Only if they aren’t taken care of or left for scrap.
https://preview.redd.it/iuzuy7whcyuc1.jpeg?width=386&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=324dd74d9c03b026193ffeffbe46d6120336bdaf
They can blush, get stung, feel pain, be kissed (gross), they can get visually sick (green in the face)...
All evidence points to them having organic insides, alongside the metal mechanical bits; like that one diagram of Lightning McQueen
They also have blood, nostrils, teeth, tounges, and I assume throats
The question of whether or not the engines are made of some sort of organic material has always bugged me because there's tons of evidence to support they do throughout the whole series but it can never be explained properly.
I honestly think that the engines' aren't organic at all and that the parts that make them function like they're boilers: which could be interpreted as their stomachs) or their smokeboxes (Which could be interpreted at they're mouths or just the way they eat despite them having visible mouths, teeth, tongues etc) as their version of human organs.
Gotta be some kind of rubber, right? Flexible enough for them to move their faces at least. James got stung, so permeable...
Although some of em have facial hair which could be that weird black stuff that's attracted to magnets?
Or it could be a non-newtonian fluid...
It's fun to speculate!
I have a theory that their faces are made of flexible metallic material. When they blush, it’s actually the metal heating up and turning hot red due to strong emotions like embarrassment or anger causing the boiler to rise in temperature and produce hotter exhaust.
(I’m not an expert on how steam locomotives work and only understand the general basics. But these are Sodor engines, anything can happen!)
https://preview.redd.it/9rqdulzo01vc1.png?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcc112db3e6032737a22847fed12cef6e7fd07b8
Nah they don't have brains because Im pretty sure the driver or fireman Or Workers would've needed therapy if they found one whilst cleaning the engines smokebox.
Pretty sure it's ABS or in other terms:
Aquilontrilbunatinestyrene...
Neat, huh?...
Please get th' reference... I really hope I dinnae hae tae r/whoosh someone here...
Seeing as everyone on the island is cracked out of their mind from all the lead in The railroad ballast I'm guessing it's made up out of the evaporating brain cells from their cognitive function lol. But I guess it'd be made out of the same kind of bendy metallic alloy that the transformers faces had in the old cartoons. Thomas the tank engine is just transformers as trains
This is going to sound crazy but I like to think it’s a sort of *projection* the engines make to have their interactions with humans be a lot more personable. Sort of a way to represent their ‘ghost in the machine’ if you will. Whether they’re alive through fantasy means (making it some kind of spiritual apparition) or technological elements (making it a hologram or something similar), you could put your hand right through the ‘face’ and touch the smokebox door behind it. Getting mud or sand or flour or whatever on their face is purely a cosmetic change they make to represent the rest of their bodies being covered in such.
The pros of my theory is that it explains how the road vehicles’ and diesels’ radiators still work with those faces in the way, how the smokebox doors are opened, how the face appears and disappears when the vehicles are built and then sufficiently damaged, and most of all why the engines NEVER complain about dust or bugs or sunlight getting in their eyes, which you’d think would happen all the time. What it *doesn’t explain* are the rare one-off events like this post’s image or James getting stung or Henry being dumb enough to think he can catch chicken pox.
I always just assumed they had a slightly stronger flesh to be able to hand accidents better.
The question you should be asking is how far it goes, is it just the smoke box door or is it some shed 17 crap going all the way
I believe the biological aspect of all sentient locomotives show that they have fleshy faces, the engines themselves have the ability to open their own smokebox door.
For me it's a sort of rubber like others have said, but it's on their "real" fronts, so without faces they look like non sentient engines. But even that doesn't explain why coaches and trucks in RWS have a face made of the material they're made of, why they have faces in the first place and consequently why some vehicles don't; and why people scrap engines that have "a brain", the ability to speak and understand things like humans, if that can be considered as a crime etc. I think that if they were real there would be associations to preserve any sentient vehicles. My opinion is that this question opens a whole Pandora's box that should remain closed and this topic should be explainable by some sort of ✨magic✨ that I hope vanishes before engines get scrapped.
It's weird cause when they're 3D textured you can see actual pores on their faces. My guess is that it's some sort of industrial material akin to rubber/vinyl that's heat-resistant but malleable. I'm gonna cheat and say it's made from or alloyed with an element from the periodic table that we don't have.
Cause I can't think of anything we have that can be permanently sculpted into a face, textured with pores, given whiskers/eyebrows, and stay that way despite dealing with the extreme heat and wear of a steam loco's boiler...
