ORIGINAL PROP-MODEL ACQUISITIONS

It is with great excitement that I can announce to you all today, that Christopher Blower and I are the new owners of several props as used in the "Thomas & Friends" AND "Thomas The Tank Engine And Friends" era of the iconic show.

A few weeks ago, the website "The Prop Gallery" listed three items for sale on the website. These were:

• A large-scale Sir Topham Hatt figure;
• A small-scale workman figure; missing one arm;
• A Sodor Shilling crew gift coin.

Having seen the success of the James appeal, and the interest circulating the missed opportunity with the Peter Sam and Trevor models, we mutually agreed that these items would be worth investing in for the interest of the community.

We, like the new owners of James' model, see an opportunity to do something big - preserve these important artefacts, but give the fans a chance to see them up close and personal.

But that's not all.

 The Prop Gallery informed us straight away of two more props they had in storage:

• A small-scale Sir Topham Hatt figure (used in Series 11);
• An ORIGINAL SERIES 1 figure - unlike the others, this is solid lead.

Obviously, we were delighted to be offered this chance, and opted to purchase these too. We have, at time of writing, been notified of two further items - one of these is the hand-knitted scarf worn by Mr Perkins in some of his early segments. 

The gang's all here!

Given the close nature to James' crowd-funding appeal, we have made the decision to purchase these props off our own back. Should any other models become available in the future, we will look at Kickstarter / Indegogo backing, with suitable rewards for those who contribute. We understand that to ask the fans to back the purchase of everything is not financially viable, so will contribute as much as we personally can, when we personally can.

At the current time, options are being discussed for the displaying of these items. We hope, however, that we will be debuting them NEXT WEEKEND (November 22nd and 23rd) at the Shoeburyness Model Railway Exhibition (www.shoeburynessmrc.co.uk), at which my personal layout, Thomas-On-Sea, is already booked to appear. This will be confirmed within the next few days.

Current considerations include displaying them at Day Out With Thomas events, railways with Thomas connections or hobby fairs / exhibitions, occasionally touring with my Thomas-On-Sea layout. We will update you of developments on a dedicated blog, which we will set up and launch at some point soon.

The picture everyone wants to see...

That said, some of my followers from Twitter may recall that I have proposed the idea of a big Thomas-fan gathering sometime next year, celebrating 70 years of all things Thomas. Should this go ahead, then the models will be brought along to the venue for all and sundry to see up close. Details on this will follow at a later date.

These are indeed exciting times, and we hope that we will have more good news in the future.

Owen Hayward; @RailInspector

Christopher Blower; @cbanimator

Preserving by fans, for fans.

We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to The Prop Gallery for their assistance with these acquisitions.