Thomas & Friends (series 22) facts for kids

The 22nd series of the children's television show Thomas & Friends, based on The Railway Series books written by the Reverend W. Awdry, began airing on 3 September 2018 in the UK, and on 17 September 2018 in the US.

Now re-titled as Thomas & Friends: Big World, Big Adventures!, series 22 sees the first major changes since the show switched to full CGI animation in the thirteenth series. The episodes keep their eleven minute-long runtime, but have now been divided into seven minute-long stories, with an additional four minutes reserved for a variety of segments like sing-along karaoke songs, music videos or Thomas talking directly with the audience about lessons learned during a particular episodes.

Production

Series 22 introduces new characters Nia and Rebecca and retires the narration, with Thomas now talking directly to the audience. In addition, the show has a brand new theme song.

The series is set directly after the events of the Big World! Big Adventures! movie. Episodes are split into two halves; the first half sees Thomas travelling around the world, while the second half takes place back on the Island of Sodor. The series was released on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu in the fall of 2018.

Voice cast

The following voice actors were listed in the closing credits for the series:

• John Hasler as Thomas
• Chipo Chung
• Dona Adwera
• Teresa Gallagher
• Siu-See Hung
• Dan Li
• Windson Liong
• Keith Wickham

The following are also considered main characters but were not listed in the credits:

• Yvonne Grundy voices Nia, a steam train from Kenya. She is based on the East African Railways’ ED1 class steam train.
• Rachael Miller voices Rebecca, a yellow steam train from mainland Britain. Her design is based on a Southern Railway West Country 4-6-2 Pacific steam train .

Episodes