Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)

Directed by

Britt Allcroft

Genre

fantasy film, children's film, crossover fiction, live-action/animated film

Country

United Kingdom, United States

Runtime

1h 26m

Rated

G

Rating

5.3 of 10 from 101 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young girl named Lily helps her grandfather take care of a magical steam engine. They team up with Mr. Conductor and Thomas the Tank Engine to get more magical gold dust and stop the mean Diesel 10.

whimsicaladventurousgentlenostalgicfamily-friendlyoptimisticlightheartedimaginative

What happens

Thomas and the Magic Railroad is a 2000 fantasy adventure film written and directed by Britt Allcroft and produced by Allcroft and Phil Fehrle; the cast includes Alec Baldwin, Peter Fonda, Mara Wilson, Didi Conn, Russell Means, Cody McMains, Michael E. Rodgers, and the voices of Eddie Glen and Neil Crone. The film is based on the British children's book series The Railway Series by Wilbert Awdry, its televised adaptation Thomas & Friends by Allcroft, and the American television series Shining Time Station by Allcroft and Rick Siggelkow. The plot is centered on Lily Stone (Wilson), the granddaughter of the caretaker (Fonda) of an enchanted steam engine who is lacking an appropriate supply of coal, and Mr. Conductor (Baldwin) of Shining Time Station, whose provisions of magical gold dust are at a critical low. Lily and Mr. Conductor enlist the help of Thomas the Tank Engine (Glen), who confronts the ruthless, steam engine-hating Diesel 10 (Crone) along the way. Then-vice-chairman of Paramount Pictures, Barry London, approached Allcroft with the idea of a Thomas film adaptation in 1995. Paramount shelved the film after London departed from the company; production later resumed with Isle of Man Film and Destination Films, which London had become chairman of. Filming began in 1999. Major changes, such as recasting and the removal of an antagonist, were made following feedback from test screenings. Thomas and the Magic Railroad premiered on 9 July 2000. The film received generally negative reviews from critics for the acting, plot, special effects, and lack of fidelity to the source material, and was a box-office bomb, grossing $19.7 million worldwide against a production budget of $19 million; as a result of the film's poor performance, Allcroft resigned from her production company, The Britt Allcroft Company, in September 2000. HIT Entertainment acquired the company two years later, including the television rights to Thomas. As of October 2020, a second theatrical Thomas & Friends film is in development at Mattel Studios, a division of Mattel, the current owner of HiT Entertainment, with Marc Forster serving as director. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Thomas & Friends: Hero of the Rails (2009)
• Thomas & Friends: Day of the Diesels (2011)
• The Little Engine That Could (1991)
• Thomas & Friends: Journey Beyond Sodor (2017)
• Thomas & Friends: Calling All Engines! (2005)
• Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery (2012)
• Thomas & Friends: The Great Discovery (2008)
• The Machinery of Dreams (2021)