Sam Wilkinson is the current railway consultant for Thomas and Friends under contract by HiT Entertainment since 2012.
He was responsible for several things:
- He requested that headlamps be permanently added to all engines.
- Re-inserted the conversation dialogue about Henry's special coal issue in the final script of King of the Railway, which was originally omitted by head writer Andrew Brenner in later drafts prior to this.
- He added the references to several past episodes in the script for episodes like Emily Saves the World.
- As of The Adventure Begins, Sam was responsible for bringing back the red lining on Thomas' coal bunker; it had not been present since the third season episode, Trust Thomas, 24 years prior.
- In the aforementioned special, Sam was also responsible for including Glynn the Coffee Pot Engine, bringing the coffee pot engines into the television series.
- In 2014, Sam made a revised television series map of the Island of Sodor.
- In 2015, Sam was majorly involved with the rewrite of The Thomas the Tank Engine Man (originally published by Heinemann in October 1995) along with its author Brian Sibley to celebrate the 70th anniversary of The Railway Series.
He is also the director of The Star Tugs Company Limited, which works to preserve the models from Thomas and Friends' sister show, TUGS.