Talk:The Railway Series

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	This page has been flagged as being within the scope of WikiProject Thomas. WikiProject Thomas aims to develop and expand Wikipedia's content relating to the TV Series Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, as well as the original book series The Railway Series.
	Planning and discussion for this project can be found on the Project page. Wikipedians are quite welcome to join us in improving the quality of this article, and others.

Contents 1 The Fat CONTROLLER 2 Characters - Railway Series or TV Series 3 Book Cover Images 4 Massive Lack of Artwork from "The Railway Series" 5 Well done :) 6 The Railway Stories - the books in audio format (request for help) 7 Book formats 8 Railway Series Books

[edit] The Fat CONTROLLER

In all the books I read as a child Controller was spelt Comptroller. I know the language is being Americanised but can we at least draw the line at The Fat Comptroller? - (JM_Butler not signed in) 194.145.134.17 16:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know the Fat Controller was always the Fat Controller not a Comptroller. Is Comptroller an americanism??? Penrithguy 16:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not this is a legitimate Americanisation, the character's name was always The Fat Controller (except of course when he was The Fat Director :P ). None of us will stand by and let this be changed. Gonzerelli 20:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not an Americanism. It was the standard UK way of spelling a person who comptrolled something. (e.g. Comptroller of Taxes). I was given a book from The Railway Series in the 1970s and it was spelt thus. I was confused when I went to school and saw a teacher using the modern spelling. Jm butler 18:23, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It may be the standard UK way of spelling, but in every Railway Series publication I've seen it is spelt 'Controller'. In fact, the only other time I've heard the term 'Comptroller' was in the Simpsons episode where Lisa gets the cheat notes from Nelson and gets a grant for the school. In short - the character's name is 'The Fat Controller'.Thehalford 14:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Characters - Railway Series or TV Series

The difference between Railway Series characters, and TV Series characters is fairly clear. There are characters who are solely Railway Series characters, and others which are solely TV Series characters.

Further, with many characters common to both series, there are differences in the characteristics. As a very basic example, Bill and Ben do not have numbers in the TV Series, but they do in the Railway Series.

Please be clear about whether characters discussed are from the Railway Series aspect, or the TV Series aspect. Gonzerelli 11:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

(PS: For reference, the TV Series characters are covered in the following article: Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends).)

[edit] Book Cover Images

A number of images of the covers from The Railway Series books are already present on Wikipedia, and have been used to illustrate articles. These images can be elusive, so those already found are included below, for copying as required.

EdJogg 11:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Book cover images located:

Mountain Engines, filename xxxx (see Culdee Fell Railway)

Duke the Lost Engine, filename xxxx (see Duke the Lost Engine)

Wilbert the Forest Engine, filename xxxx (see Wilbert the Forest Engine)

Thomas and the Fat Controller's Engines, filename [[Image:0434969117.01.jpg]] (see Christopher Awdry)

EdJogg 14:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

No longer a problem - these images now have a home of their own!!

See: List of Railway Series Books -- EdJogg 09:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It is extremely important to realize that these images are copyrighted. They are allowed to be uploaded under the Fair use exemption. This only allows the images to be used on a page that is directly related to the image. Using them on any other page (e.g. this talk page, a user page) breaches copyright and opens Wikipedia up to potential legal action. Please do not place these images anywhere other than the main main article about the book concerned. Thanks, Gwernol 12:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Massive Lack of Artwork from "The Railway Series"

I find the lack of artwork from The Railway Series quite frustrating when browsing these articles. I think it is particulatly annoying that a character link from "The Railway Series" page points you at photographs of TV model trains (it is just my humble opinion, but someone interested in the books may have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the television programme).

Is there a reason for the lack of artwork? I have a complete set of The Railway Series inlcuding a 1940s (first?) edition of "The Three Railway Engines" (with the crude looking early artwork from William Middleton) and I would be more than happy to scan these images and any images from any of the other books (I am a particular fan of Dalby's work) if it would help the project. I think I may still have the Johnny Morris Decca LPs in my loft and will have a look now to see if I can did them out and photograph the artwork.

I am not familiar with the copyright restrictions on using Railway Series illustrations. I believe the book covers are fair enough, but the illustrations within the books I have no idea about. I'd like to suggest you contact a user named Gwernol about this, Gwernol has proved very helpful and quite knowledgeable in the past on these kind of issues.

Thank you for your interest. And, you can rest assured that the TV Series pictures will be removed from Railway Series pages :) Gonzerelli 11:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

In reply, you can't simply scan all the illustrations because they are copyrighted. In general copyrighted images cannot be uploaded to Wikipedia. However you have a very limited right to make fair use of certain specific copyrighted images. Please read Wikipedia's fair use policy for details. In general for books you can upload a scan of the book cover for use on one article that is directly about that book. No other images can be uploaded from the book, and the image cannot be used for any purpose other than to illustrate the article about the book.

Personally I agree that the book images are much better than screenshots of the TV series, but we simply cannot upload any further images unless we get written permission from the copyright holder - presumably HIT Entertainment. Sorry, Gwernol 12:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Is the Sodor picture necessary here? Perhaps it could be replaced when we can get some book covers uploaded? This page is for the series of books after all. Mdcollins1984 16:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• Well, if we ask HIT Entertainment, they'll probably just give us the COMPLETELY incorrect Island of Sodor image seen in the new TV series Interactive Segments ;).

[edit] Well done :)

Well done to everyone who's contributed to bringing this article up to its current standard in my absence. The job's not finished yet, but you can feel satisfied with your efforts thus far.

You are really useful Wikipedians :)

Gonzerelli 12:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Railway Stories - the books in audio format (request for help)

The Railway Series books have been released as audiobooks in several formats: 7" vinyl on the Delysé label; 12" vinyl on the Decca label; and audio cassette on the Argo label. (See The Railway Stories for details.)

Unfortunately, I only have a precious few of these recordings (and none from Decca, yet) so there is a lot of missing information. I have bolstered the information thanks to some contacts on eBay, which has helped. But there are still many holes to fill.

So, if you have examples in your collection, could you please see if you can fill in any gaps? NB - please do not guess the stories contained on any particular recording - they may not follow the book order exactly.

EdJogg 13:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Book formats

I was thinking that this page needs a paragraph of the layout of the books. As I don't have any originals, I can't do this at present. The sort of information I was wondering was the fact that each book has 4 stories in it, its small unusual sized hardback format etc. Maybe some information about the publishing history... Mdcollins1984 16:27, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

You poor deprived soul :o) How can you cope?

This had occurred to me too. The unique format was a major factor in their success, as discovered to their cost by (HiT ?) when they tried publishing them in a slightly different form using cropped in-line images. They were not a success.

The problem is that in addition to the 'original format' books, the stories have been released in other forms and collections too. There is an argument that all these should be covered as well.

The details of the published books should be included on this page (or a separate subpage if it starts to get out-of-hand). I made a start last month by including the 'first published' date in the table of books, but I don't think any more columns should be added to that table. Also, watch out, at least Henry the Green Engine had five stories...

EdJogg 14:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Railway Series Books

What I want to do is create pages about a description of the Railway Series books each, with a link of each book leading to its own page, with a description. Is this okay? --imdanumber1 01:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe User:HonestTom is already working on such a page. It would be more efficient and effective to have all of the books in the one article, not having individual pages for individual books. This is to save on superfluous content, and having an excessive number of articles. Will check this out with HonestTom tho. Gonzerelli 10:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)