Green Express Coaches/Behind the Scenes

Television Series
The Green Express Coaches are fictional standard gauge coaches created by the production crew.

The coaches have appeared since the first series and are primarily used for the express. Between the first and third series, these coaches were sentient, despite not having faces.

The models of the coaches were based upon SR Maunsell Coaches without corridors. They have broad windows on one side and narrow ones on the other.

Shorter variants of these coaches were introduced in Thomas and the Magic Railroad, which completely replaced the long ones from Series 2 and the originals with grey roofs from Series 1.

Throughout the CGI Series, the coach designs were altered to be much taller and thinner compared to the previous ones. Unlike the prior models, the CGI designs have broad windows on both sides.

Types of designs in the Model era:

Gauge 1 models
The express coaches' original models were custom built from Tenmille kits for Gauge 1 SR Maunsell Coaches. The original models used in first series have been shortened from the kit and the bogies have been modified. The bogie also came from Tenmille parts. Its unknown if any of these coaches survived. During production of the second series, new models of the coaches were made also using Tenmille kits to replace the shortened coaches from the first season. The models were used from the second to fifth series. During the production of Thomas and the Magic Railroad, a new resin copy mold for the coaches were made, replacing the previous version.

Close-up models
A close-up model of the coach was built to be used for scenes where they had to interact with the close-up scale figures. The door could be opened and closed. One of the windows does not have its glass pane, so the figure can show its face through the window. During the production of the second series, the window was repainted from cream to white to match the appearance of Gauge 1 models. In the fourth series, it was repainted as the red express coach. By the way, the other side of this model is the orange branchline coach, Annie and Clarabel.

CGI models
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. The coaches were recreated from scratch in CGI by Nitrogen Studios. Their models were "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.

Photographs of the coaches' Gauge 1 models were used for referencing. According to Greg Tiernan, every detail of the original television series models for each character is carefully reproduced in the CGI model. The models are subjected to many rounds of review before they are submitted to HiT Entertainment for final input and approval.

Their CGI models have gone through some slight changes.
 * Hero of the Rails:
 * They narrowed in width; now being as wide as Thomas' body.
 * The coaches now have broad windows on both sides.

Voice Actors

 * Shinobu Satouchi
 * Kōzō Shioya
 * Yasunori Masutani
 * Toshio Kobayashi
 * Yasuhiro Takato