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Background Information
In the Railway Series
Toad is a fictional standard gauge brake van created by the Rev. W. Awdry. He first appeared in the Railway Series book, Enterprising Engines, which was published in 1968. His last appearance was in Oliver the Western Engine, published in 1969.
Toad is based on a Great Western Railway Diagram AA2 brake van.
In the Television Series
In 1992, Toad was introduced in the third series of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, reprising many of his roles from the Railway Series. In the Railway Series, Toad's face was the same shade of grey as his bodywork, but in the television series, his face is a lighter shade of grey to match the other vehicles.
Since his introduction, Toad appeared as a supporting character up until the seventh series. As a result of the stories from the eighth to sixteenth series focusing primarily on the Steam Team, Toad was neglected and left absent along with many other characters from the eighth to eleventh series. He reappeared in the twelfth series, but was left absent again when the series moved from live-action model animation to Computer-Generated Imagery. Toad eventually returned in the eighteenth series, and has made regular appearances until 2018.
Since his return in 2014, Toad has been voiced by Joe Mills in both the British English and American English dubs of the series.
Behind the Scenes
Gauge 1 models
Toad was custom built from a Tenmille Gauge 1 G130 GWR 16 ton brake van kit, with the roof trim removed and the side footsteps removed. In the third series two models of Toad were built, the second model was used for Toad’s scrap livery appearance in the episode, Escape.
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During production of the fifth series, Toad’s scrap livery model was modified and used as set dressing for Bertram's Old Mine, Jem Cole's Yard and the Sodor Ironworks.
Eight different facial expressions were sculpted for Toad, although only seven were used on-screen. The faces were first sculpted in clay and from that resin casts were made using a silicone mould. One of Toad's facemasks is now owned by Twitter user TomsProps..
The twelfth series marked the beginning of the show's transition into CGI and the characters' faces were animated through CGI with the aid of motion capture animation. The physical models' molded faces were replaced by white targets with triangles to fix a computer-animated face in post-production. Toad’s resin faces were only used in background shots.
Toad's model used to be on display in Canada at Nitrogen Studios.
CGI model
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. In 2014, Toad was created in CGI by Arc Productions. The model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.
Toad has had modifications throughout the CGI series. These include:
- Series 18
- Grey buffers.
- Grey handrails as opposed to his original white handrails.
- His glass windows were removed and replaced with open windows.
- Only one side has the Great Western insignia, number and tonnage.
- He is slightly longer and taller than his model form.
- His design also more closely resembles a 20-ton van than a 16-ton van.
- He is a lighter shade of grey.
Voice Actors
- Joe Mills (UK/US; eighteenth series onwards)
- Yūsuke Numata (Japan; fourth-seventh series)
- Kunihiro Kawamoto (Japan; eighteenth series onwards)
- Paweł Ciołkosz (Poland; eighteenth series onwards)
- Achim Schülke (Germany)
- Nir Ron (Israel; Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure)
- Fabrice Trojani (France and French speaking Canada; eighteenth series onwards)
- Bardo Miranda (Latin America; eighteenth series onwards)
- Reinder van der Naalt (The Netherlands)
- Armando Bungău (Romania)
- Denis Bespaliy (Russia; eighteenth series onwards, excluding Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure)