Ivor the Engine
Encyclopedia
Ivor the Engine is a British
children's animation by Oliver Postgate
and Peter Firmin
's Smallfilms
company. It is a children's television series relating the adventures of a small green locomotive who lived in the "top left-hand corner of Wales
" and worked for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited. His friends included Jones the Steam, Evans the Song and Dai Station, among many other characters.
in partnership with Firmin, Oliver Postgate and his partner set-up Smallfilms
in a disused cow shed at Firmin's home in Blean
near Canterbury
, Kent
.
Ivor the Engine was Smallfilms' first production, and drew inspiration from Postgate's World War II
encounter with Welshman
Denzyl Ellis, a former railway locomotive fireman with the Royal Scot train
, who described how steam engine
s came to life when you spent time steaming them up in the morning. Postgate decided to locate the story to North Wales
, as it was more inspirational than the flat terrain of the English Midlands
. The story lines drew heavily on, and were influenced by, the works of South Wales
poet Dylan Thomas
.
techniques, animated
using cardboard
cut-outs painted with watercolours. The series was originally made for black and white television by Smallfilms for Associated Rediffusion in 1958, but was remade in colour for the BBC
in 1975.
The series was written and narrated by Oliver Postgate and animated by Peter Firmin.The sound effects were decidedly low-tech, with the sound of Ivor's puffing made vocally by Postgate himself. The music was composed by Vernon Elliott and predominantly featured a solo bassoon
, to reflect the three notes of Ivor's whistle.
Voices were performed by Oliver Postgate, Anthony Jackson
and Olwen Griffiths. Anthony Jackson provided the voices for Dai Station, Evans the Song and Mr. Dinwiddy.
, and how his whistle
was replaced with steam organ pipes from the fairground organ
on Mr Morgan's roundabout. There then followed two thirteen-episode series, also in black and white. Black and white episodes were 10 minutes each.
In the 1970s, the two longer black and white series were re-made in colour, with some alterations to the stories, but they did not remake, or re-tell, the content of the original six. The colour series consisted of 40 five-minute films. These would often each form part of a longer story.
Although the six original black and white episodes were subsequently released on video, the two longer black and white series (totalling 26 episodes) were not and for many years were thought to have been lost. In October 2010, however, film copies of all 26 episodes were discovered in a pig shed.
When the colour series was subsequently released on DVD, some of the episodes whose content linked, were edited together, with the relevant closing and opening titles and credits removed.
The colour series episodes were:-
The locomotive of The Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited. Unlike real steam locomotive
s, Ivor has a mind of his own. He can drive himself and, using his whistle, can speak. His fondest dream is to sing with The Grumbley and District Choral Society, a dream that is realised when his whistle is replaced with three pipes from an old Fairground Organ
. He becomes first bass of the choir, as well as providing them with a means of getting from place to place.
Ivor enjoys doing all sorts of things that people do. As well as singing in the choir, he likes visiting the seaside, making tea from his boiler and spending time with his friends. He is fond of animals, and has several of them among his friends. He can be wilful and disobedient at times, and it is not unknown for him to go and do his own thing when he should be working. He dislikes shunting and timetables.
Jones the Steam:
Edwin Jones is Ivor's driver. He is a cheerful and kind-hearted man who perhaps sympathises more than most railway staff with Ivor's idiosyncrasies. Postgate and Firmin describe him as "an ordinary engine driver who is there to cope with whatever needs to be coped with". People who are new to the area find him rather eccentric for talking to his engine.
When not driving Ivor or helping the engine with his latest flight of fancy, he enjoys fishing and day-dreaming.
Dai Station
Station master at Llaniog. He is a stickler for the regulations of the railway, but sometimes bends the rules to help his friends. His life is made a little difficult by the fact that Ivor really doesn't care much for regulations at all. Although he is often gloomy, he is a good person at heart.
Owen the Signal
Owen the Signal inhabits a signal box near Ivor's shed and makes an occasional appearance in the episodes.
Evans the Song
Evan Evans is the portly choirmaster of The Grumbley and District Choral Society. He is also Jones the Steam's wife's uncle .
