Sodor Island History

How it all began and the way we were…

The origins of the Sodor Island Forums have to go all the way back to 1984 onward when the first TV series was broadcast, creating a whole generation of fanatics who took the little blue engine and his friends to their hearts. Some could argue it goes back further with the Railway Series books bringing an enthusiasm to another generation of fans, but to get straight to the point, it really all began a few years after the turn of the century.

The original Thomas Fan Forums were created on December the 4^th, 2002. Having met on the Microsoft Train Simulator Forum, where they had created numerous threads on the topic of Thomas the Tank Engine and the Railway Series, a bunch of friends decided to break away and create their own forum dedicated to Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. The reasons for this lie with the fact that the officials at the MSTS forum weren’t keen on creating a section specifically for Thomas the Tank Engine, and although disheartened by the news, the decision was made to go it alone instead. Everything is for a reason; and even if we cannot see the reasons behind it at the time, they always reveal themselves in time. The case is clear here especially, as Triple8 (better known now as Fat Hatt), Sillyevan, ThomasTheTank, David and MSTnoodle among other MSTS members began building up the forum.

In the early months of the forum’s opening, initial discussions centred mainly round the Railway Series, the new sixth season of the Television Series and the aforementioned MSTS modelling that had been done on the MSTS Forums. And quite strangely enough, the original Thomas Fan Forums also boasted a TUGS section, and so at the time, Thomas Fan Forums was the only place on the internet where the events of Bigg City Port could be discussed!

Although things were going well for the community, the bulk of new members began emerging in the spring of 2003. Newcomers such as Ciremi, Aidan, Sean, Twine10, Ryan and Joey all became part of the Thomas Fan Forums around the same period of time, and majority of them still remain to this day. Invaluable contributions were made throughout this time, such as the innovation by Ciremi of creating a fan fiction thread, which ironically at the time, there was no full section for! A far cry from what stands in the forum today!

But the original Bboy server proved extremely problematic throughout. Numerous times when bandwidth was exceeded, the forum would go down and would not be accessible for a prolonged period of time. Admirably, Triple8 took it upon himself to move the entire forum to a new server. Almost every thread and post was lifted and copied across to the new server of Aimoo, where the forum spent the summer months of 2003. While it was meant to be a happy time for all concerned, it was marred somewhat by an infamous spam attack. The intruder went by the username of SirHandel, and for one afternoon and evening, began attacking and abusing Thomas Fan Forum members. He eventually got bored and left, but Triple8 was adamant not to let it happen again, and so closed the forum to the public and disabled sign ups for the duration. Very few members originated from the time the forums spent on Aimoo, and certainly, none of them have remained with us in subsequent moves to other servers.

By late Summer, the Aimoo server was taking its toll on the forum. Subsequent pop-ups continued to occur throughout the time the forum spent there, and again, Caesar888 (as he was now known…) decided to make the move again! Closing the forum for around a period of two weeks, he again performed the lock, stock and barrel move process in complete secrecy to all the members of the forum. Working feverishly on the arduous task for the entire time, he sent out the e-mails to join up on the new server of Hyperboards, where from the late summer of 2003 to the 2^nd of December 2005, the forums remained in its longest home to date. With this final move, sign-ups were again reintroduced with new members such as Jim522, Christopher, Chris, Skarloey, Kate669, OldSquareWheels, Granpuff, Crscottjr and others coming forth to continue the shifting patterns and development of the forum. With the new members that had followed from the post-MSTS Forum era; the emphasis on that particular section was dropped as it was really just being ignored by the newer members, and with the opening of the new Star Tugs Pier forum shortly before the new Hyperboards Thomas Fan Forum opened, the traffic in there became far less, and so was dropped too. In their place, came new sections dedicated to Fan Fiction, the most important of these being the Miscellaneous, Independent Writings and Extended Railway Series sections.

Also around this time, three members were elevated to the status of staff to work alongside Caesar. The three chosen were Ryan, Peter Sam and Sillyevan, who took it upon themselves to maintain the high standards that the forum still enjoys today, and allow a guiding hand for the new members who had joined up to the community. However, problems arose in the autumn of 2003, and Evan was subsequently dropped from his position, and temporarily banned from the forum for a period, but was welcomed back with open arms a year later. Taking his place was Ciremi, who was deemed a very suitable choice by the entire staff team, and still retains his position on the forum to this day.

