode, "Thomas and Gordon", garnering 8.5million viewers. Starr left the show following the second series in 1990, with English actor Michael Angelis replacing him in the British dub in 1991 and American stand-up comedian George Carlin replacing Ringo Starr in the American dub in the same year, respectively. Thomas & Friends continued to air regularly until its twenty-fourth and final series in 2021. A reboot titled Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, was later announced in October 2020, with the first series beginning airing on 13 September 2021, and aired consistently until its fourth and final series, which began on 10 April 2025, and ended on 11 September.

Series overview

Episodes

Series 1 (1984–1985)

Series 2 (1986)

Series 3 (1992)

Series 4 (1995)

Series 5 (1998)

Series 6 (2002)

Series 7 (2003)

Series 8 (2004)

Series 9 (2005)

Series 10 (2006)

Series 11 (2007–2008)

Series 12 (2008)

Series 13 (2010)

Series 14 (2010)

Series 15 (2011)

Series 16 (2012)

Series 17 (2013–2014)

Series 18 (2014–2015)

Series 19 (2015–2017)

Series 20 (2016–2017)

Series 21 (2017)

Series 22 (2018–2019)

Series 23 (2019–2020)

Series 24 (2020–2021)

Notes Misc

VHS

VHS/DVD

DVD

References Broadcast

Citations