Shell on Wheels has been out for about 5 days. Thank you for all of your support!
Not many people know this, but Shell on Wheels was written for another series. That series was turtles ertls. Some people love it, some people hate it, and other people seem to like it less than they used to. For better or for worse, I did enjoy working on most of it and it gave me a lot of practice as a writer.
Shell was intended as a sequel to the turtles ertls episode "Turtles and Thomas" where Thomas' passengers come up with a safe way for turtles to cross the tracks. This event is referenced by Toby in the Enterprising Engines episode, so I can say those events still happened in a similar way (but maybe without Rodney, The Fat Controller's clever and reserved assistant). A lot of turtles ertls episodes have been archived on Youtube so you can check it out if you never had the chance to see the original.
turtles had been inspired by an article he had found where passengers in Japan had come up with a similar solution to help turtles safely cross high speed train lines. We had planned to commission Headmaster Hastings to compose a cover of "Happy Together" that turtles could use in a season 4/5 music video as well as Shell on Wheels. I ended up seeing that commission through to the end to see Shell on Wheels as an Enterprising Engines episode (per turtles' encouragement. He could tell that the story was very personal and it would more fitting if I produced it).
I also realize I got my dates wrong. I thought I had started Shell on Wheels in 2021. It was even earlier than that. According to my email correspondence, I sent the final turtles ertls draft December 1st, 2020. I must've started writing it shortly after my dog Watson passed away. That was the main inspiration for the episode and I drew a lot from my memories of having 3 golden retrievers over the course of my life. They were incredible, loyal, loving, crazy friends.
Now some goodies! Attached to this post are 2 versions of the script. The very first version that was submitted to turtles ertls on December 1st, 2020, and then the final version from October 2024. Thomas' storyline materialized very gradually. SodorsNWRsteam was messaged on 3 occasions with me saying "last time, I promise!" He's a real one for putting up with that.
Shell on Wheels wasn't the only story that drew from some personal experience with dog ownership and Watson's passing. theburiedtruck was kind of enough to write "Mike's Dog Days" for me to adapt as a token of kindness.
Mike's Dog Day's: