‘Thomas the Tank’ director

David Mitton, 69, a director and screenwriter who adapted children’s favorite “Thomas the Tank Engine” for television, died May 23 in London, a week after suffering a heart attack.

Mitton spent a week on life support, said Michele Fabian-Jones of Mitton’s production company, Pineapple Squared Entertainment.

In 1984, Mitton directed a pilot for a show based on the Rev. Wilbert Vere Awdry’s stories about Thomas, a plucky blue train engine, and his locomotive friends. The show became an international hit and later a marketing phenomenon, with a string of spinoff toys and other merchandise.

Mitton went on to direct more than 180 episodes of “Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends” and wrote many of them. He was a consultant on the 2000 spinoff feature film “Thomas and the Magic Railroad,” narrated by actor Alec Baldwin.

Mitton served in the Royal Air Force before starting a career in children’s television in the early 1960s.