Thomas Creator Collective

A Thumbnail from One of the Episodes

In late 2015, the official Thomas & Friends YouTube channel commissioned a select group of Thomas fan content creators to make a fan series, known as the Thomas Creator Collective. A new video was added to the series every Friday. The series is known for using multiple users' footage within the span of a single video. As different users use different merchandise ranges to film their videos, scenes are filmed using Thomas Wooden Railway, Bachmann and Hornby models, TrackMaster toys, Take N Play trains, and other media. Typically, the projects are three-parters, but there have been a few that are standalone, two parts, or four parts. After a multi-part project is released in full, a compilation of all of the parts is released. The compilations include new bonus scenes. Though only the most popular users are chosen to film footage and compose music for the series, many other users are used as voice actors, often for minor characters.

Projects

• Secrets of the Stolen Crown
  • The Hidden Treasure
  • Down the Mine Again
  • The Lost Mine
  • The Chase
• The Great Snowstorm of Sodor
  • Ryan's Secret
  • The Snow Storm Strikes
  • The Christmas Heroes

• Gordon's Grand Adventure
  • Let's Have A Race
  • The Adventure Begins
  • Mayhem and Her Majesty

• Rescue the Runaway
• Racers on the Rails
  • Diesels VS Steamies
  • Engines Assemble
  • The Railway Relay Race
  • The Final Run
• Philip's Bumpy Branchline
• The Fast and the Fizzleboxes
  • The Foreign Engines
  • Races and Rescues
  • Need for Steam
  • The Finish Line
• Thomas and the Troublesome Trucks
• Henry's Fire Rescue
  • Flaming Forests
  • Tenders to the Rescue!
• Night of the Diesels
  • Down in the Dump
  • Diesel's Devious Plan
  • Saving the Steamworks
• TCC Presents: Diesel as Batman saves Thomas as Superman! | DC Super Friends MINIS Mash-Ups!
• Brother Bother
• The Great Chase
• Sodor's Finest
  • Yong Bao Steams In
  • Diesel's Day
  • Sodor's Finest Hour
• The Steam Games
  • Let the Games Begin
  • Shunting Showdown
  • The Tug of War
  • Engines of Glory
• Spooky Sodor
  • The Lost Engine
  • Monsters Everywhere TCC Karaoke
  • James Gets Carried Away
  • The Haunted Quarry
• Thomas' Tall Tale
• Gordon Goes Native
• Axel Takes a Tumble
• It's a Wonderful Railway
• Home for the Holidays
• The Island Song
• Thomas and the Really Useful Crew
• Rumbling Rails

TWRC involvement

• Enterprisingengine93 co-writes some of the screenplays with DieselD199, films a large portion of the footage, and voices Percy, Skiff, Arthur, Bertram and Dodge.

• ThomasWoodenRailway films some of the scenes and voices Lorry 2 and a signalman.
• MrConductorFan1406 used to film some of the footage and voiced Stepney and a van.
• MilkTankerMedia voices Harvey.
• Annie C. voices Annie.
• Duck 'N' Duncan voices a workman.
• HiroTheJapaneseTrain voices Luke, Edward, Hugo, and Ivan.
• SodorFan2K10 voices Skarloey.
• Turtlesandthomas voices Sidney and Max.
• Sudrian Trainspotter voices Rickety.
• The TWR Critic voices Skarloey and Alfie

Reception

The series has received mixed reception from viewers. Some people praise the creativity of the series, while others note that a large number of characters and concepts are overused. For example, the series has been criticized for using the concept of racing too much and padding out scenes with chases. Some also complain that certain characters, most notably Diesel 10 and Philip, are used too much in the series. Due to the fast-paced production and the fact that the series is uploaded weekly, this also prevents some users from working on their own content. Despite this, a number of fans enjoy the videos and applaud the concept of a collaborative fan series being uploaded to the official YouTube channel.

Trivia

• ThomasWoodenRailway uses a different shooting style in the series. In his own series, he films on a large layout on a carpet and moves the trains around with his hands, whereas in the Creator Collective, he films outdoors on a set and moves the trains with fishing line, similar to Enterprisingengine93.
• An infamous joke appeared in Let the Games Begin, the first part of The Steam Games; in one shot of Thomas speaking to Frieda, Vinnie (MrConductorFan1406), who filmed the scene, can be seen flipping off the camera via a reflection in Frieda's magnet. After many people on Twitter pointed this out, it quickly came to the official channel's attention. They attempted to censor the middle finger, but this backfired: all of the engines' faces, bar a few, were blurred out. This was fixed a few hours later so that only the middle finger was blurred out.