When Wilbert was born his mother Lucy Awdry described her newborn son as a "short but (but perfectly formed) baby who had long fingers.

[2][3] All three of Awdry's older half-siblings from his father's first two marriages died young, the youngest being killed in World War I.

He subsequently moved to Cambridgeshire, serving as rector of Elsworth with Knapwell (1946–1950), rural dean at Bourn (1950–1953) and then vicar of Emneth, Norfolk (1953–1965).

[11] The characters that would make Awdry known, and the first stories featuring them, were invented in 1942 to amuse his son Christopher during a bout of measles.

After Awdry wrote The Three Railway Engines, he built Christopher a model of Edward, and some wagons and coaches, out of a wooden broomstick and scraps of wood.

[12] Christopher also wanted a model of Gordon, but the wartime shortage of materials limited Awdry to making a little 0-6-0 tank engine.

The GER Wisbech and Upwell Tramway tram engines, coaches and rolling stock were similar to Toby the Tram Engine and Henrietta and the Ely to King's Lynn mainline with Wisbech East railway station on Victoria Road.

Awdry was a passenger on Alan Pegler's 1968 non-stop Flying Scotsman London King's Cross to Edinburgh run.

Beginning in the 1950s, Awdry began to shift how he wrote the Railway Series and included the real-world element of the conflict between steam and diesel engines.

While that was happening in the real world, in Awdry's fictional universe, he "began more frequently referencing a place known as "The Other Railway", often using it as a foil to his utopian Island of Sodor and treating it akin to a steam engine hell.

During all this, Awdry faced many battles – health problems, depression, and the deaths of his wife, brother, and close friend Teddy Boston.

Five years later, he was interviewed by Nicholas Jones for the Bookmark film The Thomas the Tank Engine Man, which first aired on 25 February 1995 and was repeated again on 15 April 1997, shortly after his death.

Awdry was appointed an OBE in the 1996 New Year's Honours List, but by that time his health had deteriorated and he was unable to travel to London.

In 2003, a stained glass window commissioned by the Awdry family was unveiled at St Edmund's church, Emneth, Norfolk.

[21] In 2015, a CGI representation of Awdry made a cameo appearance in the Thomas & Friends feature-length special Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure.

The character, referred to by his Railway Series alias, 'The Thin Clergyman', made several further appearances including in The Great Race (2016).

A pedestrian rail crossing bridge has been dedicated to Awdry in 2017 in the small Hampshire town of Chandlers Ford, which is very close (and has the closest railway line and station) to his birthplace of Ampfield.

In 2021, to mark the 75th anniversary of Thomas the Tank Engine, a blue plaque was unveiled at the old Rectory of Holy Trinity Church in Elsworth, Cambridgeshire.