{"id":948940,"date":"2026-05-09T19:39:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T19:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/948940\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T19:39:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T19:39:16","slug":"talyllyn-railway-which-inspired-thomas-the-tank-engine-marks-75-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/948940\/","title":{"rendered":"Talyllyn Railway which inspired Thomas the Tank Engine marks 75 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stories from Awdry&#8217;s time working on the railway found their way into his books, such as the time he managed to leave the refreshment lady behind at Abergynolwyn, the far end of the line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tim Dunn, railway historian and TV presenter who is also a volunteer at Talyllyn, said the railway had become the &#8220;spiritual home&#8221; of Thomas the Tank.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Awdry created new characters in the Thomas the Tank Engine books, based on the locomotives of the Talyllyn Railway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;He wasn&#8217;t just inspired by the locations, the locomotives and some of the things that had happened to him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The whole ethos of a friendly little railway made its way into his books, the sort of place with a quirk and a charm that children could warm to.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stories from Awdry&#8217;s time working on the railway found their way into his books, such as the time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-948940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116546317032771488","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}