Britt Allcroft, the creator of the beloved children's television series Thomas & Friends, has passed away at the age of 81. Allcroft, from Worthing, England, produced several shows for British ...

Thomas & Friends is releasing the original, never-before-seen 1983 pilot episode of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends on YouTube for the first time ever. PEOPLE has a sneak peek at the special ...

Since its debut in 1945, the Thomas & Friends show has delighted audiences worldwide and today the brand is unveiling unreleased footage, a new podcast series and offering fans a chance to own ...

Clips of the show were repackaged for a PBS show, “Shining Time Station,” starting in 1989. Toys, movies and a theme park followed, and humble Thomas became a billion-dollar business.

The company was eventually sold to HiT Entertainment, which itself was later acquired by Mattel. In 2021, Mattel rebooted the show as the 2D animated series Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go.

Britt Allcroft in 1973, more than a decade before “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends” debuted on British television. C. Woods/Daily Express, via Hulton Archive, via Getty Images ...

The pilot was pieced together and digitized from 40-year-old 35mm film trims. Thomas & Friends has rebuilt both the picture and sound to show everyone what the very first test shoot looked like.