The Official Website

Main Page

Gallery

Characters

Games

Activities

www.ThomasAndFriends.com (previous URLs: www.ThomasTheTankEngine.com and www.ThomasTheTankEngineAndFriends.com) was the official website of Thomas & Friends. The English website was launched in 1996 by The Britt Allcroft Company.

The first version of the site was created by NetSite Productions Limited.

Around 2004, HiT Entertainment had also launched official Thomas & Friends websites in other languages.

In 2013, an official PBS Kids website of Thomas & Friends was created when the show started to air in the USA more often. The website was shut down on 31 December 2017 due to PBS no longer having the broadcasting rights to the show.

In 2015, the main website underwent a major overhaul. It now has two separate home pages for children and parents created by Moving Interactive, which had later been nominated for "Best Website for a TV Series" alongside its minisite for the special Tale of the Brave games and applications.

On 19th November 2020, the site underwent another major overhaul. More characters were given pages, whilst special animations for specific characters and voice clips were removed.

Sometime during the 4th quarter of 2021 the play.mattel.com Thomas & Friends section went completely offline and has remained defunct ever since. As of 2022, the website now redirects to shop.mattel.com in the Thomas and Friends section.

Content

• Games
• Characters/Engines
• Videos
• Activities

List of websites

• United Kingdom and Ireland (for parents, for kids)
• United States of America (for parents, for kids)
• Canada
• Australia
• New Zealand
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Spain
• Portugal
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Belgium (French, Dutch)
• Greece
• Latin America
• Mexico
• Brazil
• China
• Japan (mobile, blog, online store)
  • TV Tokyo website (2008-2010, 2010-2011)
  • NHK website
  • Cartoon Network website
  • The Great Race website
  • Journey Beyond Sodor website
  • Big World! Big Adventures! website
  • Digs & Discoveries website
  • Marvellous Machinery website
  • All Star Parade website

Trivia

• According to HiT Entertainment, the site has circa 23 million hits and 1.7 million visitors every month.
  • The 2011 brand site said, "The website has over 7 million page views per month in the UK, nearly 12 million page views per month in the US and over 500 million globally."
• Each official website was different at one point:
  • The UK, IRL, USA and AUS sites featured special homepages: Thomas and the Magic Railroad, Carnival Capers, The Great Discovery, Hero of the Rails, Misty Island Rescue, Day of the Diesels, Blue Mountain Mystery, King of the Railway, Spills and Thrills, Tale of the Brave, Dinos and Discoveries, Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure and The Great Race.
  • The UK, IRL and US Kids sites play an instrumental version of Never Overlook a Little Engine on the homepage.
  • The PBS site has featured instrumental versions of Streamlining, The Best Friends Express and It's Christmas Time.
• The Japanese website was launched in 1999 by Sony Creative Products Inc. Also, the official blog was launched in 2007 and is updated frequently.
• Several characters, faceless vehicles and rolling stock were given their own pages, but are now no longer accessible.
  • The 1999 website featured character pages of City of Truro, Culdee, 199 Diesel, Express Coaches, Godred, Lord Harry, Sodor Mail Coaches, Tar & Milk Wagons, The Breakdown Crane, The Chinese Dragon, and The Fat Controller's Car.[1]
  • The 2010 website had hidden character pages of BoCo, Bertram, Culdee, Flying Scotsman, George, Isobella, Ivo Hugh, Max, Monty, Ned, Terence, Thumper, Trevor and Wilbert. The pages had character biographies but no images. Blank character pages of City of Truro, Horrid Lorry and Tiger Moth also existed.[2]
  • Catherine was mentioned on Culdee's page.
• In 2005, a two-minute clip from the beginning of Too Hot for Thomas was used on the website to promote the eighth series.
• On the Japanese site from 2004 to 2007, the packs characters' concept art from sixth series was used in the character introduction page.
• From 2010 to 2012, Butch's references photo from eighth series was used in the Engine Depot.
• In 2010, Duck was removed from the Engine Depot, but was added back sometime in 2012.
• Skarloey was also briefly removed in 2011, but added back sometime later that year.
• Some of the voice clips on certain characters from the 2010 update are absent since the 2015 update. These include: Salty, Rocky, Sir Topham Hatt, Mavis, Victor, Kevin and Rosie (as of 2017)
• On 2nd October 2013, Porter's photo was first published in an article introducing new characters posted on the Japanese official blog.
• Sir Robert Norramby was originally titled "Earl Robert" from 2013 to 2014. ​Since 2015, he is titled simply "The Earl".
• Because some characters share the same name, they go by a different name since the 2015 update:
  • Oliver: "Oliver GWR No 11" and "Oliver the Excavator"
  • Bert: "Iron Bert" and "Bert the Miniature Engine"
    • 'Arry was credited as "Iron 'Arry" to match the notation "Iron Bert".
• In the 2015 update, Molly's page shows her with her larger prototype face.
• Starting with Journey Beyond Sodor, the promos for all new characters onwards are no longer transparent and include the standard CGI countryside background.
• In 2017, Rosie's promos were updated to feature her new livery. So far, she is the only character to receive an updated promo after her pre-existing one.
• In 2019, Edward and Henry were shifted down with the rest of the characters due to no longer being part of the Steam Team (US website only).
• On the Polish website, Model Series promos for Donald, Douglas and Arthur are still being used.