Mrs Porty
A rich eccentric who enjoys the occasional glass of port
and has new hats sent from London
every week. She is also technically the owner of the railway, having bought it when the line was threatened with nationalisation. However, she does not bother much with the day-to-day running, and things remained much the same after she bought it.
Mr Dinwiddy
A very odd, possibly insane miner who lives in the hills and digs for gold. He enjoys explosions and mining. In fact, his mountain is full of gold, but as soon as he digs it up, he puts it back again. He often has need of new boots.
He is something of an amateur scientist. He describes himself as "educated" and knows "something about rock". He has constructed a few odd devices, including a donkey carriage and a bubble-blowing machine.
Bani Moukerjee
An elephant
keeper from India
, who works for Charlie Banger's Circus. He is in charge of the elephants Alice, George, Margaret and Clarence, who all obey him without question.
Idris the Dragon
A small, red heraldic
dragon
who also sings in the choir for a time. Having been hatched from an egg in Ivor's fire, he lives with his wife Olwen and their twins, Gaian and Blodwyn, in the extinct volcano
Smoke Hill. As well as singing, he proves useful by cooking fish and chips
for the choir using his fiery breath.
Unfortunately, Idris runs into trouble when Smoke Hill goes cold and needs to be kept hot in order to survive. The gasboard provide a temporary furnace, but when that became too expensive (and decimalisation renders the slot-machine inoperable), the only other option for the dragons is a heated cage. Luckily, Mr Dinwiddy is able to provide a solution, and they now live in a geothermally-heated cave under the ground.
Alice the Elephant
A circus elephant with Charlie Banger's Circus. She is normally placid, but does not like taking medicine. When Ivor met her, she had escaped and was asleep on the track. Since then they have become friends. She and her elephant friends were able to help Ivor when he got stuck in the snow.
Bluebell the Donkey
A donkey who lives at Mrs Porty's house. She cannot talk, but she and Ivor just enjoy sitting around together. As the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited has only one locomotive (apart from the short service of Juggernaut), Bluebell is sometimes called upon to provide motive power. Examples include the towing by chain of the broken down locomotive Juggernaut and also the pulling of Mrs Porty's donkey cart when this was temporarily set on the railway tracks to pursue 'robbers' when Ivor had been 'stolen' in the episode The Lost Engine; in this latter case, like a locomotive, Bluebell strictly observed the railway signals, halting the chase until Owen the Signal had raised the signal arm.
Morgan the Roundabout
Mr Morgan is the fairground owner. He gave Ivor some pipes from the steam organ
on his roundabout, so that Ivor could sing in the choir. He only appeared in the very first black and white series.
Juggernaut
Juggernaut is a diesel railway engine made out of bits and bobs, resembling a road lorry on flanged wheels. Juggernaut falls into the lake soon after starting service, nearly killing Idris.
Six story books, based upon the TV series were published in the 1970s and were reprinted in 2006/07:
As the books were published in the early days of political correctness
, Hackney
Public Libraries
banned the entire series because of the India
n elephant keeper, called Barni. They thought ethnic minorities might be offended by him.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
children's animation by Oliver Postgate
Oliver Postgate
Oliver Postgate was an English animator, puppeteer and writer.He was the creator and writer of some of Britain's most popular children's television programmes...
and Peter Firmin
Peter Firmin
Peter Arthur Firmin is an English artist and animator. He was the founder of Smallfilms, along with Oliver Postgate. Between them they created a number of popular children's TV programmes, The Saga of Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers, Bagpuss and Pogles' Wood.-Early life:He trained at...
's Smallfilms
Smallfilms
Smallfilms was a British company that made animated television programmes for children, from 1959 to the 1980s. It was a partnership between Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin . Several very popular series of short films were made using stop-motion animation, including The Clangers, Noggin the Nog,...
company. It is a children's television series relating the adventures of a small green locomotive who lived in the "top left-hand corner of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
" and worked for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited. His friends included Jones the Steam, Evans the Song and Dai Station, among many other characters.
