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Island of Sodor
The Island of Sodor is a fictional island that is the primary setting for The Railway Series books by Wilbert Awdry. It lies in the Irish Sea between Cumbria and the Isle of Man. The island has many railways, including many locomotives, the most famous being Thomas the Tank Engine. The island also appears in the television adaptation Thomas & Friends, and other media in the franchise.
The Railway Series author Wilbert Awdry wanted a consistent set of locations for The Railway Series. He wanted them to be in Great Britain, but sufficiently isolated from British Railways to allow him to write the stories he wanted. He was inspired during a 1950 visit to the Isle of Man, which forms the Diocese of Sodor and Man. Awdry, a Church of England cleric, noted that while there was an Isle of Man, there was no island of Sodor. He decided to create a fictional island of "Sodor" as the setting for his books. Sodor would be between England and the Isle of Man, isolated from the British railway system, but somewhere that readers could easily imagine.[citation needed]
Awdry and his younger brother George worked out Sodor's history, geography, industry and language ("Sudric"). Inspiration came from various sources. Dryaw was an anagram of Awdry. Elsbridge was named after Wilbert's parish of Elsworth in Cambridgeshire. Some place-names were Sudric equivalents or near-equivalents of those in the real world (for instance, Skarloey was a rough Sudric equivalent of the Welsh Talyllyn: logh and llyn mean "lake" in Manx and Welsh respectively). They created more details of Sodor than would ever be used in The Railway Series stories.[citation needed] Their abridged notes were published in 1987 in a book titled The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways (republished with some minor modifications by Christopher Awdry in 2005 under the title Sodor: Reading Between the Lines).[citation needed]
The fictional native language of Sodor is "Sudric" or "Sudrian", a Goidelic language similar to Manx.
Many of the place names are based on Manx words, but often conforming to English word order, e.g. Killdane, which comes from "Keeill-y-Deighan" (Church of the Devil), and the hills, called Knock and Cronk.[citation needed] The names of some of the "historical" characters – used in the background but not appearing in the stories – were taken from locations on the Isle of Man, such as Sir Crosby Marown (Crosby is a village in the parish of Marown) and Harold Regaby (Regaby is a tiny hamlet on the parish boundary between Andreas and Bride).
Below are some words and phrases, and place-names translated into English:
Sodor is usually shown as much larger than the Isle of Man. The island is roughly diamond-shaped, 62 miles (100 km) wide east to west and 51 miles (82 km) long north to south. Its north-west coast is separated from the Isle of Man by a strait called the Sudrian Sea (Faarkey-y-Sudragh), four miles (6 km) wide. In the north-east, it overrides and replaces the real Walney Island. Its highest mountain is Culdee Fell, which was modelled on Snowdon: the ridge of Devil's Back copies the Clogwyn ridge on Snowdon. The summit is reached by the Culdee Fell Railway, which is based on the Snowdon Mountain Railway in Wales.
The capital and administrative centre of Sodor is the city of Suddery; Tidmouth is the largest town on the island. One of the more famous settlements on Sodor is Ffarquhar, the terminus of Thomas's branch line.
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Island of Sodor AI simulator
(@Island of Sodor_simulator)
Island of Sodor
The Island of Sodor is a fictional island that is the primary setting for The Railway Series books by Wilbert Awdry. It lies in the Irish Sea between Cumbria and the Isle of Man. The island has many railways, including many locomotives, the most famous being Thomas the Tank Engine. The island also appears in the television adaptation Thomas & Friends, and other media in the franchise.
The Railway Series author Wilbert Awdry wanted a consistent set of locations for The Railway Series. He wanted them to be in Great Britain, but sufficiently isolated from British Railways to allow him to write the stories he wanted. He was inspired during a 1950 visit to the Isle of Man, which forms the Diocese of Sodor and Man. Awdry, a Church of England cleric, noted that while there was an Isle of Man, there was no island of Sodor. He decided to create a fictional island of "Sodor" as the setting for his books. Sodor would be between England and the Isle of Man, isolated from the British railway system, but somewhere that readers could easily imagine.[citation needed]
Awdry and his younger brother George worked out Sodor's history, geography, industry and language ("Sudric"). Inspiration came from various sources. Dryaw was an anagram of Awdry. Elsbridge was named after Wilbert's parish of Elsworth in Cambridgeshire. Some place-names were Sudric equivalents or near-equivalents of those in the real world (for instance, Skarloey was a rough Sudric equivalent of the Welsh Talyllyn: logh and llyn mean "lake" in Manx and Welsh respectively). They created more details of Sodor than would ever be used in The Railway Series stories.[citation needed] Their abridged notes were published in 1987 in a book titled The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways (republished with some minor modifications by Christopher Awdry in 2005 under the title Sodor: Reading Between the Lines).[citation needed]
The fictional native language of Sodor is "Sudric" or "Sudrian", a Goidelic language similar to Manx.
Many of the place names are based on Manx words, but often conforming to English word order, e.g. Killdane, which comes from "Keeill-y-Deighan" (Church of the Devil), and the hills, called Knock and Cronk.[citation needed] The names of some of the "historical" characters – used in the background but not appearing in the stories – were taken from locations on the Isle of Man, such as Sir Crosby Marown (Crosby is a village in the parish of Marown) and Harold Regaby (Regaby is a tiny hamlet on the parish boundary between Andreas and Bride).
Below are some words and phrases, and place-names translated into English:
Sodor is usually shown as much larger than the Isle of Man. The island is roughly diamond-shaped, 62 miles (100 km) wide east to west and 51 miles (82 km) long north to south. Its north-west coast is separated from the Isle of Man by a strait called the Sudrian Sea (Faarkey-y-Sudragh), four miles (6 km) wide. In the north-east, it overrides and replaces the real Walney Island. Its highest mountain is Culdee Fell, which was modelled on Snowdon: the ridge of Devil's Back copies the Clogwyn ridge on Snowdon. The summit is reached by the Culdee Fell Railway, which is based on the Snowdon Mountain Railway in Wales.
The capital and administrative centre of Sodor is the city of Suddery; Tidmouth is the largest town on the island. One of the more famous settlements on Sodor is Ffarquhar, the terminus of Thomas's branch line.