Didi Conn Remembers Working with Ringo (2025)

 Didi Conn Remembers Working with Ringo Starr on Shining Times Station

By Victoria Edel 

People Magazine

October 28, 2025

Didi Conn, Ringo Starr, and George Carlin were an indelible part of millions of kids’ childhoods, even if it’s not exactly what they’re best known for. 

Conn, Starr, and Carlin all appeared on Shining Time Station, the American spin-off of Britain’s Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, which was based on The Railway Series by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry. Shining Time Station combined Thomas the Tank Engine stories with real-life actors. It ran on PBS from 1989 to 1993, with multiple hour-long specials airing until 1995. 

Starr, 85, had served as narrator of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, and in Shining Time Station, he appeared on-camera as Mr. Conductor for season one. He left the series after that season to focus on music and was replaced by legendary comedian George Carlin as Mr. Conductor, officially a cousin of Starr’s characters. Both Mr. Conductors were just 20 centimeters tall. 

Conn, meanwhile, played Stacy Jones, the station manager, for all three seasons of the series, and the 74-year-old actress recently opened up to PEOPLE about working on the show and its legacy.  

“It's really funny,” she said. Her son was born in 1992 and was 'a baby' when she was doing the show. “He's 33 now. So all the time I'll see a guy who's that age of my son, and he goes, ‘Were you Stacy?’ ” she said. “And they become this little boy again, and how much they loved Thomas.” The veteran actress joked that she’s “waiting” for one of those grown-up fans to “run a studio” now and cast her in a role. 

As for Starr and Carlin, because of their characters' small size, the actors mostly worked in front of a blue screen. But that didn’t mean they didn’t spend time with their costars.

“Ringo was such an old hippie. He wanted us there,” Conn said. “He'd be hanging out in his trailer with the door open, listening to the oldies station.” The former Beatle and his wife Barbara Bach, she said, were “really nice.” She added that Carlin, too, and his wife Brenda, were also “really nice.” Carlin died in 2008 at age 71 from heart failure. Starr was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 1989 for his work on Shining Time Station.