Do you know the names of the red one, the green ones and the blue ones? If you could also identify the two black ones and some 20 others, then chances are that you exist in close proximity to a Thomas the Tank Engine fan.
Class system
The creator of the fussy little engine was a clergyman who began telling stories about trains to his three-year-old son, Christopher, in 1943. The original series by the Rev W. Awdry introduced the engines through stories explaining how they came to work on the Line. In them, details are carefully given about the functions of the engines and events are often drawn from real-life railway news, as if from one train enthusiast to another.
The post-war stamp of class hierarchy can be clearly identified; there are the ruling classes, represented by the tailcoat-wearing Fat Director, later changed to the more identifiable Fat Controller‚ and, in the US, the more politically correct, Sir Topham Hatt.
