Thomas the Tank Engine Wiki
Advertisement
Thomas & Friends

Main Page

Vans (also referred to as boxcars in the US dub) are used for transporting covered goods. Several vans have been seen on the Mid Sodor and Skarloey Railways in Thomas & Friends.

Technical Details[]

Basis[]

These vans are a freelance design by art director, Robert Gauld-Galliers. The chassis are modified from a Cooper Craft O gauge "GWR Match Truck" (3016), with added dumb buffers. The van's models are identical to the narrow gauge brake vans, albeit without the duckets.

The van's design appears to be an amalgamation of the Talyllyn Railway's No. 6 tool van and the Glyn Valley Tramway's No. 2 box van.

Liveries[]

Originally, the narrow gauge vans were all painted red. In the seventh series, dark green and reddish-brown variants were also introduced, later followed by grey and light brown variants in the sixteenth series.

In the My Thomas Story Library books and Bachmann merchandise range, they are painted light blue.

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

TroublesomeVan(narrowgauge)

A van at the Discover Thomas & Friends Exhibition.

  • At the Discover Thomas & Friends Exhibition, a red van is depicted with a narrow gauge troublesome truck face and an explosive logo on its sides.
  • In the fourth series, the diagonal bracing on the goods vans faced the opposite direction to the bracing on the brake vans. Since the sixth series, however, the bracing on the goods vans has been flipped to match the brake vans.
    • The different diagonal bracing arrangements between the Skarloey vans and brake vans are akin to the Glyn Valley Tramway rolling stock.
  • One large scale and four small-scale red vans that were used in the television series are owned by Twitter user ThomasTankMerch.
  • The 2022 Bachmann catalogue features an edited image of one of the large-scale vans in blue to match the brake vans, despite no blue vans appearing in the television series.
  • The original red vans have dumb buffers. Following the eighth series onwards, the newer vans received standard buffers.
  • The original narrow gauge vans in the Bachmann and TrackMaster merchandise ranges are based on the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway Vans.

Merchandise[]


* David Mitton map only | ** Sam Wilkinson map only | --- Dropped
Advertisement