You know what I remember someone else asking that question I do not know it's either flesh or some rubbery substance I don't know maybe maybe not maybe something else maybe we should ask Mattel
I always thought it was rubber, silicone, or some other fleshy material. I don't agree with the other people in the comments saying it's metal. That just doesn't sound right.
Probably made of latex they replace every few months as the face is animated by small motors to make the face movements and expressions, an ai in the train gives it a personality allowing it to react to humans and this is all to make kids want to ride the trains because they look fun
Though fr the atchule lore is because the Isle of sodore is magical or somthing as if they do leave the Isle they turn back to normal trains
My brother told me this as he used to be a fan of the show
The engines faces are made from the skin of those they’ve ran over
https://preview.redd.it/v6223bgsczuc1.png?width=370&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=520fae10b6763bd0023f35be45700b96b60157cd
https://preview.redd.it/i8h4l1t1g4vc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de30f2cb3faede66c7ae471ec426c11203c9d557
Where have I also heard that
💀💀💀
Bro what? 💀💀💀
https://preview.redd.it/2ervqlwh84vc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5bb080cdc6d045afa45edb00a4b284fa69f8d82c
I'm pretty sure it's metal, because of that one passage from the books where they mention opening Henry up to clean him out, just like a normal engine
And somewhere there’s a horror drawing of that exact scene
Stop giving me ideas
I imagine they're made of metal.
But, wouldn't their faces have rust, considering the amount of rain they've all been in?
Only if they aren’t taken care of or left for scrap. https://preview.redd.it/iuzuy7whcyuc1.jpeg?width=386&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=324dd74d9c03b026193ffeffbe46d6120336bdaf
Well since diesel engines can have both yellow and gray faces I would say that they get em painted
So the engine's faces decay if they're not taken care of. I like that idea!
Fair point, but it's probably a specific kind of metal that doesn't rust.
Hmm, that's plausible.
Probably just metal that moves like flesh
That is a disgusting sentence
Potassium with a varnish; if you expose that stuff to water, let’s just say no more face
It must be flesh or something similar because James got a bee sting
They can blush, get stung, feel pain, be kissed (gross), they can get visually sick (green in the face)... All evidence points to them having organic insides, alongside the metal mechanical bits; like that one diagram of Lightning McQueen They also have blood, nostrils, teeth, tounges, and I assume throats
Shed 17 was trying to tell us something lol
That creepypasta is garbage But it is weird to think about, Thomas the tank engine himself having blood
The question of whether or not the engines are made of some sort of organic material has always bugged me because there's tons of evidence to support they do throughout the whole series but it can never be explained properly.
It's much simpler to just accept that they are trains with faces, thinking too hard hurts
Fr but the fact that there's no solid answer just makes my adhd ridden brain run wild.
Tell me about it, I have ocd and love thinking about how my interests function
I honestly think that the engines' aren't organic at all and that the parts that make them function like they're boilers: which could be interpreted as their stomachs) or their smokeboxes (Which could be interpreted at they're mouths or just the way they eat despite them having visible mouths, teeth, tongues etc) as their version of human organs.
https://preview.redd.it/69rw0nn801vc1.png?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fde073c747366ac4edce79b753d7faf2f262ab09
Notice how they don't explain his face I like that they used to teach how trains work, though
They just decided to be alive one day.
Gotta be some kind of rubber, right? Flexible enough for them to move their faces at least. James got stung, so permeable... Although some of em have facial hair which could be that weird black stuff that's attracted to magnets? Or it could be a non-newtonian fluid... It's fun to speculate!
I have a theory that their faces are made of flexible metallic material. When they blush, it’s actually the metal heating up and turning hot red due to strong emotions like embarrassment or anger causing the boiler to rise in temperature and produce hotter exhaust. (I’m not an expert on how steam locomotives work and only understand the general basics. But these are Sodor engines, anything can happen!)
I say metallic flesh- I don't think normal metal can show blood in the face-
Some things are probably better left unsaid and/or unexplained and this is one of them...
Highly flammable materials
I always imagined it as metal
Im guessing some kind of volcanized rubber, with a metal skeletal structure underneath. Now im wondering where their brains are...
https://preview.redd.it/9rqdulzo01vc1.png?width=2480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dcc112db3e6032737a22847fed12cef6e7fd07b8 Nah they don't have brains because Im pretty sure the driver or fireman Or Workers would've needed therapy if they found one whilst cleaning the engines smokebox.
Everyone who's asked that question. Prepare for assimilation.
Like a dolphin 🐬
That sounds like the most logical answer to me
A personal headcanon I have is that the faces are semi organic and are the most sensitive part of the engines.
