That one time the Reverend Awdry made a mistake in the Railway Series…

Well, Awdry did say the illustrations aren't meant to be take 100% literally...

Smudger being the OG No. 2 is an interesting concept. And that way Falcon and Stuart would've gotten to know Stanley. Maybe Stanley replaced Smudger as the pumping engine.

Something I thought of on why Falcon and Stuart weren’t that aware of Stanley’s situation: During 1920-1928, Stanley was working on the section of the Mid Sodor Railway from Arlesburgh West to Arlesdale where he’d still be seeing Duke who’d go down the whole line while Stuart was working on the Arlesdale Green to King Orry’s Bridge section so they wouldn’t have seen much of each other and then there’d be Falcon going straight up and down the whole line with the expresses (only stopping at Arlesdale and Ulfstead Road) so he wouldn’t be having much time to know what was going on with the others, and also Stanley was allocated to Arlesdale Sheds with Duke while Falcon and Stuart were allocated to sheds at King Orry’s Bridge. It was only after Stanley was turned into a pumping engine in 1928 that Falcon and Stuart were reallocated to Arlesdale Sheds with Duke.

Maybe when Falcon first arrived, Stanley had already been taken out of service, but had yet to be dismantled.

Maybe Smudger was the one to have been put in a generator first which is the one Duke told the story about to Stuart & Falcon. But later on Stanley had the ssme fait and Duke told other new comers about Stanley.

I thought this video was going to be about the time Wilbert Awdry threw in a certain offensive word that he should not have written in his book about Henry and how we can avoid making a mistake on what Awdry did as a writer. But wow, I cannot unsee how these mistakes make the continuity in the original books really messy on "Duke the Lost Engine". And do you know what I hate about the Railway Series that has been boggling into my head lately. The time gaps. A perfectly good example of the Railway Series jumping into a time gap I can think of is in the fourth book of the series, "Tank Engine Thomas Again". "Thomas and the Guard" is set in 1925 as Henry is still blue. But for some reason, "Thomas Goes Fishing" takes place somewhere in the 1930's, while "Thomas, Terence and the Snow" takes place in 1947, two years after World War II, and "Thomas & Bertie" a year later. What is the logic behind that time gap? Shouldn't all four of them take place the same decade and the same year as we see Henry still be in blue and that Thomas had begun running his own branch line after the events of "Thomas and the Breakdown Train"? THIS TIME GAP MAKES NO DAMN SENSE!

Here’s how I thought the Mid Sodor’s roster could look: There were engines who were numbers 2 3 and 4 before Stanley Falcon and Stuart’s arrivals respectively; those being Jennings John and Alfred and they along with Albert Jim and Tim who were the line’s 5 6 and 7 all along as well as Atlas who was the original number 8 were part of the Arlesdale Tramway and then when the Mid Sodor Railway was formed and Duke arrived as their number one they were all renumbered coming after him, with The Mine Engine arriving in 1899 and being the number 9. Then in 1904, John was scrapped due to being worn out and was replaced by Falcon, during WWI Jennings and Alfred were bombed by a German plane in 1915 and destroyed, and in 1917 Atlas suffered a boiler explosion and was scrapped. So, in 1920 three new engines were brought in to replace them with Stanley being the new #2 Stuart the new #4 and Gerry the new #8. Then in 1928 after Stanley became a pumping engine Gerry was sold back to Scotland and The Mine Engine was sold right to the Cas-ny-Hawin Mining Company right where he was already working anyway, leaving just Duke Falcon and Stuart to run the line. Then as we all know, in 1936 Albert Jim and Tim were sold off and around that time The Mine Engine who was extremely worn out broke down and the mine saw no point in repairing it due to everything now being reduced so he was just left there out of use while it was just Duke Falcon and Stuart running the line and as we all know, it closed with Falcon and Stuart being sold Duke being left in the sheds and Stanley and The Mine Engine abandoned. In short; 1. Duke 2a. Jennings 2b. Stanley 3a. John 3b. Falcon 4a. Alfred 4b. Stuart 5. Albert 6. Jim 7. Tim 8a. Atlas 8b. Gerry 9 (later privately owned). The Mine Engine

I think I may have some solutions: Q. How did Stuart and Falcon not know about Stanley? A. Neither were said to not know about Stanley. They just didn't know what happened to him. Q. How come Falcon is no. 3 when Stanley (no.2) arrived after him? A. The IOS book states that Falcon came to replace another engine that was later scrapped. There was a no.2 before Stanley. Q. How did Stuart and Falcon not not notice Stanley behind the shed. A. This is a genuine error with no given answer, possibly the back of the shed was obscured from the mainline and the two engines never went down the sidings?

Illustration inconsistencies aside, Stanley works visually as well as the rough riding as the Baldwins were rough riders in real life. He’s war surplus and built in 1916, so the time period argument - while frustrating - can work for Smudger. However what if Smudger was the number 2 for a time & during wartime, was destroyed leading to the MOD sending Stanley over on short notice.

