The History Behind Thomas the Tank Engine

The Railway Series got off to a shaky start with three different illustrators in as many books. William Middleton was the first illustrator commissioned by Edmund Ward to illustrate The Three Railway Engines, as we know the Reverend W. Awdry was not at all happy with these illustrations. So a different illustrator was required for the second book Thomas the Tank Engine, this is where Reginald Payne comes in. 

Original cover - provided by ReproJackets.co.uk

Reginald Payne produced some of the most iconic and most frequently used illustrations of the Railway Series and essentially created the appearance of Thomas the Tank Engine. Originally the Reverend W. Awdry wanted Thomas to resemble a model he had designed for his son Chsristopher, but Reginald Payne went against this and based Thomas on an E2 0-6-0 tank engine. The Reverend W. Awdry was pleased with this so allowed him to continue; thus Thomas as we know him today was created. Reginald Payne may have changed the appearance of Thomas, but other than that he did painstakingly follow the sketches provided by the Reverend W. Awdry. This explains why some illustrations use the same angle of Thomas, the Reverend W. Awdry would often trace over previous sketches in order to re-create the engine accurately and relatively easily. 

Woman's Weekly 1985 - ThomasTankCollectables Magazine Archive

Despite Mr. Payne's significant impact on The Railway Series and the appearance of Thomas the Tank Engine in particular, he remains uncredited to this day and in fact new versions of the book credit C. Reginald Dalby, as seen below. C. Reginald Dalby was requested to "improve" the original illustrations by Reginald Payne for a new edition of the book released in 1950, although he did make some notable changes, the book was still primarily illustrated by Reginald Payne, so it is sad that he is not credited for his work. Reginald Payne was due to be asked to illustrate James the Red Engine, but sadly suffered a nervous breakdown and was unable to proceed in illustrating another book. Very little is known about Reginald Payne and he proved to be un-contactable, Britt Allcroft also tried to find his family to no avail. 

The 2015 Edition of Thomas the Tank Engine credits the illustrator as C. Reginald Dalby

In the 70th Anniversary slipcase edition of Thomas the Tank Engine it says that the book was illustrated by Reginald Payne, so it seems that Egmont are aware of this, yet they still credit C. Reginald Dalby. It seems a shame that the man who created some of the most widely recognisable illustrations remains uncredited for his work. In our latest video we compare the original illustrations by Reginald Payne to the 'improved' illustrations released in 1950. 

Please let us know what you think and if we have missed anything out in this article, leave a comment below or send us an e-mail to: thomastankcollectables@hotmail.co.uk 

You can watch the video below: