Early Beginnings (2005- 2007)
The Thomas Wooden Railway Community began in late 2005/2006 with users such as Tom Dublin who showed videos of their wooden trains. The user zeored began the community by showing other people with the same interest in Thomas Wooden Railway to begin uploading videos of wooden trains. Members like sonicandrotor and TRAINSARECOOL2 have influenced many other people to join in uploading videos to establish a community.
Keekre24
The community was just small, but when Keekre24 came along and make his Wooden Railway series: "Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends: Wooden Railway Adventures." gave the community it's jump start it needed. The series was a popular series, with Keekre getting over 800 subscribers and became the biggest user in the community. By the time at early 2009, Keekre24 was hacked and the account was shut down. Keekre then had to go and make a new account which was ThomasWoodenRailway, and got his fanbase back and increasing everyday, having reached 38,000,000 video views on all of his over 330 videos and 8,500 subscribers.
Downfall
Around 2009 many members of the community began to leave either because they're not interested in Thomas Wooden Railway anymore, or because they felt that they're too old. Keekre has been known for leaving around 4 times in his YouTube lifespan, and other users have left. In 2010 users such as Sonicandrotor, and Rboffill began making less videos, and Sonicandrotor closed his account, while many accounts such as TenCents01 and Rboffill were left idle. In early 2011 the community was in ruins, Keekre has left which basiclly meant the community has gone. Only few people such as thomasfreak808 and WoodenRailwayStudio (who were new users that joined in late 2010) and MrMPS2002 (who joined the community around 2009, but left and created another account in 2010) were around making videos.
Another Rise
The community basically is still getting brought back on it's feet, but not as successful as it was in 2008. Users such as LNERFlyingScotsman and HenryisGreat15 joined and began bringing back the community. In August 2011 Keekre returned and with that came back Rboffill for a short while, Percyno6 (another member that joined in 2008) and the community was half revived. Keekre also introduced the community to Twitter which is the new social networking site for the community to talk to each other.
Downfall #2
Keekre decided to leave again in late 2011, causing the community to "die" again. In January 2012, the community had moved to Skype, which let the remaining members of the community talk voice to voice (and sometimes face-to-face). TRAINSARECOOL2 made a rant video calling the community dead, and only a good 7 users were active. In April, Keekre returned, but not as how everyone expected him to. This time he was selling his TWR items, which meant that he was basically never coming back again.
Rise #3
Around 4 weeks before Keekre's grand eBay sale, he decided not to sell his collection, and attempted to rejoin YouTube for as long as he can. The community as always came back to life, but it was still hurting from its wounds. Some new members had joined the community after Keekre's return, such as Bertramfan1 and TheBluebellEngine. The community accumulated a good amount of new members, and some older members also rejoined the community.
Downfall #3
In the final week of January 2013, the start of the third downfall began in a skype call. Johnny kicked out Keekre24, and Keekre24 put on Twitter that Johnny needed new friends. Johnny tagged Aidan on Twitter, and the fight between Keekre24 vs Johnny and Keekre24 vs Aidan began. Percyno6 soon joined in the fight, siding with Keekre24. The teams looked like Keekre24 and Percyno6 vs Johnny and Aidan. MPS and Robert (LNERFS) were in the Skype call along with the other four. MPS sided with Johnny and Aidan, along with Robert. Robert and Johnny said they weren't on Aidan's side or against Keekre24 and Percyno6. If you looked from the outside, it would've looked like Keekre24 and Percyno6 vs Johnny, Aidan, MPS, and Robert. Although not as many users were involved in the "War" as the Jack War, many were included in this fight. The only 3 people who said they were on the side they were on were Keekre24, Percyno6, and Aidan, although Johnny and Robert said they were on Keekre24's team in an effort to end the "War." The users who were neutral, sent out Tweets of their thoughts on the fight, mainly siding with Johnny and Aidan. Today, both sides are still at war. Both sides had blocked each other. However in late April, Johnny and Keekre24 worked out their problems with one another, and the two are both now friends again. Even though Johnny made efforts to make amends with Keekre24 and Percyno6, Keekre24 and Percyno6 had also blocked Aidan and MPS. However, in late April, MPS apologized to Keekre, but it is uncertain whether MPS and Keekre will make amends with each other. In early May, however, Keekre unblocked MPS upon MPS's request so he could enter Keekre's contest. As of June 4, 2013, MPS won sixth place in Keekre's competition, and Keekre seems to have forgiven MrMPS.