I like to think that Stuart and Falcon didn’t talk much to Stanley, therefore were unaware where Stanley went, only to find out the same day Duke told them that Stanley was turned into a pumping engine, much indeed to their horror.

2:44 Maybe some of these engines were sbt away before Stanley came to the mid sodor?

One possibility is that one of Falcon's siblings was the original No. 2; that is, if Sir Handel's story parallels Sir Hayden's to that extent. Sir Hayden arrived on the Corris railway with two other Falcon class engines, but the other two got dismantled and used as parts for Sir Hayden. Who's to say that Falcon didn't arrive with siblings who used to be No.2 and No. 4, but were dismantled and used for parts before Stanley arrived?

Here’s my explanation…. It’s a children’s book about talking trains, and we just have to suspend our disbelief sometimes. Jokes aside, I think you make a good point.

Nobody’s perfect. Not even the best authors we know.

How about this simple explanation: the stories in the RWS storybooks aren't 100% accurate to what really happened on Sodor (in-universe, that is) - the Reverend exercised considerable artistic licence in his retelling of events. There's a TV Tropes page on this sort of thing called "The Literary Agent Hypothesis". This comment is going to be a bit long, so please indulge me here. Remember the Mountain Engines story that had Godred crash cause he wouldn't keep a "good look-out", and that he was taken apart piece by piece to mend the other engines? The last sentence says that the story was made up (the Reverend was forced to put it in there because the publishers decided that the story as he had originally written it might frighten young children, but that's not relevant to my point). In IOS, however, it does say that Godred did crash and was taken apart, just not that he was a "bad look-out". So it begs the question: what was Godred really like? Was he really as arrogant as the story claims, or was he a decent sort of engine? Another part of my point is this: in the storybooks, the engines frequently have bad things happen to them as a result of bad behaviour. For instance, in "The Sad Story of Henry", Henry is bricked up into a tunnel because he refused to get out of it in the first place (because he was worried about the rain ruining his coat of paint). In the book Gordon the Big Engine, Gordon and Thomas get into accidents, Gordon because he didn't want to pull a special goods train and Thomas because he deliberately ignored the "Danger" board. While people often do suffer the consequences of their actions in real life, it's seldom in a narratively satisfying way, and more often that not, tragedy befalls people indiscriminately. So who's to say that the "Henry incident", mentioned in the book The Island of Sodor, happened the way it did in the RWS storybook? Who's to say that Henry didn't simply run out of steam while in the Ballahoo tunnel? Who's to say Sir Topham didn't brick Henry up in the tunnel because he decided that the green engine simply wasn't useful even for scrap? Who's to say Gordon or Thomas were to blame for their respective accidents? Who's to say their crews weren't in some way responsible, or even that these accidents happened for no good reason at all? Keep in mind, also, that Christopher Awdry's stories are largely perceived to be "less interesting" than his father's, mainly because they often simply describe things that happen, instead of the character-based approach that the Reverend took. As mentioned before, in real life, things often happen indiscriminately, without good reason. Who's to say that Christopher's storybook retellings (again, in-universe) aren't more accurate to what really happened than his father's? Let's go back to the Stanley issue. Yes, Sir Handel and Peter Sam (then called "Falcon" and "Stuart" respectively) did come to the Mid-Sodor Railway before 1928, when Stanley became a pumping engine, but "Granpuff" has them unaware of Stanley's fate until Duke tells them. Given the above points raised in the previous paragraphs, however, who's to say that the exchange between Duke and the two engines really took place? Who's to say Falcon and Stuart didn't hear of Stanley's conversion into a pumping engine from the workmen instead, or even see it for themselves? There are other facets of the RWS (Thomas being an E2 and yet able to pull passenger trains in "Thomas' Train", the semi-contradictory nature of the book Jock the New Engine [the Arlsedale engines being "now" fitted with radio devices despite the book taking place in the late 60's and early-to-mid 70's], Thomas and Gordon being "in disgrace" until 1953 [the year of the Royal Train] yet this not being mention in the book Thomas' Christmas Party [which takes place in December 1952], and so on) that only serve to reinforce my point. In the end, while it's easy to think of the storybooks retellings as accurate versions of events (once again, in-universe), that might not necessarily be the case. The storybooks, after all, were written as young children's entertainment (and also to teach them basic morals), not as historical chronicles like The Island of Sodor. Ultimately, I think that it's best to take these stories with a grain of salt - after all, we can't travel to the greater RWS universe as the Reverend envisioned it to see these events for ourselves. Who's to say that he didn't simply make some things up (yet again, in-universe)?

Just goes show that nobody's perfect, not even Norman Price.

you're an underrated channel for sure

I like Smudger more. And Stanley's place is in HeII.

Sorry, i meant 'Sent away were sent away'.

Im not the only one who firmly believes smudger is british...