Mr. Conductor introduces us to the Island of Sodor and Thomas. While at the station, Thomas and Gordon meet a rather undesirable old friend, Diesel 10. Diesel 10 states that he has unfinished business and wants to finish it fast.

Thomas meets up with James at Tidmouth Sheds and exchanges words but this dosent last long as Diesel 10 interupts them. He threatens to have them scrapped and tells them that hes looking for a lost steam engine. Thomas promptly chases after him, questioning him.

 

 

We are then introduced to Patch and Mutt, who are painting the Shining Time Station sign (Shining Time Station, town population 5006, give or take) and informs Mutt that Billy Twofeathers will be back soon. After returning, Billy congratulates Patch. Patch then goes off to Muffle Mountain.

 

We are then introduced to a sad man, named Burnett Stone. He had a secret which was an Engine, named Lady whom he only shared with his childhood friend and later wife, Tasha. Meanwhile back at the Station, Stacy shares a drawing she found of Burnett. Back at the mountain Patch finds Burnett, who shares his secret with him.

Meanwhile back on Sodor, Diesel 10 is admiring a carving of him on the side of a mountain. We then meet Diesel’s two cronies, Splatter and Dodge. Who are reluctant to get his plans and doubtful about it as well.

 

Back at Shining Time, Mr. Conductor gets ready to leave for Sodor but Mutt does not want him or Billy to leave Shining Time. Mutt senses great danger and unease.

 

When Mr. Conductor arrives on Sodor, he finds Thomas and explains that his journey to Sodor just gets bumpier and bumpier.

We are then introduced to Lily, who lives in the Big City with her mother (and possibly father?) and is Burnett’s granddaughter. All she wants is to have a good relationship with her Grandfather.

 

Again on Sodor, James is grumbling about being supposed to collect Mr. Conductor. Gordon comes and only defends James as he is a big engine. Henry is of great unease as well as he realizes that Diesel is here to be rid of the lost engine. Diesel’s plan then goes into fruition when Harold the Helicopter comes by, blowing sneezing powder, which Diesel had dumped all around the sheds around the yards.

 

Mr. Conductor then reads a letter that the Fat Controller has left for him while he runs the railway. While playing around with his Top Hat, he receives a call from Sir Topham Hatt.

 

While spending the night at Tidmouth Sheds, Mr. Conductor and the engines are abruptly disturbed by Diesel 10 who knocks down the construction barriers and threatens Mr. C with his claw (dubbed “Pinchy”) as he knows that Mr. C knows the location of the lost engine. Mr. Conductor fends Diesel off threatening to clog Diesel’s tank with Flour. Mr. C realizes that his gold dust is disappearing. That night he has a nightmare in which he sees Stacy walking past what was once Shining Time. The Magic has apparently disappeared. He then wakes up and realizes he must try to find more gold dust.

Meanwhile, Lily tries to get on her train to see her Grandfather. But Mutt comes by and directs her to Billy’s train “The Rainbow Sun”.

 

Back on Sodor, Mr. C goes looking for more gold dust at the windmill only to find a bunch of rocks in the forest. Meanwhile the Engines have a meeting. They are worried about the future of Sodor and Mr. Conductor so Thomas goes off to find him. Back at the forest, Mr. C finds a note where he thought the windmill was from a mysterious source named “Rabbit”. The source leaves him some Carrots to help him think. He then promptly calls his cousin, C. Junior. Mr. C prompts Junior to go to his signal house painting at Shining Time and look for some more gold dust.

 

Lily soon arrives to Shining Time realizing that she is at the wrong place. He soon discovers Junior while he was lurking within Mr. Conductors signal house. Lily soon discovers some Gold dust that Junior left behind.

 

Mr. Conductor while lying down near the line realizes that his world is crumbling. He soon finds Thomas searching for him.

 

Back at Shining Time, Stacy finds Lily sitting there with a Harmonica looking for Lily as Burnett was very worried. She then drives her back to Muffle Mountain and tells her about Burnett’s relationship with Tasha. They find Burnett giving directions to a lost motorcyclist (Actually P.T. Boomer). She returns Lily to Burnett. While driving back to Burnett’s cottage, Lily gives her grandfather a friendship bracelet she made, learning this from her grandmother.

 

Back on Sodor, Thomas and Percy consult with each other and Percy has a thought about the Lost Engine having a Lost Railroad as well. Unfortunately, Diesel hears over this and goes off to have a meeting. Toby then follows them and distracts them causing Diesel to push the shed over with Pinchy trapping them.

 

Later Thomas loses a Coal truck through the Magic Buffers. Thomas later consults with Percy on this. Thomas gives Percy the task of keeping the buffers from Diesel, much to the anguish of Percy.

 

Later, Mr. Conductor faces Diesel 10 again who grabs him with Pinchy, threatening to drop him from the Viaduct if he doesn’t tell him the whereabouts of the lost engine. Mr. Conductor soon finds his Dream is coming true as the Viaduct is now starting to collapse. Luckily, Mr. Conductor finds a pair of pliers and snaps one of Diesel’s claw wires causing him to be shot up in the air and to the windmill. He soon finds another clue but to no avail.

