WARNING: THE FOLLOWING YOU’RE ABOUT TO SEE MAY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS AND BE SURE TO TURN BACK IF, oh, forget it! Just watch the trilogy already. But, remember, the fan-trilogy contains scenes unsuitable for children, such as Language, Dark and Intense Scenes, Frightening Content, and Some Upsetting Scenes (and it is non-canon to “TTTE”), so please view at your own discretion! Be sure to watch them in order!:
-We Now Join Our Regularly Scheduled Review Already in Progress-
Hello, I’m The Detective Librarian and we all know Trainz Simulator or the “Thomas & Friends” version called “Sodor Island 3D” (SI3D). It went from a just a PC train game to a software for “Thomas” fans on Youtube to use for making new videos for their series or for entertainment purposes, such as WildNorWester’s “Sodor the Early Years” & “The Modern Years”, Tines Sensahthe’s fan-films (such as “Mysaery”, “Tobias and the Half-Pariah”, “Tobias and the Arcane Merchant”), NWR1991’s “NWR Tales”, etc….. However, I think it all began in this well-known fan “Thomas” trilogy by Youtuber, Skarloey123, on Sodor Island 3D, called “Sodor: The Dark Times”. It first came out on Youtube throughout the entire summer of 2009 and the three videos/stories/episodes were “A Dark Approach to Thomas the Tank Engine” (first uploaded on June 23), “The Enemy, Anger” (first came out on July 13), and finally, “The Final Attack” (released on August 10). Also, it really dives right deeper into a “RWS” character named 98462 (which was basically a background character in the first “Railway Series” book, “The Three Railway Engines” that was on trial on the North Western Railway, along with another engine named 87546), who plays an important role in this trilogy. What is 98462’s role in this series, you’ll find out in a moment. Let’s take a look at “Sodor: The Dark Times”.
So, the trilogy starts off in the first installment, “A Dark Approach to Thomas the Tank Engine”, with the narrator telling the audience about the writers for “The Railway Series” and the TV series about how optimistic “Thomas the Tank Engine” was, until we reach this trilogy, that is an alternate timeline of the actual series, which has the darkest times of the Island of Sodor, before giving out a warning to us about the content that may anger or upset you. After that, we officially start this episode at Knapford Station, where Henry the Green Engine (still in his old shape) and James the Red Engine are at. Henry explains to James that he isn’t feeling well and asks him if he could take his train of trucks for him. Because of how obnoxious he is, James (of course) refuses to help the poor green engine and wants him to stop complaining and carry on with his job. Well, at least you said that Henry “doesn’t work HARD enough”, before he got his new shape and larger firebox in “Coal” or “Henry’s Special Coal” in the US, James!!!!!! After this, Henry starts his journey in the rain and his illness gets worse than ever before.
His crew desperately beg him to continue a few more miles and get a rest at the next station. Suddenly, as they were puffing along the line, Henry suddenly explodes and comes to a halt and the screen fading to black! Henry’s crew calls Edward the Blue Engine and Percy the Small Engine to go and help out with the accident. But as soon as they arrive at the scene, Edward is traumatized over the mess and orders Percy to take Henry’s trucks back to Tidmouth, without even telling him on what happened to Henry. So, Percy takes the trucks to Tidmouth Station and receives news from the stationmaster or his driver (probably the stationmaster) about Henry’s condition (being in bad shape) and that he’s currently at Vicarstown Sheds, the closest sheds nearby. Then, Percy realizes that he has to see Henry at Vicarstown ASAP, but when he arrives at the Sheds, Thomas refuses to let him venture any further to the sheds.
Percy tries to convince Thomas that he has to go through, but Thomas immediately snaps at Percy and explains that Henry’s burst from the accident was too large and created a crack in his smokebox. In other words, Henry’s already dead!!!!!! I know what you’re gonna say, folks.:
As you’d expect, Thomas apologizes for yelling at his best friend, Percy, and asks Edward to take him to the next station, while Gordon the Big Engine is there, also, and decides to leave Henry alone and let him rest in–in–peace!……*Sniff*
SCRIPT PERSON: Are you crying?
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: NO, I’M NOT!!! *About to Cry* THEY’RE MY ALLERGIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CAN’T YOU SEE?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Deep Sigh*
Now, you all realize that Sodor no longer has a number 3, now that Henry’s gone. Oh, but a moment of silence for this seriousness………………………………………………………………………………………………………Okay, we move onto the next chapter titled “The Enemy, Angered” with the narrator explaining that it has been five years after Henry’s death and Sodor has gone through World War II and the war effort was at full swing, which caused the Fat Man and his associates to realize that this would lead the Railway and them into bankruptcy. After this, we see The Fat Controller/Sir Topham Hatt/the Fat Man have a meeting with his railway associates about how their amounts of money have gone downhill, due to the unfortunate passing of Henry and two other engines at Doncaster have caused the sales to go down on spite of limited resources for transportation. This causes Fat Man to make the decision of purchasing a new engine from the Mainland or Stratford, in order to solve the problem.