Toward the end of the first year, the celebrations for the first anniversary were culminated in a special Extended Railway Series volume written by Ryan, Fat Hatt and Peter Sam, which would sit in at the symbolic No.50 slot to mark the milestone. The “book” was called “The Useful Little Engine” and chronicled our own ideas on how Thomas arrived on the island and the experiences that formed his early days, becoming overly eager and impetuous as was his way in the very early books. The four stories are still thought highly among the best of all the Extended Railway Series. And to cap off a successful first year, the annual tradition was started of exchanging happy memories and views of the year that was, which is still continued to this day!

Following the original shambles the Extended Railway Series had been in, the decision was made to revamp it completely. This meant that the management of the forum would be more heavily involved with what went in there in future. The original evaluation committee consisted of three of the four staff members – Ryan, Peter Sam and Fat Hatt. Each would take the submissions given and give their thoughts on the parts that could be improved upon, prior to giving acceptance to the Library of books. This system was always difficult, numerous disagreements were brought about and many arguments arose between the two moderators, who at the time considered themselves to be good friends.

The other notable instance was the changing of the forum’s name. By now, we weren’t the only Thomas Fan Forum on the internet, and so the name didn’t merit what it stood for. Fat Hatt decided upon the name of Sodor Island Forums, or to give it the spelling that made way for the acronym, SoDoR iSLaNd FoRuMs (SiF). It’s unclear as to who came up with the acronym which has become synonymous as our identity. More often than not, SiF is the reference given to the forum whenever it is mentioned by past and present members or outsiders to the forum.

The year seen yet more new members arrive, some good such as Dragonfox, TroublesomeTruck, Truro and GotSTEAM? who became one of our other few female members! Others, were not so good. The forum played host to a flame war between two certain members at the time, one of whom remains an exile of SiF on account of his constant actions against the forum and community as a whole. The whole period was rather unsettling and a bad atmosphere lingered until the eventual time when the said members were banned. Caught up in the cross-fire was an unfortunate but forthright Peckett, who when trying to help resolve the situation had his comments misconstrued. Following an intervention by Ryan and Big Mac, Fat Hatt lifted the ban and allowed Peckett to return...to later go on to become a moderator in the later expanded staff team in 2005. The other member in question's behaviour has vastly improved over time, and has been allowed back after a long spell away.

In the early summer of 2004, Peter Sam decided to leave the forums indefinitely, standing down from his staff position. In his place, came the man who turned Thomas TVtome around from a shambolic wasteland of false information to a worthwhile resource site, the first Australian staff member, Jim522. Two other new appointments were made to create an official ERS committee – Sillyevan and Benpennock became the first sole evaluators, working in conjunction with Ryan and Fat Hatt. But again, Evan’s tenure as a staff member didn’t last, and he was later replaced by Christopher! Peter Sam later returned and resumed his staff position as the new fourth moderator, following a spell away from the forum.

Another major milestone in the Sodor Island story was the establishment of Sodor Island Fansite. Following the collapse of the original Star Tugs Pier forum, run by Ryan, he decided to do something that he had wanted to do for a very long time. There had been attempts to make a site in the past, each one of them failing with no great game plan to follow. But with Ryan now at University away from home, and more limited net time, it seemed a logical alternative and progression, and a popular one at that among the Sodor Island Forums. Every spare moment was used on building up Sodor Island Fansite, particularly the idle hours between work ending and the Saturday partying in town and Sunday's travelling back to University! Detailing a history of the Television Series and Railway Series books, as well as character profiles among other fun things, Sodor Island was setting out to creating a presence for Thomas on the internet that hadn’t been there before. The site was an instant success with hits and praise phenomenal throughout its existence.

But another prolific development had to be the development of redubs. Inspired by his first viewing of TUGS, Ciremi set out to create the first successful redub, “Something in The Air” which led to the multitudes of work done by Sodor Island members and beyond. The phenomenon grew and Sodor Island Fansite became the download centre for the new redubs.

