"Shining Time Station" (1990) TV series 1990-1993

Writers:

Wilson Coneybeare (writer)
Alan Kingsberg (writer) (1990)

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | unknown

Genre:

Comedy | Family | Fantasy

Plot:

An American version of the popular British children's program. Every episode, the kids (and sometimes the adults...

Plot Keywords:

Kid | Conductor | Island | Train | Educational

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy. Another 1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Alan Semok

...

Tex Boy (10 episodes, 1991-1995)

Runtime:

USA:30 min

Country:

USA | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:TV-G

Filming Locations:

South Simcoe Railway, Tottenham, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Britt Allcroft (Thomas) Ltd.

Trivia:

The stationmaster is named "Stacey Jones", a reference to legendary train engineer Casey Jones.

Quotes:

Stacy Jones: Well Schemer, I hope you learned something from this.
Schemer: Yeah, never order anything out of the back of a comic book again.
Stacy Jones: What else?
Schemer: Um, never introduce a robot to a juke box?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in George Carlin: You Are All Diseased (1999) (TV)

Valuable lessons from a train station

I was born 1986, so my memories of the early 1990s are obviously not my clearest, but I do have many positive memories from that time, including memories of various TV shows. "Shining Time Station" is one of the TV shows I remember from the first half of that decade. I remember watching it regularly for a while, seeing it just before "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" came on. I must have seen reruns of the early '90s kids' programme after its demise as well, because I can recall definitely seeing it after 1993.

The show was set in a train station called Shining Time Station (hence its title). Main characters included Stacy Jones (the station master), Billy Twofeathers (the railroad engineer), and Schemer (the buffoon who owned the station arcade). In Schemer's arcade was a juke box with puppet singers/musicians inside. There were also kids in the show named Becky, Kara, and Dan, who regularly talked to Mr. Conductor, an 18'' inch man who would tell them stories of Thomas the Tank Engine (with sequences using characters from "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends") and teach them lessons. With all the trouble taking place at Shining Time Station, there were many life lessons to be learned.

Like most kids' shows of this kind, "Shining Time Station" was educational. The lessons that the characters learned could be taught to the young viewers of the show. To entertain its viewers, the show had adventure, humour, good quality characters, songs performed by the puppets in the juke box, etc. A major highlight of the show was Schemer, a character who was responsible for a lot of the humour in the show. He could really annoy other characters, but could also sure give viewers some good laughs!

I guess I didn't catch the show right from the beginning, as I cannot remember the Harry Cupper character (the original engineer who was replaced by Billy Twofeathers in Season 2), nor can I remember Ringo Starr (a former narrator for "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends", and best known as the drummer for The Beatles in the 1960s) playing Mr. Conductor (he was replaced in the role by George Carlin in Season 2). So, I guess it's clear that I missed Season 1, but of all those shows I saw way back, I probably didn't see every episode of many of them, if any. I may have seen more of other shows than "Shining Time Station", but this show has still left me with positive (and permanent) memories, and I know many others who watched the show in their childhood can say the same!