The new engine arrives early, the next morning at Knapford Station, where all the other engines (including Toby the Tram Engine and our favorite pompous express engine, Gordon, who is feeling grumpy, today) are waiting for the engine to arrive, along with the Fat Man. As a whistle is heard in the distance, the new engine from Stratford arrives. His name is Alfred (whose theme is based off of Alfred Hitchcock’s theme), a green LNER B12 locomotive that was first built in the old Great Eastern Railway Works in Stratford. All the other engines are pleased to see Alfred, except for–:
–Gordon because he already doesn’t like him. That night at Tidmouth Sheds, as the engines are asleep, Gordon spots Alfred, sneaking out of the sheds, before sleepily falling back to sleep. Later, we get a nightmare sequence of Alfred killing Henry, during Henry’s accident in the previous chapter on a dark and stormy night. Gordon gets deeply angered by it and tells Thomas about his dream, later that week. Gordon realizes that the dream seemed real and he has to keep an eye on Alfred, due to his suspicions about the newcomer. Personally, I’m going to side with Gordon on this one because it’s clearly obvious that Alfred’s a bad guy, since he keeps to himself and the way he snuck out of the sheds, earlier. Anyways, Gordon’s suspicions cause him to not sleep at night, so much that he huffs into Knapford Goods Shed, one night.
As his driver is about to leave Gordon and go home, Gordon suddenly spots two figures at the platform at Knapford Station. The two were Alfred and a mysterious figure, revealing deadly secrets about Alfred. There, Alfred explains that it has been several years ever since Henry’s death (even though it has been FIVE years ever since the accident) and gunpowder they’re going to use is going to arrive soon. As arglefumph/Michael Gray would say, “CONTINUITY!!!!!!” Anyways, Alfred decides to not use the gunpowder yet and give the engines time to accept him, making them not suspect him for causing (SPOILER ALERT) Henry’s accident, before leaving the Station before the sun is about to rise. After this, Gordon decides to NEVER mention about what he had heard.
The next morning, Gordon and Alfred are asked to double-head a special express to the Mainland, starting at Knapford. Throughout the entire journey, Gordon began to feel nervous and have hatred grow inside of him. They soon reach the Mainland and rest at some sheds, with no other engines being around. After Alfred mentions that he was built in Stratford, Gordon explains that there was another B12 that had the number “98462”, who was scrapped by the Fat Man, due to being rude and causing the accident. See, I told you that 98462 would be important to the plot! In fact, 98462 is actually Alfred (SPOILER ALERT)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After Gordon explains that 98462 caused Henry’s accident, Alfred quickly realizes that Gordon overheard the conversation between him and his henchman the other night, along with Alfred’s plot: He wants all the engines to appreciate him and have them and the North Western Railway to be destroyed, too!
They begin to argue about the engines and the Fat Man trusting Alfred and having him pull the express/The Wild Nor Wester for now on, which is more or less having Alfred being FAR AWAY FROM THE ISLAND ASAP!!!!! We also hear more of Alfred’s evil plan when we find out that a chain of gunpowder wagons have been set towards the sheds, this very instant. Gordon tries to stop the evil scheme, but the Evil B12 pushes him off the rails and vows to destroy the Railway and have his class take over, before leaving Gordon in the dust. Luckily, the workmen lift Gordon back on the rails, before we get a chase sequence involving Gordon and Alfred towards Sodor, while one of the villains shunt some gunpowder wagons at Knapford Station, where Thomas, James, Percy, and Edward are there. Too late, Knapford Station explodes, making us realize that Gordon was too late to stop Alfred, before we move on to the final chapter, “The Final Attack”.
“The Final Attack” begins with Gordon slowly chuffing to the remains of the destroyed Knapford Station and it’s a pretty depressing scene here. Please note that I’ll show you two remakes of that scene and be sure to tell me which remake is better:
Yeah, that’s a really sad scene involving the dead remains of Thomas, Edward, James, and Percy, along with the destroyed Knapford Station. Anyways, a funeral of the lives lost at Knapford is held with Gordon, Toby, two A3’s (Gordon’s class), and an A4 (Spencer and the Mallard’s class) attending the funeral. Due to the idiotic decision made here of bringing Alfred to Sodor in the first place, Fat Man will be resigning later this week, due to the damage done to Sodor. As Gordon and Toby settle down at Vicarstown Sheds, Alfred meets another B12 or (possibly) a different engine named Cecil (who is actually 87546) at Elsbridge Station and it’s revealed that Cecil ordered to gunpowder, while Cecil explains that Alfred has killed nearly twenty people and will be dealt with and be followed wherever he goes and any attempt to destroy the engines or anyone else will mean the end of him. Well, that’s a way of foreshadowing future events, Cecil.