Background
Having produced the live Alexander the Mouse, and the filmed The Adventures of Ho for his employers Associated Rediffusion/ITVITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
in partnership with Firmin, Oliver Postgate and his partner set-up Smallfilms
Smallfilms
Smallfilms was a British company that made animated television programmes for children, from 1959 to the 1980s. It was a partnership between Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin . Several very popular series of short films were made using stop-motion animation, including The Clangers, Noggin the Nog,...
in a disused cow shed at Firmin's home in Blean
Blean
Blean is located in the Canterbury district of Kent, England. It is the name of the civil parish as well as the village within it: the latter is scattered along the road between Canterbury and Whitstable, in the middle of what was once the extensive Forest of Blean.The village name of Blean is...
near Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
.
Ivor the Engine was Smallfilms' first production, and drew inspiration from Postgate's World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
encounter with Welshman
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
Denzyl Ellis, a former railway locomotive fireman with the Royal Scot train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
, who described how steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
s came to life when you spent time steaming them up in the morning. Postgate decided to locate the story to North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
, as it was more inspirational than the flat terrain of the English Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
. The story lines drew heavily on, and were influenced by, the works of South Wales
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...
poet Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
.
Production
Ivor the Engine was filmed using stop motionStop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
techniques, animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
using cardboard
Paperboard
Paperboard is a thick paper based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker than paper. According to ISO standards, paperboard is a paper with a basis weight above 224 g/m2, but there are exceptions. Paperboard can be single...
cut-outs painted with watercolours. The series was originally made for black and white television by Smallfilms for Associated Rediffusion in 1958, but was remade in colour for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1975.
The series was written and narrated by Oliver Postgate and animated by Peter Firmin.The sound effects were decidedly low-tech, with the sound of Ivor's puffing made vocally by Postgate himself. The music was composed by Vernon Elliott and predominantly featured a solo bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
, to reflect the three notes of Ivor's whistle.
Voices were performed by Oliver Postgate, Anthony Jackson
Anthony Jackson (actor)
Anthony Thomas Jackson was an English actor, who reached his widest audiences as founder of the eponymous ghost hiring agency in the long-running BBC children's comedy series Rentaghost. Jackson began his career with the Birmingham Repertory. He studied at Rose Bruford College and won the BBC...
and Olwen Griffiths. Anthony Jackson provided the voices for Dai Station, Evans the Song and Mr. Dinwiddy.
Episodes
The original series was in black and white and comprised six episodes which told the story as to how Ivor wanted to sing in the choirChoir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
, and how his whistle
Steam whistle
A steam whistle is a device used to produce sound with the aid of live steam, which acts as a vibrating system .- Operation :...
was replaced with steam organ pipes from the fairground organ
Fairground organ
A fairground organ is a pipe organ designed for use in a commercial public fairground setting to provide loud music to accompany fairground rides and attractions...
on Mr Morgan's roundabout. There then followed two thirteen-episode series, also in black and white. Black and white episodes were 10 minutes each.
In the 1970s, the two longer black and white series were re-made in colour, with some alterations to the stories, but they did not remake, or re-tell, the content of the original six. The colour series consisted of 40 five-minute films. These would often each form part of a longer story.
Although the six original black and white episodes were subsequently released on video, the two longer black and white series (totalling 26 episodes) were not and for many years were thought to have been lost. In October 2010, however, film copies of all 26 episodes were discovered in a pig shed.
When the colour series was subsequently released on DVD, some of the episodes whose content linked, were edited together, with the relevant closing and opening titles and credits removed.
The colour series episodes were:-
- 1. The Railway
- 2. The Egg
- 3. The Proper Container
- 4. The Alarm
- 5. The Retreat
- 6. The Hat
- 7. Old Nell
- 8. Mr Brangwyn's Pigeons
- 9. The Visitor
- 10. The Invalid
- 11. The Boot
- 12. Banger's Circus
- 13. Unidentified Objects
- 14. Mrs Porty's Foxes
- 15. Bluebell
- 16. Dai and the Donkey
- 17. Gold
- 18. Mrs Porty
- 19. Cold
- 20. The Endowment
- 21. Snowdrifts
- 22. Cold Sheep
- 23.The Fire Engine
- 24. Sledging
- 25. The Rescue
- 26. The Water Tower
- 27. Mrs Bird
- 28. The Cuckoo-clock
- 29. The Trumpet
- 30. Time Off
- 31. The Seaside
- 32. The Lost Engine
- 33. The Outing
- 34. Half-Crowns
- 35. Sheep Herding
- 36. Juggernaut
- 37. The Bird House
- 38. Chickens
- 39. St. George
- 40. Retirement
Characters
Ivor:The locomotive of The Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited. Unlike real steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
s, Ivor has a mind of his own. He can drive himself and, using his whistle, can speak. His fondest dream is to sing with The Grumbley and District Choral Society, a dream that is realised when his whistle is replaced with three pipes from an old Fairground Organ
Calliope (music)
A calliope is a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or more recently compressed air, through large whistles, originally locomotive whistles....
