Island of Sodor

Sodor is a fictional island located in the Irish Sea, just off the English mainland near Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. It is used as the setting for The Railway Series books by the Rev. W. Awdry, and later used in the Thomas & Friends television series.

The need for consistency in the locations for The Railway Series necessitated the creation of a suitable location. Awdry required a setting for his books that would be within Great Britain, but would be sufficiently isolated from the rest of British Railways to allow him to do as he wished with the location.

Inspiration came on a visit to the Isle of Man, which forms the Diocese of Sodor and Man in 1950. Awdry noted that while there was an Isle of Man, there was no similar Island of Sodor. A large island would meet the criteria he required, giving him the isolation from changes to the British railway system while giving him somewhere that people could believe in.

Between them, Awdry and his younger brother George worked out Sodor's history, geography, industry and language ("Sudric"). Inspiration came from various sources. Dryaw was an anagram of Awdry. Elsbridge was named after Wilbert's parish of Elsworth. Some place names were Sudric equivalents or near-equivalents of those in the real world (for instance, Skarloey was a rough Sudric equivalent of the Welsh Talyllyn: logh (Manx) = llyn (Welsh) = "lake"). By the time they had finished, they knew more about Sodor than would ever be used in the Railway Series stories.

Their abridged notes were published in 1987 in a book entitled The Island of Sodor: Its People, History and Railways.

The bishop of the Isle of Man is known as Bishop of "Sodor and Man". This is because the Isle of Man was part of the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, which included the Hebrides, known in Old Norse as the Suðreyjar, (anglicised as "The Sudreys") i.e. "Southern Isles" compared to Norðreyjar ("The Nordreys"), or the "Northern Isles", i.e. Orkney and Shetland. The Sudreys became "Sodor", which was fossilised in the name of the Diocese, long after it ceased to have any authority over the Scottish Islands.

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