Great Waterton

Great Waterton is an old town, deep in the Sudrian forests north of the Skarloey Railway, that Thomas rediscovered in The Great Discovery. It only appeared in The Great Discovery and the twelfth season. It was later mentioned in Tale of the Brave.

About
Great Waterton got its name from the fact that it served a water works, which supplied water for all the other towns on Sodor. When the very first steam engines came to Sodor, it was the Island's main town and rail hub. It was served by Sodor Tramways, which delivered the coal for the water works until the tramway was closed. The water works then closed down and many people moved away from Great Waterton. Great Waterton became lost until Thomas discovered it while finding another route to the wharf. To celebrate Sodor Day, the Fat Controller decided to have the town restored, with all the engines on Sodor and the Sodor Construction Company involved in the project. Now, Great Waterton is beautiful again, as it once was.

The Sodor Construction Company later helped erect a bandstand.

The Water Works
The water works consists of some large buildings which housed the steam pumping engines, as well as the standpipe tower which dwarfs all the buildings. Inside the water works, there have been two steam pumping engines with a large stationary boiler to provide steam pressure.

The standpipe tower has a huge iron pipe inside its structure; its purpose is to allow the steam pumping engines to pump the water up the standpipe and then, by gravity, the pressure inside the standpipe moves the water along the water mains towards all the other towns. Once the water works closed the standpipe tower fell into disrepair, and it was a huge undertaking to restore the standpipe - especially as Thomas' trick on Stanley caused the trucks to crash into it. Now the standpipe tower looks as good as new.

The water works is based upon the Kew Bridge Steam Museum in London, which is housed in a steam-driven pumping station, originally used for pumping clean water for all of London.

Trivia

 * Some of the Great Waterton buildings are on display at Drayton Manor.

Merchandise

 * Take-Along (discontinued)
 * Take-n-Play
 * Wooden Railway (discontinued)
 * LEGO (discontinued)
 * Mega Bloks (discontinued)
 * Motor Road and Rail
 * Hornby (discontinued)