By around February of 2005, it was clear Fat Hatt’s prolonged leave of absence was beginning to take its toll. Discussions between Jim522 and Ryan led to the proposal of a “Head Moderator” to take care of the forum throughout the time he was gone. Three of the forum’s moderators were keen on the idea, seeing it as a good opportunity to take charge of the fate of the group and keep things going. However, following his return to the forum and staff team the previous year, Peter Sam had become detached from the rest of the group. The proposal was seen as “daggers drawn” and that preparations were being made to strike him. Ryan, Ciremi and Jim have always insisted this was never the case, and the reasons behind the proposal were always to help the forum along in the bleak period. Of course, to the unsuspecting three staff members, preparations were being made to oust them from their positions by Peter Sam and two others, who have since left the forum under a cloud of disgrace. The coup was uncovered by a fourth, but unwilling person to Ryan, who exposed the whole plot to the entire forum. Following the incident, Peter Sam left the Sodor Island Forum never to return in the spring of 2005, and remains one of the biggest hate figures among the members of the forum and community.

But that was only one of the problems that surfaced in 2005. With no Admin, the sign ups for the forum were extremely limited. Every time Fat Hatt came back they were duly re-enabled to allow a trickling of new members to sign up, but this wasn’t often, and soon the forum was receiving a bad rap and accusations from other groups of snobbery and favouritism. However though, the intake we DID receive brought about some of the best Sodor Island Forum members, who really brought us through the bleak period, and again, shaped the way Sodor Island Forums operate for the better. People with a positive vibe and worthwhile contributors such as The Old Bean, Alaric, Jimbobdunnie, ChrisTheXelent, EdwardtheBlueEngine and others all came from the few 2005 intakes. So while there were less people coming in, it gave us some brilliant people who we could not do without these days.

As Ryan has said previously elsewhere, 2005 was the building blocks of better days. And to be fair, the three new appointments that were made to the staff team – Kate669 and Peckett succeeded Peter Sam as moderators, following his shameful departure, and Chris took up his post on the Extended Railway Series Evaluation Committee, proved this statement right. All three contributed brilliantly to the tighter knit and happier staff team that followed on from that time.

But all these negatives aside, the positives were given a boost by the formation of Sodor Studios, where Ryan, Christopher, Chris, Evan and Kate669 all got together to revolutionise redubbing as we knew it. Keeping the original format from the RH&CS redubs (Feature/Music Video combo), the adding of narration and Evan’s brilliant ear for music gave the dubs the boost they needed. Also, The Old Bean brought audio production to a new height with his adaptations of Mountain Engines and The Twin Engines, with a unique take on the two Reverend Awdry books. Although true to the original stories, they were developed to add greater humour and excitement throughout. Both of these set a very high standard in the way the media production of Sodor Island Forums is done.

2005 also saw the first Members Meetings among Sodor Island members. The first ever of these took place in Sydney, Australia with TheHalford, Jim522 and Jarrah White all present at Jim’s house. Many more followed since among the Sydney members. The decision was then made by four members in the UK to do the same in August 2005, with a meeting between Ryan, Truro, Eliot and MrOliver taking place at the East Lancashire Railway in Bury, Lancashire on August 5^th 2005. The day was quite fittingly, a “Day out with Thomas” event! Sadly, the day was a little uneventful with only Truro and Eliot spending the most time in Bury, while Ryan went to fetch MrOliver in Manchester! However, there was time for rides behind Murdoch, Thomas and Diesel before going their four separate ways, and even the obligatory photo with the little blue engine himself!

But just days before the third anniversary, and a few weeks after his appointment, the forum underwent what we thought was the usual Hyperboards downtime. But sadly, this wasn’t the usual downtime we were used to. It was the death knell of three years of memories, projects, discussions and what had become the biggest mecca for Thomas the Tank Engine fans on the internet. It was now a sink or swim situation…the question was, if we did rebuild, would they come? And if they did, would they stay?

A new and better beginning…

December the 2^nd 2005, the sad news came to light. Sodor Island Forums as we knew it was gone. Every thread and post had been obliterated when the Hyperboards3 server suffered a glitch which resulted in not just the loss of our own forums, but that of every other forum on that server.

