Thomas & Friends (series 2)


Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends is a children's television series about the engines and other characters working on the railways of the Island of Sodor, and is based on The Railway Series books written by the Rev. W. Awdry.
This article lists and details episodes from the second series of the show, which was first broadcast in 1986. This series was initially narrated by Ringo Starr for the U.K. audiences, who re-narrated 17 episodes for the U.S. audiences on Shining Time Station in 1989. The entire series was later re-narrated by George Carlin for the U.S. audiences.
It was produced by Clearwater Features Ltd. for Britt Allcroft Ltd.

Production

Stories

was commissioned to write a new Railway Series book as source material for the second series. Three stories from More About Thomas the Tank Engine provided additional roles for Bertie the Bus, Terence the Tractor, and Harold the Helicopter. The episodes "Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree" and "Thomas and Trevor" were both one-off stories written by Christopher. The following series would begin to use original stories by the production staff, with some of the remaining Railway Series stories deemed "repetitive and too 'story-book' orientated".

Filming

Early in production, a third episode based on The Twin Engines was due to be filmed, based largely on the story "The Missing Coach". The model crew had gone as far as filming scenes on the Tidmouth Station set with Thomas arriving at the station, before Britt Allcroft decided the episode had too little action and its storyline would be too difficult to understand by younger viewers. Subsequently, the episode was cancelled and replaced with Thomas, Percy and the Coal. Several promotional stills from the filming of The Missing Coach have surfaced in various Thomas publications, while David Mitton was believed to be in possession of the original film footage.

Episodes

Characters

Introduced