 

Dodge and Splatter then question Diesel as to why he let “Twinkle Toes” (Mr. Conductor) escape. Diesel stating he did it on purpose. Out of anger he uses Pinchy to slam the Coal chute causing Coal to dump out all over him.

 

Patch then meets Lily and start to get acquainted. Burnett agrees to let Lily come with Patch back to Shining Time. They then ride Patch’s horse there, as Burnett questions the future with his engine.

 

Lily meets with Junior back at Shining Time again and he agrees to take her with him to Sodor. As they go through they notice the missing Coal Truck. Upon arrival, they soon meet Thomas, who is not pleased to see Junior (who had once stuck party poppers down Thomas’ Funnel) but he is pleased to meet Lily. They soon meet with Mr. Conductor at the windmill. Junior and Mr. C then exchange words until receiving a call from Sir Topham Hatt. As Mr. Conductor speaks with him, Junior irresponsibly goes for a ride on the windmill arms. The wind flings him off and onto the back of Diesel 10, who takes him hostage.

 

Back at Muffle Mountain, Patch informs Burnett that Lily has gone missing. Burnett however knows that they will find her.

 

That night on Sodor, Percy finds the magic buffers only to see that Dodge and Splatter are reluctantly there as well. Percy goes off to inform Thomas.

 

Mr. Conductor is trying to keep Lily cheerful by a fire by playing Cards. Lily was worried about her grandpa. Mr. Conductor tried to keep her optimistic by saying that he could possibly sense where she is. As they talk, Mr. C figures out the clue from the Windmill.

 

Back at Burnett’s workshop, Patch tells him that he can hear Lady whistle at night and Burnett states so too and reveals her magic qualities. Patch then realizes that there is a magic railroad.

 

Percy explains to Thomas that they should get Lily back before Diesel destroys the whole railroad. Mr. Conductor prompts Thomas to take Lily through the magic railroad.

 

After being convinced to do so Thomas takes Lily to her universe. They recovered the missing Truck from the Railroad. As Lily left, the wind picked up and Thomas fell off the mountain into a portal back to Sodor.

 

Lily then finds Patch and goes back to her grandfather. Burnett is relieved to see her and she explains all that happened. However he is unable to help as Lady’s steam won’t go up. Lily then realizes that Sodor Coal would make her go.

 

Diesel 10 then takes Junior to the Smelter Yards. Diesel nearly runs right into James, with a tremendous halt, Junior landed on James’ cab. Diesel tries to make James fall down the scrap hole though Junior was unable to transport James but finally got him to where Mr. Conductor was. Mr. Conductor then confirms to Junior that there is no more magic.

After getting Lady running again, they start going through the magic railroad where Lady gains a face. They soon come to Sodor and meet up with Mr. Conductor and Junior who then realize that the engine is the lost engine.

 

As Thomas emerged from the Magic Buffers, along came Diesel 10 trying once again to destroy her. Dodge and Splatter refused to come with, wishing to redeem themselves. Burnett jumps in her promising he would not let her down this time. Mr. C and Junior then realize that Lady is the source to the gold dust. Diesel 10 chases them until he falls off the collapsing viaduct and onto a barge.

 

 

Thomas, Lady, Burnett and Lily meet Mr. Conductor and Junior. They use the water from a wishing well and shavings from the rails of the Magic Railroad to make more gold dust, and the Island of Sodor is saved.

 

THE ORIGINAL MOVIE

The Movie suffered badly as a result of the Los Angeles test audience mostly. Many of them did not approve of the British accents or some characters or any other accent. The edits left the movie watered down and a lazy plotline.

 

 

Originally in the movie there was to be a major villain named “P.T. Boomer”, who was jealous of the relationship that Burnett and Tasha had as children and had bullied Burnett into letting him to take Lady for a run. After which crashing her, he left Shining Time leaving Burnett to try fixing Lady to no avail. P.T. Boomer’s role was filmed and played by Doug Lennox.

 

The reason for his cut was the test audience’s claim that he was too scary for children. This cut from the movie was so close to the release that, Boomer was seen in one of the trailer’s shown falling off Diesel 10’s cab as he fell off the viaduct. Many plot elements in the movie were then left unexplained due to his cut. P.T. Boomer appears as Lily and Stacy finds Burnett in the Movie but it was edited so it appeared that he was giving the motorcyclist directions. Also in some chase scenes, he can be seen on Diesel 10’s cab. He also appeared in coloring books by Random House. He is in storyboard concepts showing him as both a typical old biker while later on he is depicted as an ugly hairless old man with one tooth and a trench coat.

 

Bruce Simpson's portrayal of P.T. Boomer in one of his storyboard's

 

Doug Lennox during shooting of the film

 

 

George was originally to be given a role in the Movie as one of Diesel’s henchmen and would be given Tidmouth Shed’s turntable as his own personal roller-rink as reward for trying to find and smash the magic buffers. However, George’s model was never taken out of storage and his lines were edited out from the movie.

