He’s a really useful engine. So sayeth the sacred texts surrounding star of at least one million mods Thomas the Tank Engine. He’s also a really fast engine. Or, at least one of his mates is. So demonstrateth the social media clips I’ve been watching of folks going as fast as possible in Thomas & Friends: Wonders of Sodor. One of them’s confirmed that it’s possible to beat the real life world speed record for steam trains – which has stood since 1938 – in the freshly released train game.
If you don’t keep track of the fastest speeds ever achieved by outdated tech, the worldwide record for steam-powered locomotives is held by Mallard – LNER Class A4 4468 Mallard to give it its government name. On July 3rd 1938, this train was clocked going 126 miles per hour down Stoke Bank, a stretch of UK railway line between Peterborough and Grantham. No steam train has beaten that mark since, leaving the Mallard to bask in its glory as it sits in York’s National Railway Museum, a short train ride from where I live.
However, I assume the quick blue loco’s felt a disturbance in the force since Dovetail Games released Thomas & Friends: Wonders of Sodor yesterday. While a lot of the clips going around the socials since the game pulled into the station have been of trains being spectactularly spaghettied by sudden glitchy derailings, a few players have set their sights on seeing just how quick they can get Thomas and co chugging along.
Cue the above tweet from train enthusiast Chandlers_Railway declaring “I’ve officially broken Mallard’s speed record in Wonders of Sodor with Percy”, which I saw at approximately 8AM this morning and immediately began planning this story. Remarkably, and seemingly without the aid of mods since Wonders of Sodor doesn’t even have a Nexus Mods page yet to my knowledge, they’ve gone on to hit 143 MPH with the little green engine.
That’s nuts.
Not least because Wikipedia tells me Percy’s based on the GWR No. 1340 Trojan, a locomotive that doesn’t boast an aerodynamic streamlined design like Mallard. The fastest a non-streamlined steam loco’s ever gone – at least in Britain – looks at a glance to be 108 MPH, which LNER Class A3 2750 Papyrus hit going down Stoke Bank in 1935. For reference, the Thomas universe does feature trains of similar specs to these two record-breaking locomotives. Spencer, a Mallard-style LNER Class A4, has rocked up in Sodor at various points. Meanwhile, the Papyrus’ more famous sibling the Flying Scotsman has showed up in the Thomasverse alongside Gordon, who’s also based on LNER Gresley Class A1 and A3 trains.
Sadly, Spencer doesn’t look to have made it onto Wonders of Sodor’s playable train list as of launch, so I can’t see just how much faster than the record a Mallard-esque streamlined loco could get in the game.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to set up a notification reminding me to check for Thomas game DLC announcements on a daily basis.
