Gertrude and Millicent/Behind the Scenes

The Railway Series
Gertrude and Millicent are fictional narrow gauge coaches created by the Rev. W. Awdry. Millicent is distinctly distinguishable, as she is depicted with a guard's compartment, ticket window and duckets. Gertrude and Millicent have only been depicted with faces in illustrations by Edgar Hodges.

They first appeared in The Railway Series book, The Little Old Engine, which was published in 1959. Their last appearance was in New Little Engine, published in 1996.

Illustrations of Gertrude and Millicent:

Television Series
Gertrude and Millicent were not introduced in Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. Their roles in the television adaption of Home at Last were omitted and they were replaced by two blue coaches and a blue brake van in Special Funnel.

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 in the English dubs. 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. This could be the reason why Gertrude and Millicent never appeared in the television series. Britt Allcroft, the producer of the television series, claimed that gender issues were irrelevant.

There were however 4-wheeled narrow gauge coaches with a similar paint scheme to Gertrude and Millicent which were introduced in the fourth series. Though these coaches were smaller and had a different basis.