Thomas & the Magic Railroad

Thomas & the Magic Railroad
Dubbing Studio	The Complex Studios World Cottage Soundtrack
Recorded	1999-2000
Dub Country	Canada
Original Country	United Kingdom United States Canada
Year	2000

Thomas and the Magic Railroad is a 2000 children's film, directed by Britt Allcroft and the first Thomas & Friends film. It is based on both the aforementioned series and its spin-off, Shining Time Station.

Synopsis An evil diesel locomotive called Diesel 10 has arrived on the Island of Sodor, with the intention of destroying the steam locomotives. His plan is to locate a magical lost engine and destroy her in order to remove the magic from the Island. Sir Topham Hatt, normally in charge of the railways on Sodor, is on holiday and has left Mr. Conductor in charge. Mr. Conductor has problems of his own. The mysterious gold dust that allows him to magically transport from place to place is running out, and without it there will be no way for anyone to travel to Sodor. The lost engine is able to travel between Sodor and Muffle Mountain via the Magic Railroad, but nobody knows where she is. An old man named Burnett Stone lives on Muffle Mountain, near Shining Time. Unknown to everyone, he is the guardian of the lost engine. The engine crashed after an earlier encounter with Diesel 10, and ever since then he has been trying to repair her, so far without success.

Background

Unlike other Thomas series and films; there is only one English language version between both the US and UK. However, the film went through a series of changes after test screenings in America garnered negative reception; most notably the excision of the live-action character P.T. Boomer (played by Doug Lennox). The voice cast was the other primary change to the film, with much of the original voice cast being redubbed.

During production, it was widely publicized online that an Isle of Man cab driver and volunteer firefighter named John Bellis was to be the voice of Thomas. Having only heard him utter a meager few words, Britt knew that John was the right man to voice Thomas himself, turning to tell her colleagues "I have just heard the voice of Thomas. The man is exactly how Thomas would sound!". A few days later, she offered John the part, and he accepted.

Despite being flown out to Toronto record all of Thomas's dialogue, American test audiences, however, thought Bellis's voice made Thomas sound too old and thus John Bellis was canned. Thomas's voice was performed in the final cut by Canadian voice actor Edward Glen. Bellis was apparently disappointed by this, and to the point where he refuses to really discuss the matter with fans who have contacted him to ask him about it. Years later, however, he would reprise his role as Thomas for a promo for the Director's Cut of the film.

The trailers depicted Diesel 10 with a gruff English upper-class accent, as opposed to the New Jersey accent he had in the theatrical release. Sodor Island Forums ended up digging up the information that Diesel 10 was originally voiced by Australian voice actor Keith Scott. But this voice was deemed too frightening by the American test audiences. Canadian actor Neil Crone was then brought in to do the voice of Diesel 10, where he gave him a Russian accent. This too would fall into the hands when the audiences made the wild claim that it would somehow be "offensive" and Crone revised his voice to a New Jersey accent. The troublesome trucks had also been voiced by Crone along Splatter and Dodge's actor Kevin Frank in the director's cut, but most of their material was cut from the final film.

Britt Allcroft revealed that the original voice of James and Percy was Michael Angelis, the narrator for the UK series of Thomas from 1991-2012, and later research turned out that he was going to voice Splatter and Dodge. American actor Patrick Breen, who prior worked with Allcroft as the narrator for Magic Adventures of Mumfie, originally also provided the voices for Henry, Toby and Bertie. Both of them were canned by the test audiences, and Susan Roman and Linda Ballantyne replaced Angelis as James and Percy, respectively, whilst Kevin Frank and Colm Feore replaced Breen as Henry, Bertie and Toby, respectively. Angelis initially stayed on to voice Splatter and Dodge, but in the end both roles were recast with Neil Crone and Kevin Frank, respectively.

Cast

Image	Character	Original Actor (Workprint)	First Recast (unreleased)	Dub Actor (Theatrical)
	Thomas	John Bellis		Edward Glen
	James	Michael Angelis	Adrian Egan	Susan Roman
			Neil Crone Phil Fehrle Edward Glen Kevin Duhaney(later cut)
	Percy		Edward Glen	Linda Ballantyne
			Kevin Frank (later cut)
	Diesel 10	Keith Scott	Joe Matheson	Neil Crone
			Neil Crone (different accent only; later cut)
	Splatter	Michael Angelis
	Dodge			Kevin Frank
	Gordon	Keith Scott	John Hollis	Neil Crone
	Henry	Patrick Breen	Colin Fox	Kevin Frank
	Toby		Colm Feore	Colm Feore
			Neil Crone (later cut)
	Bertie		Graham Harley	Kevin Frank
Notes:

Notes

• It was long assumed that Patrick Breen was going to voice Splatter & Dodge. However, recent information has revealed that he was never actually cast in the roles, and that Michael Angelis was going to voice them.
• As recently revealed by An Unlikely Fandom director Brannon Carty, a few other casting choices were made before the cast was finalized:
  • Joe Matheson and John Hollis were cast as Diesel 10 and Gordon, respectively after Keith Scott was replaced, before being themselves replaced by Neil Crone. It was originally assumed that Benedict Campbell was the voice actor and voiced both characters, but this turned out to not be the case.
  • Colin Fox was initially cast to replace Patrick Breen as Henry before being replaced with Kevin Frank.
  • Adrian Egan, Graham Harley and Edward Glen were cast as James, Bertie and Percy, respectively, after Michael Angelis and Patrick Breen were replaced, all of whom having recorded several of the characters' lines before they were replaced by Susan Roman, Kevin Frank and Linda Ballantyne, respectively. Glen did remain as the voice of Thomas in the final film, however.
    • It was originally assumed that Canadian actor Wayne Robson voiced James and Bertie, but it turned out that wasn't the case and they were voiced by Egan and Harley.
    • At one point, Neil Crone and Kevin Frank were cast as James, Toby and Percy, respectively, but the voices were changed for unknown reasons.
    • Edward Glen, Kevin Duhaney, and two unknown actors also did scratch tracks for James, while Phil Fehrle was officially cast at some point.
  • While not shown in the initial workprint included on the Blu-ray, many of John Bellis's lines as Thomas were pitched up to make him sound more youthful before he was replaced by Edward Glen.
• In the initial cuts, Keith Scott and Joe Matheson did some additional walla, with Scott doing Thomas' sneeze and Matheson providing some background lines for Gordon.

Video Releases

Distributor	Year	Format	Region	Country
	2000		NTSC	United States
			1 NTSC
			2 PAL	United Kingdom
	2007
	2020		A DVB-T	United States

See Also

• Thomas & Friends

External Links

• Thomas & the Magic Railroad at the Internet Movie Database