The first thing done when Ryan found out the news was to create a new message board, this time, discarding any previously held faith in Hyperboards to take up with Proboards instead. Right from the beginning, everyone was very keen to assist and resume the forum we all knew and loved. The newly re-established Sodor Island Forums were given the name to symbolise the new beginning – The New Sodor Island Forums were born. New banners, logos and forum colours were all constructed to say “out with the old, and in with the new”. Even very early on, the rebuilding process went very smoothly. Despite not having been in that situation before, the entire community banded together admirably to create something even more worthwhile than there had been before. It could have been the fact that everyone had started out with a clean slate, or perhaps it was because we shared the same hardship and problem, maybe it was because we all shared the same goal, but the community strengthened in light of this problem. Within a month or so, we were back to where we were before it all happened. And it was all thanks to members old and new coming together to bring us back to our feet. The level of growth in the forum was unprecedented. New members came from far and wide to join up with the previous members from the old forum, and very soon, we were back at the top of our game, and better. We had again overtaken ANY similar Thomas forum in terms of number, and arguably, in quality as well.

But when you need them, your friends are always there, and that's why we pay homage to the staff of the Clearwater Forums, who, when Sodor Island hit its hardest time, was on hand to assist in any way they could. This was done particularly through promotion of the new Forum's link, and getting as many people over there as possible. Granted, Sodor Island Fansite proved invaluable for hosting the new link to the new forum, too, and working in conjunction, gave us the self-promotion that we sorely needed. By now Sodor Island was boasting the most popular Thomas-related site after the Official site, and certainly the most popular in terms of fan-made work. All of which was pivotal to what proved our most prosperous year of all so far.

Again, we have had our share of departures as well. Benpennock chose to leave in the December of 2005, leaving a place open in the ERS Evaluation Committee. To decide the best candidate, a test was set up for members wishing to fill the space. The applicants’ submissions were of a very high standard, but the overall winner put a lot of heart and soul into his evaluation; and by popular opinion of the other evaluators, the place went to The Old Bean. However, two other applicants, who were unsuccessful in the ERS appointment, went on to become the two newest members of the SiF Staff team. TheHalford and OldSquareWheels got their positions in the early part of 2006 under a trial moderatorship during a board sweep, where only one of them was to be selected. The decision was too difficult as they both performed very well in the job, and so, both got the gig permanently!

One of the biggest innovations of the year came from Alaric, when he produced “The Quest for the Missing Christmas Presents”, an audio story that featured members of the Sodor Island Forums playing incarnations of themselves. The format went down very well, and has since been developed into a sequel audio series – “A Very SiF Summer Holiday”, as well as numerous written SiFictions springing up across the forum. Alaric has written a Guide to SiFiction which can be accessed here.

Other notable events of the year included an appearance on The Einstein Factor, for TheHalford, with his specialist subject being on Thomas the Tank Engine! TheHalford did amazingly well in the process, but unfortunately, missed out on a place in the final after being beaten to the spot by the lady who went on to win the show. Granted, as he says himself, it wasn’t all that bad, three free trips to Melbourne and the chance to appear on television three times as well! Not many people can say that's happened to them very often in their lifetime!

But, he wasn’t the only member to be touched with good fortune. Sodor Island Fansite proved how much of a valuable resource it has become in the world of Thomas the Tank Engine by attracting visitors such as a reporter from the New York Times, who interviewed Ryan for an article he was researching on Thomas, inspired by his two year old son, who is also a Thomas fanatic. The article has not yet been published, but it is still a huge honour to be considered by such a well known and respected newspaper!

So much happened throughout 2006 that made it such a memorable year; the saddest moment had to be the point in April where Fat Hatt made his final decision to stand down as the official Admin of Sodor Island Forums, passing the torch on to Ryan to carry on the good work he had done. However, as was said before, everything happens for a reason. Ryan’s appointment as Administrator has seen the Sodor Island Community thrive in a way that it never has before. The collapse again of the new Star Tugs Pier Forum saw another merger with SiF, and when Peckett decided to stand down to concentrate on his University studies, Jaquin, (previously Big Mac) the new Admin of the Star Tugs Pier, was the natural choice to take his place after graciously handing over the forum to Sodor Island. The 2006 UK Members Meeting, this time took place in York at the National Railway Museum, with eight members of the forum attending - Alaric, Chris, Christopher, ChrisTheXelent, ChrisBurrell, Eliot, Ryan and Truro each made the pilgrimage to the fantastic day out, which quickly became the highlight of their SiF year, and sewed the seeds for a bigger plan in 2007...