Rise #4
Some time after the fights were over, everyone started unblocking each other. Keekre24 and Percyno6 have unblocked everyone except Aidan. Everyone who blocked Keekre24 and Percyno6 have also unblocked them with the exception of Aidan. The community will be losing member LNERFlyingScotsman as he decided to leave in June 2013. As taken from his wikia page, "He stated that he has decided to shift from collecting Thomas Wooden Railway to collecting vinyl records, similarly to how rboffill shifted to collecting model railroad trains, and how TRAINSARECOOL2 shifted to collecting skateboard stickers." Like TRAINSARECOOL2, Robert (LNERFlingScotsman) plans on staying semiactive in the community via Skype and Twitter. He doesn't not plan on uploading anymore. With Robert gone, a new user came. Oliver Duck (Ted) first got noticed via Percyno6. He has since got 85 subscribers and made his wikia page. Everybody has continued to upload. Keekre24 is currently taking a break. Percyno6 is starting season 3 of his series. WoodenRailwayReviews made a comeback video. Jlouvier continues to upload his regular videos. Enterprisingengine93 is still making his series. Henryisgreat15 still makes his series. In general, the community was on the rise with old, and some new members.
The community has showed it can come together and it has shown that over the Jack confrontation. TRAINSARECOOL2 Is the latest member to leave the community. He had privated all of his videos weeks before and 2 weeks ago he had finally decided to leave after 5 years and 7 months in the community; the longest member in the community overall.
With TRAINSARECOOL2 leaving, SonicandRotor became the oldest member of the community. Although he's not as active as he once was, Percyno6 is still uploading actively. Keekre24 left after he recieved some copyright claims that threatened to take down his channel, and LNERFlyingScotsman, BertramFan1, and HenryisGreat15 have lost interest in TWR. In addition Percyno6 has returned to working on his series. Users like EnterprisingEngine93 Oliver Duck and MrMPS2002 are currently working hard on progressing their series.
Downfall #4
Originally considered not too big of a deal, when LNERFlyingScotsman left the Community was when the next downfall began. Users like HenryisGreat15, Bertramfan1, thomasfreak808, Oliver Duck, became less active on YouTube and Twitter. Even with ThomasWoodenRailway, Jlouvier, Percyno6, and new member ThomasWoodenEpisodes uploading, they couldn't make up for the lack of members. The final nail to this downfall was when ThomasWoodenRailway decided he couldn't take all the forein countries claiming his videos and stopped uploading altogether.
Summer of Fights
The community isn't as peaceful as it seems. The summer of 2012 was full of constant arguing and fighting over Twitter. One prominent argument was the lie that thomasfreak808 and Sirtophamhatt291 were apparently cousins. This has been noticed as a lie, and not one of the two will admit it. The fight took place on Twitter at around June around the hours of 10:00 pm and 11:45 pm pst between MrStepney55, TRAINSARECOOL2 and thomasfreak808 with LNERFlyingScotsman and ThomasWoodenRailway trying to set peace for it. Another fight that occurred was MrStepney55 and TRAINARECOOL2 all against ThomasWoodenRailway that happened in July which made Keekre leave twitter for roughly 2 weeks. Mainly with fights in 3 days everything is back to normal.
The Community vs. sirtophamhatt291
In late 2011, sirtophamhatt291 began looking up people's personal info. This disgusted the community enough that the many members began to revolt against him. On July 22, 2012, the first "sirtophamhatt291 Confrontation" happened on Skype and the call included Jack himself, HenryisGreat15, WoodenRailwayReviews, ThomasWoodenRailway, Rboffill, Percyno6 and TRAINSARECOOL2, the latter of whom recorded the entire thing. This made Jack leave YouTube for the first time.
