On the cloudy morning of Saturday May 18th, my father drove up to the car park of the Midland Railway - Butterley station where I was dropped out of the car and bought the train ticket to Swanwick. There I met Lewis the Racoon inside the train where he showed off his replica gauge 1 van with a laughing face on!
As we had a short train journey to Swanwick, we walked outside the station to our destination ~ even though it was initially going to be inside the church, now moved to the cafe place for there was enough room to see the ultimate Thomas exhibition display!
To my surprise, there was a lot to explore throughout the exhibition display tables but my personal highlights are looking through folders of character models, behind the scenes pictures from Series 5 and Thomas & The Magic Railroad and Bob Gauld Galliers’ Series 4 storyboards, Owein Bell’s artwork of Edward, Gordon, Henry and the Fat Controller, original manuscripts of The Three Railway Engines and most importantly ~ seeing Rocky, TFC, rolling stock and lots of unique and authentic TV series props.
There was even a display table dedicated to the Mr. Perkins segments which filled with books, oil portraits of The Fat Controller and Thomas and the late Ben Forster’s engine driver outfit. There was even a Thomas table for children to play with toys and watching Thomas DVDs on a television set, and there was even a huge Thomas statue waiting to welcome the visitors, as they enter the station cafe. 
During my stay at the exhibition throughout the weekend, I met some familiar faces like TEngine, Terrier55Stepney, sparkshot and CraneProductions27 who bought in a special victoria sponge cake he made with red icing letters ‘THOMAS & FRIENDS’ written on it. He showed the cake to everyone and it looked terrific and scrumptious. It had been a pleasure meeting new faces as well and I even had a photograph taken next to one of fellow Thomas fans on Twitter.
I even got around with some great friends for a group photo which was really nice, and before I left earlier at 3 PM on Sunday with my father for the journey home due to traffic, Ross offered me a slice of his lovely cake which tasted delicious, and I even left a quotation of the Fat Controller saying ‘Well D’jun!’ (in which Michael Angelis used his Yorkshire accent for the character that was very well known) as a feedback to sum up my experience.
Overall I have had a terrific time exploring different exhibition tables from props and pictures to merchandise like books, toys and artworks. The exhibitors were pleasant to engage a conversation and were very helpful on answering questions and offering advices. They had all done an excellent job making visitors happy both young and old.
One more year and we will all be having a real celebration for the legacy of Awdry and Thomas.
~ SmurfyDan
You can now see the video and photo album through these links!
https://youtu.be/l9lEqFuZ1mk
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8bBwKmdAZAocttYz5
https://youtu.be/l9lEqFuZ1mk
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8bBwKmdAZAocttYz5
This was indeed a wonderful exhibition to come and see. It was an amazing event to come to and I loved seeing everyone there again. The props, toys, books, and the manuscripts were a delight to see and we got to learn a lot about the history of the show whilst we were there. Plus I am pleased that everyone enjoyed the cake that I baked and brought in for everyone. It was a weekend I will never forget as it was one if the best weekends of the year I have had so far.
ReplyDelete