Yet another theory

When showing a friend of mine the Thomas and Friends episode "Escape", they inquired me about the drivers and firemen not being named in the show. I always took this as 'they didn't need to be named as they weren't the focus of the episode'.

This has been on the back of my mind all afternoon. Would the engines not know the drivers and firemen names? Not likely. They'd have to know them well and trust them to operate them on their journeys or doing shunting or what have you.

But, what if the drivers and firemen are a metaphor for the engines' parents? Here me out.

We are aware engines don't have parents, well, except maybe their designer. But, their designer cannot be driving however many engines of the class at once, and they would have designed a number of locomotives over the course of their lives! Plus, a vast majority of the designers would have died by now.

I've also heard people believe that this sort of 'parent/child' relationship could also be represented by the Fat Controller. And yes, I have seen those parallels too. But he or she cannot be everywhere at once, nor can be with the engines 24/7.

The drivers, firemen and engines have to have a mutual respect when they start working together. They have to look out for each other, be supportive and caring to each other, and make sure they do what's best for each other. 's STMY's episode 'Duty Of Care' starting Ivo Hugh episode is a good example of this.

And now coming back to the 'why not named' thing? Well, you wouldn't call your parents by their first name, right? It's the same thing here. The engines call their crew 'driver' and 'fireman', while we call our parents 'mum' and 'dad'.

So, that's my theory. What do you think of it?