And as the year drew to a close, everyone agreed that it had been a fantastic year, and a complete contrast to what had been before. The New Sodor Island Forums had allowed us all to begin again, and create something bigger, better and stronger than what had been there before. No-one had seen the change coming and no-one wanted to think about it happening before, but now, we’re glad it did. Old ghosts of the old forum have been exorcised, everyone was born again on the new forum equal, and we've never looked back.

We began our fifth year with another ground-breaking audio production – A Very SiF Christmas Carol, which has since sparked a yearly tradition to hold a “pantomime” parodying or adapting classic works of fiction into humorous audio plays with members of Sodor Island Forums taking up the roles of the characters with references to themselves thrown in for good measure. This year’s main player was The Old Bean who took on the persona of miserly Ebeanezer Scrooge, a man with several aggravations in his life – a rival across the road, aptly named Ryan Acrosstherode; an overly affectionate neighbour, with an unfortunate name – Chris Mastree, and an employee’s wife who gave him regular physical abuse when he exerted his power too much within the office.

It was a great year for firsts on Sodor Island Forums too. Our first major research venture lead us down some very interesting avenues, following the surprising discovery of the original Thomas and the Magic Railroad script from May 1999. The research team was led by Troublesome Truck, with a great number of members gaining insightful and informative interviews with members of the production crew, actors, artists and even the Producer, Writer and Director herself, Mrs Britt Allcroft. The whole experience united the forum in the excitement and pride of discovering such a wealth of information about an affair that had previously been regarded as an affront to the Thomas Fandom. A greater level of understanding was sought among the forumers as more and more information came to light about how the whole Movie came to fail, owing to pressures and difficulties that lasted right up until the final whistle prior to distribution was made around May 2000. It also showed Britt Allcroft in a different light, as someone who cared a great deal about Thomas, but who sadly fell to the pressures of other peoples' opinion.

A Campaign to see the Directors Cut of Thomas and the Magic Railroad released has been made public, however, the May 1999 script would not be the version that makes the release, but a slightly rewritten version made during the course of production. This Campaign was highlighted at a recent screening of Thomas and the Magic Railroad, attended by Britt Allcroft, Russell Means (Actor - Billy Two Feathers), Hummie Mann (Composer) and Paul Ryan ASC (Director of Photography), where Russell has said himself he is very strongly supporting the campaign and feels it was a traversty to make such detrimental cuts.

Another great first saw the first promotion on the new forum. The Extended Railway Series had been suffering somewhat in terms of evaluations being somewhat prolonged. The committee have other obligations to fulfil in their own personal lives, but it was clear something needed to be done in order to save what had become an SiF institution, and Ryan had to take it seriously in hand. The most logical means of doing it would be bringing the staffing levels up by two members, giving the ERS Team a majority leverage of 3 votes for or against a volume, but meaning two didn't have to review if they couldn't find time to do so. Bean recognised himself as being part of the problem, but kindly offered to take promotion instead to Railway Inspector duties. This was done right away, and the search for three new evaluators was on. In the end, the best two reviews came from Alaric and ATKtrains, the latter having applied before but was unsuccessful. Old Square Wheels was drafted in to play a dual role in both moderation of the forum, and reviews of the Extended Railway Series submissions.

The Old Bean's suggestion for promotion couldn't have come at a better time, as Jim522 considered his position with the forum and time he could devote to it, and decided now was as good a time as any to take his leave from staff duties. For all of Jim's good work, he was honoured as Fat Hatt and Peckett before him with SiF ViP status as a recognition, and since returning on a more regular basis, still provides an active contribution. In his place, Clay took over the position of Head of the Railway Board, and became SiF's third in command. But, despite a reshuffle, the Railway Board still needed an additional member with the growing number of new members coming on board. For the third time, Evan took up a staff position as a new Railway Inspector, and this time proved to us all he can hold it down and do a great job of it too.