Returning
Jack began rebelling on Twitter and discussed his thoughts about returning. Late one night, Percyno6 and ThomasWoodenRailway began the Second Jack Confrontation. They discussed their plans with LNERFlyingScotsman, TRAINSARECOOL2, Rboffill, HenryisGreat15, and MrMPS2002. On that day, Jack was tricked by Keekre and Percyno6 into returning. Their motive behind this was so they could confront Jack and bring him down even harder than they had before.
Second Confrontation
The second confrontation led to an all-out war among the Community. On November 3, 2012, a Skype call occurred with TheHaza47, LNERFlyingScotsman, HenryisGreat15, ThomasWoodenRailway, and TRAINSARECOOL2. LNERFlyingScotsman added ThomasMania24, and Percyno6, while Johnny added MrMPS2002, and TheHaza47 added RailwayofSodor. There Tyler gave proof of how Jack was a creep, and the issues of Jack being a creep from experiences of Keekre, Robert, and Damian were discussed, which made Johnny spaz out and leave the call, defending Jack and talking about his rights and whatnot. A new call was started, and the community appointed MrMPS to be their representative to persuade Jack to join the call. MPS tried to persuade Jack, but he revealed that Johnny had ratted the Community out to him and he refused to join the call, preventing the confrontation. Jack and Johnny later began "The Confederate Thomas Community." Later that night, Johnny admitted he got "brainwashed" by Jack and nearly gave up all of his friends for one fool. Johnny rejoined the Community and Jack later blocked Damian, Keekre, Robert, Johnny, and Tyler that night and went on a blocking spree the following days, blocking several other users, including BertramFan1, WRR, and MPS.
Aidan at first supported Jack, but he then found out what Jack had done, and switched to supporting the Community stating almost everything Jack has done wrong on Twitter. This threw support for the community and Jack blocked Aidan. The Confederate Community was such a stupid idea that even thomasfreak808, who supports Jack and practically everything he does, disagreed with him and sided with the community. Some rumors arose that TheBluebellEngine and ThomasDuckFan were on Jack's side. In the end Jack Calloway came on Twitter and explained himself. He explained that Jack was lying just to get some members on his side. ThomasDuckFan explained that he had no idea what was going on, and joined the community. In the end the score was 23 - 1 - 1 with some users, such as 3HenryTheGreenEngine, being neutral throughout the war. Jack's loss caused him to ultimately leave Twitter, and eventually close both his YouTube channels.
Current Community
The Community has been doing well in recent years. Many users, including ThomasWoodenRailway, Percyno6, MilkTankerMedia, Enterprisingengine93 among other have continued on with their series. Jlouvier has continued to do his "Character Fridays,". WoodenRailwayReviews ended 2014 by announcing a huge review on the White Face Troublesome Truck. He's doing this with the help of his college and is planning on hopefully putting it on YouTube as his final review. ThomasWoodenEpisodes has been making various highly praised remakes. Many users have now joined the community after a bit of a slump in 2013.
Crossovers have been sweeping the Community ever since 2014. MrMPS, EricPierre53, Oliver Duck, and Jlouvier did numerous crossovers that year featuring each other in videos across their channels. This has caused crossovers to catch on in popularity and are now extremely popular in the community. One of the crossovers from 2014 featuring WoodenRailwayReviews and Oliver Duck was the first time ever that the Community had two people meet in person and do a video together. ThomasFan12341, WoodenRS, Roman TheTWRCollector, and TrainKing James have done crossovers as newer members of the Community.
2015 would continue the crossover trend and is arguably the best year the community has had since 2008. Newer users such as turtlesandthomas, Ryatron12 and Annie.C's channels have been growing.
2015 finished off as one of the best years that the Community has had since the glory days of 2008 and 2009.