W. Awdry; Children’s Author

LONDON —  The Rev. W. Awdry, who delighted generations of children with his tales of “Thomas the Tank Engine,” has died, his publisher said.

The cause of death was not announced, but the 85-year-old writer had been in poor health for some time. He died Friday at his home in Stroud, England, said Jo Markham of Reed Books.

Wilbert Vere Awdry produced his first book in 1945 and kept at it until “Thomas’ Christmas Party” in 1984, although his son, Christopher, had assumed main responsibility for the series in 1972.

The son of a train-loving clergyman, Awdry started spinning tales of railway engines for his son.

“The stories built up by question and answer. ‘Why is the engine sad, Daddy?’ ‘Because he’s not been out for a long time.’ ‘What’s his name?’ ‘Edward’--because that was the first name that came into my head,” Awdry said in a 1995 interview with Church Times.

“When you’re telling stories to a child, you’ve got to use the same words every time, otherwise you’re called to order,” he said.

“So . . . after we’d settled the outline version of the stories, I’d write them down in pencil on the backs of old circulars with a very rudimentary illustration.”

The first book, “The Three Railway Engines,” was written when Awdry was a rector in rural Cambridgeshire. Thomas, a cheerful blue locomotive, made his appearance the next year.

Awdry’s fastidiousness about detail put him at odds with the illustrator of his first book, just as he later criticized some of the animated TV versions.

In “The Three Railway Engines,” Awdry imagined the engines having different wheel arrangements. But the artist made Henry identical to the engine named Gordon.

“I was so annoyed about [the artist’s] treatment of Henry that I endeavored to kill Henry off,” Awdry recalled. “That’s why in ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ Henry only appears once or twice as a Very Sick Engine.”

“After that, I got inquiries from children about Henry’s health, so I had to bring him back again. We had Henry painted green again, but in the end the only thing to do was to be ruthless, and Henry had to have an accident and be rebuilt differently.”

Awdry, who sometimes put himself in the stories as the Thin Clergyman, set his later tales on the fictional island of Sodor.

He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1995.

Awdry’s wife, Margaret, died in 1989. He is survived by his son, two daughters and seven grandchildren.