Goofs

• On the 1999-2000 website, Thomas drawn by Owen Bell has a running board that looks like a side plate.
• In 2003, HiT purchased www.thomasandfriends.com and the site was redirected to www.thomasthetankengine.com, but it did not function correctly due to a typo in www. It was resolved in November 2003 by redirecting to Thomas site within HiT.
• On the 2005 website, Elizabeth is incorrectly spelled as "Elisabeth".^{[citation needed]}
• Mavis used the American term "cars" on the UK/IRL website before its recent update.^{[citation needed]}
• While Oliver's bio page features a picture and information on the engine of that name, it is incorrectly titled "Oliver the Excavator".^{[citation needed]}
• In the 2010 update, Toad's bio incorrectly states that he is a 20-ton brake van, even though he is a 16-ton brake van. This error has not been fixed in the 2015 update and is still an error today.
• On the US site for a short time in 2013, Smudger's picture was represented by Stuart, but was corrected to have an image of himself.
• Despite being created in full CGI, some character pictures on the "Engines" page are from the model series.
  • In the 2010 update, Mavis's picture from Toby's Afternoon Off was used.
  • In the 2015 update, Donald and Douglas's pictures from Twin Trouble were used. They were replaced by the CGI promos on an US site in 2020, but the site has shut down.
  • In the 2015 update, Bulgy's picture from Bulgy Rides Again was used.
  • Other characters who have CGI promos, such as Trevor, Alfie, Max, Monty and Hector (mixed CGI-model) are not included at all.

After 2015

• Most recently, when the mouse moves over the "Home" and "Engines" icons, Sir Topham Hatt says them with his original US voice, while his current UK/US voice is heard on the "Games" and "Videos" options. This is the case with both the UK and the US websites.
• On the current UK/IRL/US home page, Thomas and James are missing their side rods.
• On the UK/IRL website, when the "Meet the Earl" video clip was released on the King of the Railway minisite, the US version was shown. The same errors also occur on the video clips on the UK/IRL Spills and Thrills site.
• The current "What's New" UK/IRL page shows a Thomas & Friends Live advert for Singapore, although Singapore is not part of the UK or Ireland.
• The site title of the UK/IRL News page is incorrectly titled "Thomas de Stoomlocomotief: Nieuw". This is actually Dutch for "Thomas the Tank Engine: New".
• On the US website's front page, the Tale of the Brave clip of Percy rescuing James from the landslide was from the UK dub, as James had his UK voice.