. He becomes first bass of the choir, as well as providing them with a means of getting from place to place.
Ivor enjoys doing all sorts of things that people do. As well as singing in the choir, he likes visiting the seaside, making tea from his boiler and spending time with his friends. He is fond of animals, and has several of them among his friends. He can be wilful and disobedient at times, and it is not unknown for him to go and do his own thing when he should be working. He dislikes shunting and timetables.
Jones the Steam:
Edwin Jones is Ivor's driver. He is a cheerful and kind-hearted man who perhaps sympathises more than most railway staff with Ivor's idiosyncrasies. Postgate and Firmin describe him as "an ordinary engine driver who is there to cope with whatever needs to be coped with". People who are new to the area find him rather eccentric for talking to his engine.
When not driving Ivor or helping the engine with his latest flight of fancy, he enjoys fishing and day-dreaming.
Dai Station
Station master at Llaniog. He is a stickler for the regulations of the railway, but sometimes bends the rules to help his friends. His life is made a little difficult by the fact that Ivor really doesn't care much for regulations at all. Although he is often gloomy, he is a good person at heart.
Owen the Signal
Owen the Signal inhabits a signal box near Ivor's shed and makes an occasional appearance in the episodes.
Evans the Song
Evan Evans is the portly choirmaster of The Grumbley and District Choral Society. He is also Jones the Steam's wife's uncle .
Mrs Porty
A rich eccentric who enjoys the occasional glass of port
Port wine
Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties...
and has new hats sent from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
every week. She is also technically the owner of the railway, having bought it when the line was threatened with nationalisation. However, she does not bother much with the day-to-day running, and things remained much the same after she bought it.
Mr Dinwiddy
A very odd, possibly insane miner who lives in the hills and digs for gold. He enjoys explosions and mining. In fact, his mountain is full of gold, but as soon as he digs it up, he puts it back again. He often has need of new boots.
He is something of an amateur scientist. He describes himself as "educated" and knows "something about rock". He has constructed a few odd devices, including a donkey carriage and a bubble-blowing machine.
Bani Moukerjee
An elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
keeper from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, who works for Charlie Banger's Circus. He is in charge of the elephants Alice, George, Margaret and Clarence, who all obey him without question.
Idris the Dragon
A small, red heraldic
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
who also sings in the choir for a time. Having been hatched from an egg in Ivor's fire, he lives with his wife Olwen and their twins, Gaian and Blodwyn, in the extinct volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
Smoke Hill. As well as singing, he proves useful by cooking fish and chips
Fish and chips
Fish and chips is a popular take-away food in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada...
for the choir using his fiery breath.
Unfortunately, Idris runs into trouble when Smoke Hill goes cold and needs to be kept hot in order to survive. The gasboard provide a temporary furnace, but when that became too expensive (and decimalisation renders the slot-machine inoperable), the only other option for the dragons is a heated cage. Luckily, Mr Dinwiddy is able to provide a solution, and they now live in a geothermally-heated cave under the ground.
Alice the Elephant
A circus elephant with Charlie Banger's Circus. She is normally placid, but does not like taking medicine. When Ivor met her, she had escaped and was asleep on the track. Since then they have become friends. She and her elephant friends were able to help Ivor when he got stuck in the snow.
