Thomas

Thomas is a tank engine. He came to Sodor in 1915 as a station pilot at Vicarstown until 1923, at which time he was transferred to Wellsworth following an incident with some trucks. Later that year, after rescuing James from his

crash, he was given charge of the Knapford-Ffarquhar branch line and two coaches named Annie and Clarabel.

Bio in the Shorts
Thomas is completely forgotten his branchline.

Persona
Thomas is a rather cheeky, but good hearted engine and generally behaves well, except when he is getting into mishap. He loves teasing the others and, on occasion, brags about his superiority, but is always brought down to earth in due course. If Thomas has one major character flaw, it is that he is forgetful, and slightly impatient. However, he is also optimistic and idealistic.

Although their friendship has been turbulent at times, Percy is generally portrayed as Thomas' best friend, especially in the television series.

Basis
Thomas is based on the Billington E2-Class 0-6-0T locomotives built for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway between 1913 and 1916. He is apparently one of the last batch built as only these engines featured his distinctive extended side-tanks, projecting forward over the leading wheels and little down sweeps at each end of the footplate. The E2s were introduced in 1915 to replace earlier members of the E1 class, which had been scrapped. The last five in the ten strong class had extended side tanks to give a greater water capacity, but all engines had two inside cylinders and driving wheels 4'6" in diameter.

After many years of service, all of the Billington E2s, both original and modified, spent their last working years at Southampton Docks and they were all scrapped by 1963, the very last pair being Nos 31204 and 31209, the latter being amongst the last batch. There is, however, a campaign with the aim to build a new E2, and number it 110.

Thomas has a slight modification of having wheel splashers over his front wheels whereas the original E2s did not.

To much Thomas?
While he may seem innocent enough, poor Thomas created a fair bit of trouble for Christopher Awdry and Egmont Books, publishers of the Railway Series, when the latter started asking for more books about the happy little tank engine. Granted, Thomas was the most popular character in the original Railway Series books, but Egmont went too far and thus the problem continues. With the advent of the television series, Egmont started asking for more Thomas and to this day Thomas has eight Railway Series volumes under his undercarriage. Two of the titles actually have very little to do with Thomas - Thomas Comes Home focuses on the adventures of the branch line engines during Thomas' visit to York, while Thomas and the Fat Controller's Engines only featured one story about Thomas, although he did appear in two of the other three stories. As a result of Thomas' fame, classic characters like Oliver and Bear have become largely neglected.

Appearances
Season 1 (shorts) : The truth about The Steam Team