The "Engines" page

• Newer characters are shifted to the top of the engine depot with the Steam Team. Despite this, characters introduced in 2015 such as Mike, Rex, Bert, Ryan, Skiff, Sailor John, and Sam, and Reg who was introduced in 2014 are still at the top as of 2019, despite other characters such as those introduced in Journey Beyond Sodor have since been moved down.
• Engines such as Edward, Henry, Gordon, James, Emily, Whiff, Stanley, Spencer, Scruff, Salty, Mavis, Dart and Diesel have not had updated promos with their lamps.
  • Thomas, Gordon, James, Percy, Emily, Bertie and Bulgy have not had updated promos with their Series 23 onwards details.
• Skiff is still in his brown livery.
• Ryan, Skarloey, Rheneas, Sir Handel, Peter Sam, Rusty, Skiff, Mike, Rex and Bert's promos show them off the rails. Duck's promo shows his right (viewer perspective left) wheels on the rails, but his left wheels are not. However, Skiff, Mike, Rex and Bert's promos were later updated so they were positioned onto the tracks.
• Bertie, Butch and Jack are posed on railway tracks, although they are not rail vehicles. Sailor John was also originally posed on railway tracks, but the tracks have since been removed.
• Mike, Rex and Bert are posed on narrow gauge tracks that are laid on top of standard gauge tracks, as the sleepers of the latter can be seen protruding from the sides of the former's ballast.
• Diesel 10, Norman, Paxton, Sidney, Stafford and Toad are not on the rails.
• Ivan and Etienne are emitting steam despite the two not being steam engines.
• Captain's image is stretched.
• Despite not properly being on the website, Stephen's page (which can be found by changing the web address) mistakenly has Stepney's bio.
• On the US website, 'Arry and Stephen's pages are not featured on some engine pages or the main engine depot but can still be accessed.

The "Bio" pages

• Gordon's bio describes him as the senior member of the engine family, when Edward is really the oldest.
• Toby has Flora/Lady's bell sound.
• A white line can be seen behind Emily.
• Spencer and Sam are incorrectly listed as belonging to a railway on Sodor.
  • Beppe's page also previously had this problem, however it has since been fixed.
• On the US website, Sam's bio section originally incorrectly listed Spencer's information instead of his own, but has since been updated with his correct information.
• The new King of the Railway characters, Porter and Alfie were on the site but since its most recent update, they have been removed for unknown reasons. Gator was also absent from the site since its most recent update, but was later added in an update in 2016.
  • Characters who have been removed from the site such as Connor and Caitlin redirect back to Annie's page.
• Philip is incorrectly spelled as "Phillip" in his bio, but this was later corrected.
• Skiff is on his rail wheels, but he was originally not positioned on the rails in his bio section. He has since been moved onto the track.
• Annie and Clarabel's promos have a few goofs:
  • Clarabel is missing her guard's compartment.
  • Both coaches are shown with their coupling chains sticking forward, but another chain can be seen hanging down.
• Henrietta is listed as one of the few characters without a face, but her promo shows her with her face as she gained one in the eighteenth series.
• When Beppe was first added to the Engine Depot, his link would redirect to Annie's page. This has since been fixed.
• During an update on the UK/IRL website, Emily incorrectly has her US voice.
• As of 2019, Thomas, Percy and James still have their voice clips from when they were voiced by Martin Sherman and Kerry Shale respectively on the US site.
• On the US site updated in 2020, Big Mickey's page used his unofficial picture from the Trainz game. Possibly for this reason, the Big Mickey page on the website has been removed as of late 2020.

Other Languages

• For unknown reasons, the official French, Chinese and Korean websites were never shown on the flags page.
• Several characters are missing from the Japanese site, such as Bash, Luke, Winston, Owen and Merrick.
• On the Japanese website, Dowager Hatt was featured twice on the characters page.
• The NHK website in Japan was introduced as "James the Blue Engine" in the March 2019 update, but it was immediately corrected.
• On the Dutch Tale of the Brave minisite, in the activity to find Timothy, it says to remove the "autos" (the trucks) to see which engine is hiding. However, "auto" is Dutch for "automobile".
• On the German website, Bulgy, Mighty Mac, Sailor John, the Troublesome Trucks, and Whiff have their English names and Philip's bio is not translated. Also, Rosie is still in her original lavender livery instead of her new red livery. The German website also hasn't been updated since late 2017.
• On the Dutch website, Colin, Flora and Hank are listed in the Engine Depot. But because the twelfth series (the only season these characters appeared in) was never broadcast in the Netherlands, they may not be familiar to Dutch visitors.