However, not everything came up roses in 2007, particularly when the Fansite was remodelled to allow easier access to each individual subsite. The new design was trialled in April of 2007, and lasted until May, when it was deemed to be an unsuccessful venture, with fansite numbers dropping and some areas of the site falling away from lack of interest. Instead, it was reverted back and a huge renovation project of the Media site began with all media now uploaded onto the Fansite's own bandwidth, doing away with the likes of MegaUpload and YouSendit as the main sources of download, also providing us with permenant facilities to keep our media on without fear of expiration from lack of interest. The new look site launched in July of 2007 after a heavy overhaul.

Among the members, not only was it a great year to be actively involved in the forum, but also activities outside it too. The Member Meetings have become a staple of SiF culture since 2005, and this year saw boundaries being broken for the first time. The trend of days out continued on two Railway Series lines: The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Cumbria and a smaller affair taking place on The Bluebell Railway in Sussex, both very enjoyable, but at the same time, not on the same scale as what was due to take place for August's mogul meeting.

The biggest member meeting in Sodor Island Forums history so far took place, quite appropriately beside the Talyllyn Railway, where ten of the group of 16 were residing for the week, whether it be in Caravans or Tents. Not only was this the first time that the group had spent more than a few hours together, it was also the first time that a member of another nationality had joined them - step forward, Clay, who flew the flag for the Australian members during our stay in Wales. In turn, the Australians also had their own international counterpart who was staying in Sydney for a few months on a Student Exchange programme - Assistant Controller, Ciremi. Ciremi attended a member meeting in Sydney, as well as meeting up with The Old Bean for dinner in Melbourne.

However, with Ciremi in Australia, it meant that part of the Western Hemisphere was standing a moderator short. Having been granted SiF ViP status previously for all his hard work on the Thomas and the Magic Railroad project, Troublesome Truck was upgraded to Railway Inspector status, while Ciremi maintained his Assistant Controller tag in Australia. This was initially due to end in December of 2007, but has since been retained.

It was the end of September that saw the culmination of a new form of audio medium, the first production from Tugs Audio Productions. The general concensus among the forum members was not to redub Tugs, so the next best thing to do was to pull our resources together and do an original piece as a tribute to Tugs. The first release - Lost - had been in the works for eight months, with writing, casting and other production nick-nacks to be sorted out. But with a lot of careful work from Ryan, Chris The Xelent and Christopher, the final product was a resounding success with a commendation from Thomas and Tugs composer - Mike O'Donnell as a result! More Tugs audios are planned for the future, with several scripts due to go out in 2008.

The year was rounded off very nicely with a Fifth Anniversary Extended Railway Series book, based loosely on events that took place in Wales and written to fit around the engines of Sodor. And, as a thank you to five very special members of SiF, they were upgraded and given SiF ViP status - those being Chris The Xelent, Jimbobdunnie, Granpuff, FlyingScotsman and CPK for reasons pertaining to their behaviour, examples shown and innovations and help done. No-one could have predicted how productive our fifth year would have been, with a wealth of new research and experiences under our belt. However, at the early stages of the sixth year, the Magic Railroad research and study may have been a practice run for a much bigger and more worthwhile task...

Year Six was a bitter-sweet affair. We were celebrating two very important SiF Milestones, but we still came under constant fire, and it all began prior to the Fifth Anniversary where a continual offender started a smear campaign against the forum, which lasted until January when he was finally put in his place with some "home truths" on another forum, which sent him running with his tail between his legs. However, SiF's negative publicity wasn't to end there.

However, credibility was shown in bucketloads when the Forum doors were opened for a special Non-Members event to celebrate One Million Fansite hits, with the forum attracting a great number of non-members over the two week period in which the forum was open, and being so successful that we decided we would do more in future to aid membership drives. The second one we held in August prior to the Wales Week didn't bear as much fruit as the previous in February, and following a test-bed third one, we decided to curtail any further Open House Events outwith special occasions that celebrate forum milestones.

