Britt Allcroft, a British television producer and writer who helped to develop “Thomas & Friends” based on “The Railway Series” books and its characters including Thomas the Tank Engine, died on Dec. 25, 2024. She was 81.
Allcroft’s daughter, Holly Wright, confirmed her death to the New York Times. Director Brannon Carty announced her death on X earlier today, writing: “It is with great sadness that I share with you the passing of Britt Allcroft…Britt was an adoring mother and wife. A visionary producer. She brought so much joy and happiness to people everywhere during her time on Earth.”
Born Hilary Mary Allcroft in 1943, she later changed her name to Britt at the age of 16 as her career in British television expanded.
Popular on Variety
Hailing from Worthing, England, she served as a producer on a number of British television shows throughout the 1970s. Among her first projects was “Get It-Got-It-Good.” She eventually secured the rights to the “Railway Series” books from which the character Thomas the Tank Engine was adapted on screen.
Allcroft’s interest in the characters from this book series stemmed from her involvement in a 1979 documentary film about a railway in Sussex, which is featured in the books themselves. She had previously said, “It really didn’t take me long to become intrigued by the characters, the relationships between them and the nostalgia they invoked.” Allcroft later founded the Britt Allcroft Company alongside her husband and fellow producer Angus Wright. The two divorced in 1997.
She devoted four years to raise money for the production costs of the first 26 episodes of what would become “Thomas & Friends” in 1984. The series had a positive critical reception and maintained popularity among young audiences globally. It was featured in the U.S. through the children’s show “Shining Time Station.”
Allcroft went on to write and direct the 2000 feature “Thomas and the Magic Railroad” and voiced the character of Lady. In 2023, she appeared in the documentary “An Unlikely Fandom,” which was directed by Carty and chronicles the wide-spread internet fandom surrounding the “Thomas” franchise.
“Thomas & Friends” went on to run for 27 years and today has culminated in additional adaptations, spinoffs, films and merchandise opportunities such as “Diesel: Impossible,” “The Looney Diesels,” and “Thomas & Friends ERTL Adventures: The Biggest Christmas Adventure.”
Allcroft is survived by her daughter, son and grandchildren.