Exclusive: Mr. Perkins to explore railways in new DVDs

Watch with Mr. Perkins is to be continued after the next DVD, Santa's Little Engine in the US, Roll Along Thomas can confirm.

The interactive segments, which serve as fillers in-between episodes on the current UK and US DVDs, will mark their 20th appearance on the October release. Splish, Splash, Splosh! was the first to include Perkins.

Set in the Engine Drivers Commonroom, the 13 new sketches will move from studio to location settings across several of the United Kingdom's railways.

Speaking to Roll Along Thomas, Lighting Cameraman, Ben Jones, revealed more on the interactive series' new beginning; [We] went out on location filming on the South Tyndale Railway and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

We filmed on the platform around the signal box and even did a few shots on one of the steam trains. As a small bit of trivia, we filmed one sequence where Mr. Perkins drives away from the station, waving to the camera.

It looks like the camera is on a bridge and the train is about to pass under it, however, its actually at the end of the line and so the train had to stop as soon as it left the bottom of frame. These were for Nickelodeon [Jr.] in the US.

Alston Station is lovely, it's well worth a day out if you're ever up near that way. Over two blocks of filming, we filmed 13 'documentary' style shorts with Perkins explaining the various aspects of train travel and life on the rails.

Jones also talked about producers, Scruffy Dog Media; I've been lucky to work with Scruffy Dog on a number of projects. [They] have filmed two more blocks of Perkins on location as I have been in Ireland on a childrens animation.

Thanks to Hawk01.