Later, Gordon arrives at Elsbridge, where Toby is waiting for him in shock because we discover that Alfred (of course) killed Cecil!!!!!!! Now, Toby and Gordon realize that it’s finally time to stop Alfred and avenge their friends, but they’ll have to do it when it’s at the right time. Now, Alfred causes more chaos when several bombings, caused by him, strike on Sodor and the Mainland AKA conspicuous locations because he wants to destroy anything that would link back to him. This causes Toby to realize that Gordon’s brothers or other cousins at the LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) will be Alfred’s next target. So, they FINALLY go to the Mainland to stop Alfred’s next bombing and save the day. Here, we get a another little chase sequence between our heroes and Alfred, all the way to the Other Railway. Alfred reaches some sheds, where Gordon’s brothers (including the Flying Scotsman) and a black tender engine are there and decides to hide here AKA lie to everyone that he’s looking for a rest at the sheds.
Meanwhile, Gordon and Toby stop at a station, where Toby has a terrible feeling and forces Gordon to go and save the day because he has a better reason to go to the Mainland than Toby, to begin with. Gordon arrives at the sheds, just in time to warn them about the bomb inside the sheds, causing the engines to surprisingly leave. Well, if they were at the funeral earlier, then why didn’t they recognize Alfred? Because THAT WOULD’VE BEEN MORE LOGICAL!!! Anyways, Alfred tries to escape, but Gordon decides to stop him once and for all by sacrificing himself, by pushing Alfred into a train of gunpowder vans behind him, which causes the sheds and the gunpowder to explode and kill Gordon (sadly) and Alfred for good. Toby happens to pass by and discovers the remains of the sheds, Gordon, and Alfred, while realizing that he’s the only one from Sodor left. The A3’s realize that Gordon’s a hero and give Toby the offer to work for them now for the brave fleet of locomotives known as “The Fat Controllers Engines”.
After this, we end the series and this final chapter with photos of Thomas, Edward, Henry, Percy, James, and Toby, titled “The Courageous Engines of the North Western Railway”, while Gordon gets his own photo of him pulling the express that’s titled on what I think is what Gordon deserves, “Gordon, The Hero of Sodor”. Well, we never got to see Toby again, so, let’s just assume that Toby’s now a member of British Railways, since he’s the only survivor and all the other engines are sadly dead.
So, that was “Sodor: The Dark Times” and it surely was dark. Even though there were some parts that needed to be changed, I actually pretty much enjoyed this series. It really did a decent job on creating suspense and drama for the entire trilogy, like starting off those “dark times” with Henry being killed by Alfred and deciding to kill other engines of Sodor as well. However, my complaints about this story is that the episodes needed to be longer and show us more explanations that would’ve made more sense. Aside from that, Alfred was a pretty fascinating villain and I do like how Skarloey123 decided to have him keep to himself (which foreshadows his true colors, like most villains, even though the keep-to-his or herself-villains are always obvious). Besides, it’s really nice to see on what happened to 98462 after he was sent away with 87546 in disgrace.
The series does a good job on making emotional scenes, such as Henry, the other engines, and Gordon’s deaths. It really makes you wanna tear up when your favorite Steam Team from your childhood has expired for life, except for Toby. All in all, “Sodor: The Dark Times” was decent and it really felt like the “Thomas” fan-production, before “Tobias and the Half-Pariah” and many other fan-stories. So, if you’re really into dark tales or anything “Thomas” related, this trilogy is for you. Overall, I’d give this fan-series a 6/10 (sadly), but it really was a mixture of good and bad, but still has some “eh” moments. I’m not saying that I don’t hate “Sodor: The Dark Times”, people, I’m saying that it needed to be longer, but, it’s still tolerable to watch. Anyways, I’m The Detective Librarian and– *Falling Sound Effect*
THE DETECTIVE LIBRARIAN: Oh, no. NOT ALFRED– *KA-BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
ALFRED THE LOANED B12: Ooh! I love it, when I’m EVIL!!!!
(Sort of Like Nostalgia Critic)
-THE END-
The Detective Librarian 