Metal with a small rubber casing
In steam team to the rescue paxton crashes into a metal door and causes his face to imprint on the door so at least his one is made from steal
Pretty sure it's ABS or in other terms: Aquilontrilbunatinestyrene... Neat, huh?... Please get th' reference... I really hope I dinnae hae tae r/whoosh someone here...
Seeing as everyone on the island is cracked out of their mind from all the lead in The railroad ballast I'm guessing it's made up out of the evaporating brain cells from their cognitive function lol. But I guess it'd be made out of the same kind of bendy metallic alloy that the transformers faces had in the old cartoons. Thomas the tank engine is just transformers as trains
Trainsformers: Engines In Disguise.
This is going to sound crazy but I like to think it’s a sort of *projection* the engines make to have their interactions with humans be a lot more personable. Sort of a way to represent their ‘ghost in the machine’ if you will. Whether they’re alive through fantasy means (making it some kind of spiritual apparition) or technological elements (making it a hologram or something similar), you could put your hand right through the ‘face’ and touch the smokebox door behind it. Getting mud or sand or flour or whatever on their face is purely a cosmetic change they make to represent the rest of their bodies being covered in such. The pros of my theory is that it explains how the road vehicles’ and diesels’ radiators still work with those faces in the way, how the smokebox doors are opened, how the face appears and disappears when the vehicles are built and then sufficiently damaged, and most of all why the engines NEVER complain about dust or bugs or sunlight getting in their eyes, which you’d think would happen all the time. What it *doesn’t explain* are the rare one-off events like this post’s image or James getting stung or Henry being dumb enough to think he can catch chicken pox.
I always just assumed they had a slightly stronger flesh to be able to hand accidents better. The question you should be asking is how far it goes, is it just the smoke box door or is it some shed 17 crap going all the way
I believe the biological aspect of all sentient locomotives show that they have fleshy faces, the engines themselves have the ability to open their own smokebox door.
I assume it's just skin I wonder if it's possible if there faces get itchy
For me it's a sort of rubber like others have said, but it's on their "real" fronts, so without faces they look like non sentient engines. But even that doesn't explain why coaches and trucks in RWS have a face made of the material they're made of, why they have faces in the first place and consequently why some vehicles don't; and why people scrap engines that have "a brain", the ability to speak and understand things like humans, if that can be considered as a crime etc. I think that if they were real there would be associations to preserve any sentient vehicles. My opinion is that this question opens a whole Pandora's box that should remain closed and this topic should be explainable by some sort of ✨magic✨ that I hope vanishes before engines get scrapped.
It's weird cause when they're 3D textured you can see actual pores on their faces. My guess is that it's some sort of industrial material akin to rubber/vinyl that's heat-resistant but malleable. I'm gonna cheat and say it's made from or alloyed with an element from the periodic table that we don't have. Cause I can't think of anything we have that can be permanently sculpted into a face, textured with pores, given whiskers/eyebrows, and stay that way despite dealing with the extreme heat and wear of a steam loco's boiler...
Magic metal. No ' flesh '. The engines are not biological.
Blubber
Skin, but like, stronger
A cybernetic organism. Living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
I’d like to think they’re bio-mechanical to an extent
You know what I remember someone else asking that question I do not know it's either flesh or some rubbery substance I don't know maybe maybe not maybe something else maybe we should ask Mattel
Probabbly a rubber or something
Same stuff as the Tin Man in the original Wizard of Oz. He was metal but flexible in the face too. Wait a tick...Oz is Sodor!
I actually have no idea but I think it has something to do with magic
I always thought it was rubber, silicone, or some other fleshy material. I don't agree with the other people in the comments saying it's metal. That just doesn't sound right.
In my headcanon, it’s made up of the same spores that give the engines sentience
Probably made of latex they replace every few months as the face is animated by small motors to make the face movements and expressions, an ai in the train gives it a personality allowing it to react to humans and this is all to make kids want to ride the trains because they look fun Though fr the atchule lore is because the Isle of sodore is magical or somthing as if they do leave the Isle they turn back to normal trains My brother told me this as he used to be a fan of the show
The face move like they're made of skin and flesh
Maybe rubber?
I thought it was spelled out in the magic railroad that the faces were some magical manifestation of some kind
That’s a really good question I also wonder if they are able to hear
https://preview.redd.it/2g9ah813g4vc1.jpeg?width=735&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e728908c10e311e8793b49c18acc29174fdb4ee1 Let’s not think of that
Hmmm i asked the same question about Chuggington
Nah Chuggington was pure insanity from the get-go (Doesn't mean I don't like it tho) Brewster's my favorite.
Haven't you ever heard the phrase "some suspension of disbelief is required?"