The Member Meetings in the UK particularly continued to snowball in number, with trips being held to the Keighley & Worth Valley, Ravenglass & Eskdale and East Lancashire Railways in the early months of the year, followed up by trips to Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway, Didcot Railway Centre and the second annual Wales trip, attended by yet another overseas member, this time Evan, all the way from the USA. All were enjoyable, but given the state of the weather in Wales, it did put a bit of a dampner on what we could do whilst there on our holiday - the wet and cold not being good for going down to the beach this year, in stark contrast to Didcot where some of us got sunburned! However, as always, we made the most of it all and had a very fun time on all counts. However, YouTube's crackdown on copyright meant that the accompanying videos for the Meetings had to be shifted to DailyMotion instead after Ryan's original YouTube account was suspended. But it did not spoil the fun we had when we all get together, and the Wild Weekender videos were the first to debut on DailyMotion exclusively.

There were also a fair number of sad moments throughout 2008 which we wish could have been avoided, but sadly, were beyond our control. Firstly, the TUGS DVD Campaign almost came to a happy conclusion this year, with research done by TroublesomeTruck and Ryan almost reunited the rights to the series with David Mitton. However, three months of intensive and optimistic work came crashing down in April. Not long afterward, David Mitton, who had become a friend of Ryan's in 2006, revealed that the Thomas series was due to change from it's traditional model animation to a CGI cartoon with production moving to Canada. Staff members on the forum opted to keep the story quiet until as such times as a formal press release was issued, but all too soon, the news came to light through The Sun newspaper, and a gulf of anger and anguish spread throughout the fandom - with SiF being accused by outsiders of telling a pack of lies and that the change wasn't going to happen at all. And again, within a short space of time, further sadness came with the deaths of long serving Director David Mitton, and beloved US narrator, George Carlin shortly after. Both men's contributions to the series were honoured by SiF members and Britt Allcroft herself, who broke the news of David Mitton's death, with beautiful and moving tributes.

However, while we felt sadness for the loss of David Mitton and George Carlin, other losses we suffered in 2008 weren't felt with great sadness. Throughout 2008, a number of YouTube videos were posted bashing the forum, often with poorly constructed arguments and false accusations, which were latched onto readily by Anti-SiF groupies, who were happy to endorse the propaganda which portrayed SiF in a negative light. However, in spite of these, the number of members signing up continued to grow irrespective of what was being said and done. Thankfully, by the time the year ended, the tide of negativity had seemingly turned with one of the members attempting to sow the seeds of hatred posting another video, this time being slated for doing so. Since then, the mood toward SiF has seemingly changed and we thank the non-members who have opted to change their mind accordingly.

Toward the end of the year also, it became increasingly apparent that one of our ERS Evaluators had gone AWOL and would need to be replaced accordingly. Thus, the latest Evaluation Test took place, and instead of us taking on just one person, we took on two. Fox impressed the team with his evaluation of the story content, whilst Loey Machan proved once again he'd be the man to beat as our new ERS Technical Consultant, and ahead of the ERS Overhaul preparations, we were going to need his awesome knowledge and expertise to guide us through.

And while it could not be regarded as a great year for SiF Media, with fewer productions going out this year than that of previous, we still managed to see the return of J Alaric Productions with his Toby and the Stout Gentlemen redub, as well as the launch of another feature length audio production from The Xelent Studios - The Great Chase of Sodor. And after a number of setbacks and hold-ups, the greatest SiF Audio Adventure of all - A Very SiF Crossover Adventure, launched in October of 2008, two months behind it's initially planned release date, and went down a storm among the SiF membership who downloaded to hear the epic adventure unfold...

Where is it all going to end...?

Sodor Island has become unique in a number of ways. We've lasted longer than any other Thomas the Tank Engine community on the internet, with an increasing population of members, and have innovated so much that has symbolised the way that people associate with Thomas on the internet.

Four years ago, Thomas had a very small presence on the world wide web, particularly where nostalgics are concerned. Now it's more vast than its ever been, and a lot of the credit has to go to Sodor Island Forums for that. From the MSTS and Bboy forums to what we have today, everyone has made some kind of contribution to our current standing. And while we have been ridiculed before in the past, we very much have taken it in our stride and shrugged it off, or challenged it and won every time. That's the kind of community we are, and each member is proud to be a part of it. It's a place that's created friends, opportunities and even more recently, love. Very few forums have the unique and warm charm where, when you think you'll only join up for and frequent for a day or two, you end up hooked for life!

The question has been raised, “Where will it end?” – but the question that should be asked is “Does it have to?”

Long live SiF!