 

Cranky was to be given a less important role and was originally meant to have dropped oil canisters on Diesel 10. In the script, it was that he was to drop Fruit on Splatter, Dodge and Percy. This scene was replaced with the one at the Coal chute. Cranky had a cameo at Knapford yards, however.

 

 

Some of the original voice actors had also suffered from the hands of the test audience

 

Thomas was to be voiced by an Isle of Man part time taxi driver/fireman named John Bellis. This movie was supposed to be what was to launch his career. Britt Allcroft met John and immediately thought that would be Thomas’ voice. However his voice over suffered due to how old Thomas sounded and was replaced by Eddie Glenn. John Bellis was acknowledged however in the credits or the movie.

 

Percy and James were supposed to be voiced by Michael Angelis, who had been the narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine in the UK since 1993. He was flown over to America to do the voices. He as well suffered at the hands of the test audience. James and Percy’s voices were replaced by Susan Roman and Linda Ballantyne.

 

Diesel 10 originally had an upper class English accent provided by Australian actor, Keith Scott. However while Neil Crone and Kevin Frank were recording lines for the Troublesome Trucks and Crone had done a random imitation of Diesel 10 using a Russian accent which Britt Allcroft had heard and liked. So for the next draft Crone had done Diesel 10’s voice but he suffered at the hands of the test audience. They thought the Russian accent would be offensive and thus for the last draft, Crone gave Diesel 10 an American accent and referred to Diesel 10’s claw as “Pinchy” which had not been done in previous drafts. Both Scott’s and Crone’s original Diesel 10 voices can be heard in one of the trailers.

 

While I haven’t the foggiest idea what role he played in the movie but Patrick Breen was the voice or role of some character but I honestly don’t know.

 

 

In the movie there were many other proposed ideas, however to me, it is a mystery as to whether they were ever in the Director’s Cut are unknown at this point. Originally the idea was that Lily would be telling this story to her child 20 years later. She would be married to Patch and own an offspring of Mutt. It is plausible that this was used as the adult Patch is even credited in the movie as being played by Robert Tinkler.

As for how Diesel 10 and P.T. Boomer would have ended is that they would have vanished due to some sort of magic dust effect, or they were turned into sludge themselves in the Barge, with some trick from C. Junior’s bandana. Also an intended part of the Chase scene was that, P.T. Boomer was a stowaway within Thomas’ Cab and was grabbed by Diesel 10 while trying to destroy Thomas and placing him on his back. However in the cut this is changed to him, flying out the magic buffers and landing on Diesel’s cab.

 

Dodge and Splatter were also meant to be introduced at the sheds at the scrap yard with Diesel and George. In the original script they were ordered to destroy the magic buffers by George in the end. Though they only end up bumping into each other at the switch points. It is rather clear that in the Director’s Cut clip I saw on youtube, that they had more British accents, whether they were voiced by someone else is not clear to me really.

 

Lady was apparently never meant to speak but she was given a voice so that Britt Allcroft could have a voice within the movie.

 

Proposed storyboards indicate that also Thomas appears after Mr. Conductor is done scrubbing James down. The storyboards also show the portal to Sodor inside a cavernous tunnel. Also as Thomas brings Lily through the portal, she was to fall out his cab. The script had this as Patch going into the portal with his Horse and recovering it.

 

 

There are a few deleted scenes that can be seen in Trailers and DVD Extras. These don’t include any with P.T. Boomer (other than one certain one). I don’t count the recently discovered scene including him in it.

 

-A Scene of Burnett nailing together a Birdhouse

-C. Junior having his last sip of a Summer Sunday but only gets splashed with it.

-Thomas pulling Annie and Clarabel down the track

-Thomas stating that little engines can do big things and Diesel coming up and threatening him

-Diesel falling off the Viaduct with P.T. Boomer falling off him (this is note worthy as this is the only appearance of Boomer in a Trailer.

 

Movie Cast/Voices

Mr. Conductor – Alec Baldwin

Burnett Stone – Peter Fonda

Lily – Mara Wilson

C. Junior – Michael E. Rodgers

Patch – Cody McCains

Stacy Jones – Didi Conn

Billy Twofeathers – Russell Means

Thomas – Eddie Glenn

Henry – Kevin Frank

Gordon – Neil Crone

James – Susan Roman

Percy – Linda Ballantyne

Toby – Colm Feore

Diesel 10 – Neil Crone

Lady – Britt Allcroft

Dodge – Kevin Frank

Splatter – Neil Crone

Bertie – Kevin Frank

Harold – Kevin Frank

Annie and Clarabel – Shelley Elizabeth Skinner

 

If anyone at all is interested in seeing the Director’s cut of Thomas & the Magic Railroad, please help the cause and sign Sodor Island Forums Directors Cut petition - http://www.petitiononline.com/tatmr/petition.html

 

All of us from thomassodorworld and Sodor Island Fansite would be delighted to see what Britt had originally intended.