Thomas

Thomas is a little blue tank engine who works on the North Western Railway. He formerly worked as the station pilot at the big station, but dreamed to leave his yard to go out and see the world. After helping to rescue James from a nasty accident, Thomas was rewarded with two new coaches, Annie and Clarabel, and was given the responsibility of running the Ffarquhar Branch Line, where he works on to this day, and finally saw the world.

Bio
Thomas is described as being a cheeky engine. He often gets into scrapes, usually by being over-eager to do things best left to bigger and more sensible engines. But clouds never last long in Thomas' life and he is soon bustling about again, playing his part in the yard and on his very own branch line, of which he is extremely proud.

Basis
Thomas is based on a London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) Class E2 0-6-0T, particularly the second batch of locomotives built with extended side-tanks. These engines were built by Brighton Works between 1913-1916 to replace the ageing Stroudley LB&SCR E1 class and were primarily used for heavy shunting and short-distance goods trains in the London area and on the south coast. During their final working years, the E2 class worked as shunting engines at Southampton Docks alongside the USATC S100 Tank Engines (Rosie's basis), until they were replaced by the BR Class 07 diesel shunters (Salty's basis). All of the E2s were scrapped, with none surviving into preservation (except for Thomas).

Thomas has several major differences from the original E2 class. He is much shorter in length than his original basis (making his water tanks shorter as well), he has two extra windows on the sides of his cab, he does not have the ladders near his front buffer beam, his bunker is notably longer and he has wheel splashers, something the original E2 class lacked. In the early volumes of the Railway Series and the television series, Thomas' footplate is dipped at the front, but oddly enough is not dipped at the back. In Branch Line Engines, his footplate was levelled out from smokebox to bunker. Reginald Payne also illustrated Thomas without the additional cab side window and also gave him a southern railway-style smokebox saddle and lowered his front bufferbeam. These features were removed when C. Reginald Dalby re-illustrated the book.

Timothy is also based on an LB&SCR Class E2 and has the same modifications as Thomas

Appearances

 * The Beginning
 * The Diesel Club