Dryaw



Dryaw is a station and village near Thomas' Branch Line. The village began as a worker village for the staff of A. W. Dry, a company working on reclaiming tidal land from the sea. Gradually, a village grew up around the workers' homes, expanding as more land was drained and cultivated.

Dryaw has two stations: one for passengers and one for goods, the latter of which was built first. The two lines of track go though Dryaw Station. The goods station is, ironically, in the middle of the village and better equipped than the passenger station, which is simply an unstaffed halt some distance from the village. The villagers of Dryaw, however, often save themselves the walk to the passenger station by hitching a ride in the brakevans of goods trains headed to Ffarquhar or Knapford Harbour, particularly on market days. There is a small airfield here for lightweight aircraft, as well as a goods yard.

The name is an anagram of "Awdry" - the real back-story to the name - but, in the books, however, it possibly could come from the firm A. W. Dry, or the phrase "dry out", the site of the village being one of the first sections of land to be reclaimed from the sea by the company.

Dryaw appeared in almost every season until the switch to CGI. It returned in the seventeenth season.

Trivia

 * The station building and platform of Dryaw are currently on display at Drayton Manor.
 * Tiger Moth the bi-plane lives at the nearby airfield. Harold and Butch were also based here prior to the opening of the Sodor Search and Rescue Centre.
 * A Sodor Fire Engine was usually on standby here.
 * When Dryaw returned in the seventeenth season, the airfield had been replaced by a single Nissen hut. During the eighteenth season the airfield returned and used the same look from the model series.