Nov 1, 2022
As per my last post, Thomas was originally built and drawn by Rev. Awdry as a tank engine with sloped tanks. It was the illustrator, Reginald Payne, who drew Thomas as a real design, an LB&SCR E2-class. But suppose he’d been drawn as a different real design which more closely resembles the original sketch: A GNR J23 class tank engine? This drawing imagines what, decades later, The model of Thomas would have looked like for the 1980s television adaptation Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.
Ironically, swapping out a J23/J50 for an E2 is just trading one Big Tank Engine for another Big Tank Engine.