Bluebell the Donkey
A donkey who lives at Mrs Porty's house. She cannot talk, but she and Ivor just enjoy sitting around together. As the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited has only one locomotive (apart from the short service of Juggernaut), Bluebell is sometimes called upon to provide motive power. Examples include the towing by chain of the broken down locomotive Juggernaut and also the pulling of Mrs Porty's donkey cart when this was temporarily set on the railway tracks to pursue 'robbers' when Ivor had been 'stolen' in the episode The Lost Engine; in this latter case, like a locomotive, Bluebell strictly observed the railway signals, halting the chase until Owen the Signal had raised the signal arm.
Morgan the Roundabout
Mr Morgan is the fairground owner. He gave Ivor some pipes from the steam organ
Calliope (music)
A calliope is a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or more recently compressed air, through large whistles, originally locomotive whistles....
on his roundabout, so that Ivor could sing in the choir. He only appeared in the very first black and white series.
Juggernaut
Juggernaut is a diesel railway engine made out of bits and bobs, resembling a road lorry on flanged wheels. Juggernaut falls into the lake soon after starting service, nearly killing Idris.
Books
Ivor the Engine published by Abelard Schuman in 1962.Six story books, based upon the TV series were published in the 1970s and were reprinted in 2006/07:
- The First Story
- Snowdrifts
- Ivor the Engine and the Dragon
- Ivor the Engine and the Elephant
- Ivor the Engine and the Foxes
- Ivor's Birthday
- also The Ivor the Engine Annual c.1978
As the books were published in the early days of political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
, Hackney
London Borough of Hackney
The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough of North/North East London, and forms part of inner London. The local authority is Hackney London Borough Council....
Public Libraries
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
banned the entire series because of the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n elephant keeper, called Barni. They thought ethnic minorities might be offended by him.
Influences and future appearances
- BBC2 Wales revived Ivor for a series of promotional spots advertising their new digital televisionDigital televisionDigital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
channel "2W" for Wales. - Postgate and Firmin created a map of their fictional railway which was adhered to rigidly during filming.
- In 2007 'All Aboard with Ivor' events were held at various heritage railways around the UK following the modification of a small PeckettPeckett and SonsPeckett and Sons was a locomotive manufacturer at the Atlas Works in St. George, Bristol, England.-Fox, Walker and Company:The company began trading in 1864 at the Atlas Engine Works, St. George, Bristol, as Fox, Walker and Company, building four and six-coupled saddle tank engines for industrial use...
industrial locomotive to resemble Ivor. Railways hosting the event include the Battlefield Line RailwayBattlefield Line RailwayThe Battlefield Line Railway is a heritage railway in Leicestershire, England. It runs from Shackerstone to Shenton , via Market Bosworth, a total of...
in LeicestershireLeicestershireLeicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
, the Watercress LineWatercress LineThe Watercress Line is the marketing name of the Mid-Hants Railway, a heritage railway in Hampshire, England, running from New Alresford to Alton where it connects to the National Rail network. The line gained its popular name in the days that it was used to transport locally grown watercress to...
in HampshireHampshireHampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
and the Cholsey and Wallingford RailwayCholsey and Wallingford RailwayThe Cholsey and Wallingford Railway is a long standard gauge heritage railway in the English county of Oxfordshire. It operates along most of the length of the former Wallingford branch of the Great Western Railway , from Cholsey station, north of Reading on the Great Western Main Line, to a...
in OxfordshireOxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
. - On the Loonee Tunes!Loonee Tunes!Loonee Tunes! is the second album by Bad Manners, from the year 1980. In keeping with the format of their first album, the first track is an instrumental. It reached number 36 on the UK album chart.-Track listing:* All songs by Bad Manners unless noted....
album by the British ska band Bad MannersBad MannersBad Manners are an English 2 Tone ska band. They quickly became the novelty favourites of the UK pop scene through their bald outsized frontman's on-stage antics, earning early exposure through their Top of The Pops exploits and an appearance in the live film documentary, Dance Craze.They were at...
is a song titled "The Undersea Adventures of Ivor the Engine". - Some of the artwork from production is on display at the Rupert Bear Museum, along with several other items from Smallfilm's history.
- In April 2011, Smallfilms collaborated with mobile gaming company, Dreadnought Design, to launch an Ivor the Engine game under the newly created Smallworlds brand.