Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Jemima and Beatrice/Behind the Scenes

The Railway Series
Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Jemima and Beatrice are fictional narrow gauge rolling stock created by the Rev. W. Awdry. Agnes, Ruth, Lucy and Jemima are coaches, while Beatrice is a brake van. They belong to the Skarloey Railway. The carriages have only been seen illustrated with faces in Very Old Engines.

They first appeared in The Railway Series book, Four Little Engines, which was published in 1955. Their last appearance was in New Little Engine, published in 1996.

In the early drafts of the history of the Skarloey Railway, Sir Handel Brown (then named Smith) was said to have five daughters, Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Hilda and Beatrice. Their names would be used for the coaches on the Skarloey Railway, with the exception of Jemima who took the place of Hilda.

Illustrations of Agnes, Ruth, Lucy and Jemima:

Television Series
Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Jemima and Beatrice were not introduced in Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. However, several coaches and brake vans resembling them do appear. In 1995, these coaches were introduced in the fourth series of Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. They replaced the roles of Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Jemima and Beatrice within a number of stories from the original books adapted for the television.

The blue narrow gauge coaches share the same basis as Lucy and retain the same colours as in the Railway Series. While the red narrow gauge coaches share the same basis as Agnes, Ruth and Jemima. There were several brake vans resembling Beatrice painted in multiple colours, however they were not depicted with faces. These coaches were only seen with faces in the fourth series.

While all the narrow gauge coaches in The Railway Series were female, any instance of the coaches in the television series being referred to in gender-specific pronouns were removed and omitted. This might have been a result of sexism allegations centred around the fact that the engines were almost invariably male, while the coaches were always female which surfaced in the 1980s. Britt Allcroft, the producer of the television series, claimed that gender issues were irrelevant.

Awdry's models
The Reverend Wilbert Awdry built OO9 scale models of Agnes, Ruth, Lucy, Jemima and Beatrice. These models are now on display at the Narrow Gauge Museum in Tywyn, Wales located near the Talyllyn Railway along with the other Skarloey Railway engines and rolling stock.