Influenced works

This is a list of works that were influenced by The Railway Series and Thomas & Friends.

Really Useful Group

• Andrew Lloyd Webber's company the Really Useful Group was named after the phrase from The Railway Series, "Really Useful Engines".

Starlight Express

• After Andrew Lloyd Webber attempting to adapt The Railway Series into an animated musical television series, that as well as two other abandoned projects, a novelty pop single, and an animated film based on Cinderella led to the creation of Starlight Express.
  • The Thomas & Friends television series premiered seven months after Starlight Express.

Jay Jay the Jet Plane

• The American children's television series Jay Jay the Jet Plane was inspired by Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, as revealed by the Director of Photography and Lighting Director for the original series of Jay Jay the Jet Plane, Jonathan Cermin;

“

I was the Director of Photography and Lighting Director for all of the Jay Jay the Jet Plane live action productions. As a side note, I also carved the original test models for Jay Jay and Big Jake to see if this project would be feasible. They are currently sitting in a glass case, along with all the other models, in an office in Dallas, Texas. We made a three minute test film called "Jay Jay's First Flight", so the creator, David Mitchell, could see if this was something he wanted to pursue. Jay Jay's original color was blue, but once we started doing the flying sequences on blue screen (before green screen got big), Jay Jay would key out as he was the same as the blue screen background. We eventually changed over to green screen recording, but in the meanwhile, decided to re-paint Jay Jay brown. David Mitchel, the creator of Jay Jay, had a young son who loved airplanes. David knew "Thomas the Tank Engine" was a big hit with kids, so he though why not do the same thing with airplanes.

”

Bob the Builder

• When Bob the Builder creator Keith Chapman was creating the series, he looked at other children's media such as Thomas the Tank Engine. However, he felt that it looked very old fashioned, as The Railway Series, the book series of which the Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends television series was based off, was written back in the 1940s. Despite this, it was still one of the most successful British preschool television series, and so Chapman thought that surely a construction concept could be as big as Thomas. HiT Entertainment was not too sure if it would, but for a few years since its televised debut in 1999, Bob the Builder would actually become more popular than Thomas until the late 2000's where its popularity eclipsed as Thomas becoming HIT's #1 Brand, and continuing it's run as the #1 Preschool Brand at the time.

Chuggington

• Dick Rothkopf, former CEO of Learning Curve came up with the concept of Chuggington after he sought to create a "better, more updated version of Thomas the Tank Engine", as he felt the characters were "too mean, and terribly gender-biased. The values that are there are very old-fashioned and very little of what's thought of as modern teamwork." He teamed up with Rob Lawes, former CEO and COO of HiT Entertainment, and founded Ludorum PLC.