For almost half a century Thomas the Tank Engine and his fellow engines from Rev. Wilbert Vere Awdry's Railway series have delighted children. World sales of more than 9 million copies, with 750,000 titles sold per year, attest to their continued popularity. The stories themselves, featuring talking steam engines with human emotions and behavior, present gentle lessons in life, conduct, and morality.

Wilbert Vere Awdry was born in Ampfield, Hampshire, on 15 June 1911 to Vere and Lucy Awdry. His love of trains began in early childhood, when his father, a clergyman and railway enthusiast, took him for walks along the embankment of the London and South Western Railway. His older brother had laid out a model train in the garden, complete with a working, two-and-a-half-inch steam engine; Awdry was sometimes allowed to push a carriage along the track.

When the family moved to Box, in Wiltshire, their house stood close to...