Minor Locomotive Characters (T&F)

This page is for the minor locomotive characters who have appeared in Thomas & Friends.

Earnest
Earnest is a broad gauge tender engine who appeared in a portrait in Topham Hall and the Ffarquhar Stationmaster's house.

Basis
Earnest appears to be a Jenny Lind type 2-2-2 locomotive, designed by David Joy. Jenny Lind was the first of the class, built for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway by E.B. Wilson and Company and named after a famous opera singer from the era. The design was so successful that it would later go on to be mass-produced as one of Wilson and Company's standard designs and adopted by a number of other railways in Britain and Portugal, including the Midland Railway. None of these locomotives have been preserved.

Livery
Earnest is painted light brown with a green tender, brass fittings and gold lining.

Appearances
Television Series=

Thomas & Friends

 * Series 1 - Thomas in Trouble
 * Series 2 - Thomas Comes to Breakfast
 * -|Other Media=

Books

 * 1984 - Toby and the Stout Gentleman and Thomas in Trouble
 * 1990 - Thomas in Trouble
 * 1991 - Thomas Comes to Breakfast

Trivia

 * According to a SiF interview, the portrait of Earnest was illustrated by Robert Gauld-Galliers and was described as a "made-up character" in the Victorian era to match the various other human portraits featured throughout the series. The portrait was roughly 80 x 60 mm.
 * In 2017, Robert Gauld-Galliers confirmed that at the time of production Earnest was not named and suggested he would be named Earnest.
 * Earnest is the first engine in the television series to have a moustache and is the third overall.

Percy's Ghost Engine
This Ghost Engine was mentioned in a ghost story Percy told to Thomas and Toby, which his driver told him about the night prior. The story stated that the ghost steam train fell to its doom in a ravine where a viaduct was going to be built, and its ghost continues to run every year on the anniversary of the accident as a warning to others. However, Thomas refused to believe him and Percy's driver confirmed to him that the ghost was just television fiction. Percy could not help but feel disappointed.

When Percy crashed into a cart of lime, a signalman remarked that Percy looked like a ghost. This gave Percy an idea to scare Thomas. With the help of Toby, they convinced Thomas that Percy had crashed and returned as a ghost, thus scaring Thomas out of the shed. Later, Toby jokingly told Percy that Thomas had seen a ghost.

Appearances

 * -|Television Series=

Thomas & Friends

 * Series 2 - Ghost Train
 * Series 3 - Thomas, Percy and the Dragon

Music Videos

 * Series 6 - Boo! Boo! Choo-Choo
 * -|Other Media=

Books

 * 1994 - Thomas, Percy and the Dragon

Magazine Stories

 * 1988 - Ghost Train and Percy's Night Out
 * 1998 - Runaway Percy! and Thomas, Percy and the Dragon!

Whistle
Percy's Ghost Engine reuses Edward's whistle.

Trivia

 * The Ghost Engine was made using Percy's model covered in white streamers.
 * In the UK narration of the episode, Percy's driver says the ghost was a pretend one on television. However, in both US narrations, he simply states that it was only a "pretend ghost story".

Edward's Ghost Engine
Edward's Ghost Engine was mentioned in a story Edward told the other engines one Halloween. According to the story, the engine returns every Halloween to haunt the scrapyards, trying to look for his lost whistle. Thomas later teased Percy, saying Percy thought it was real, but he learned his lesson after remaining behind at the Smelters to take a special load and thinking that some chains touching his cab were ghostly fingers. He then believed that a whistle in the shed was the ghost's lost whistle, forcing him to race out of the smelters, frightened.

Basis
The Ghost Engine is based on a Caledonian Railway (CR) McIntosh 812 Class 0-6-0 goods engine. Donald and Douglas are other members of this class.

Appearances
Television Series=

Thomas & Friends

 * Series 6 - Scaredy Engines

Music Videos
Other Media=
 * Series 6 - Boo! Boo! Choo-Choo

Books

 * 2007 - Thomas and the Ghost Engine
 * 2011 - Thomas and the Ghost Engine

Trivia

 * The Ghost Engine uses a cast of Donald or Douglas' model without the tender and nameplates. It also wears one of the twins' surprised faces.

The Halloween Engine
The Halloween Engine is a ghostly tender engine.

Basis
The Halloween Engine is an amalgamation of various parts. Its boiler and cab come off of an LNER A1/A3 Pacific, while its cylinders, wheels and frames are from a BR Standard Class 9F. Its tender is an LNER 4200 gallon "Group Standard" tender.

Appearances
Television Series=

Thomas & Friends

 * Series 8 - Halloween
 * -|Other Media=

Magazine stories

 * 2005 - Thomas' Hallowe'en

Trivia

 * The Halloween Engine was made using a cast of Gordon's model with Murdoch's chassis and one of the old tenders with an added tail-lamp.

Emily's Ghost Engine
Emily's Ghost Engine is an engine that once appeared in Emily's dream, it only appeared in the magazine story Peep and Sleep, in which Emily is having trouble sleeping, due to Duck blowing his whistle too loudly. One night Emily has a dream, in which the ghost engine makes her fall asleep for 100 years. Following this, Emily decides she won't sleep the next night, until the other engines arrive at the sheds first.

Basis
The engine appears to be a freelance design.

Livery
The engine appears as a ghostly apparition, resembling a cloud.

Hiro's Friends
Hiro's friends are engines who live and work on a Japanese railway owned by Sir Takaboushi Hideki on Hiro's homeland. They referred to Hiro as "Master of the Railway".

Hiro first mentioned them as his "best friends at home" when he first met Percy during his restoration. Hiro later remembers his old friends when he is homesick in a magazine story.

Appearances
Television Series=

Specials

 * 2009 - Hero of the Rails
 * -|Other Media=

Magazine stories

 * 2012 - Making Hiro Happy

The Log Engine
"We know a guy who was built to run on logs!"

- Lexi, Journey Beyond Sodor

According to Lexi, she and Theo once knew of a locomotive that was built with a type of log wheels.

Basis
The engine is a freelance design.

Appearances
Television Series=

Specials

 * 2017 - Journey Beyond Sodor

Music Videos

 * Journey Beyond Sodor - We Can't Do Anything

Trivia

 * It is quite possible this engine's appearance was misinterpreted as it literally running on logs as its wheels, and it may have originally been intended to be one of two things:
 * A locomotive built to run on a pole road, a type of track laid with logs instead of steel rails, on which specialised locomotives ran.
 * A locomotive which burns logs as fuel, similar to Bash, Dash and Ferdinand.

Dockyard Engines
There are two dockyard engines who work by the harbour in New York City.

Great Race Friends Near and Far
When Vinnie arrived back to America after The Great Railway Show, the dockyard engines shunted some trucks for him to pull to the Big City. However, Vinnie started bragging that he could pull more. Because of this, they then added on more trucks to the point that Vinnie could not pull the train.

Basis
The dockyard engines are based on the H.K. Porter 0-6-0ST, built in Butler, Pennsylvania, north of Pittsburgh. These mainly worked in the dockyards on the east coast of the United States. The Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal Railroad, which served the dockyards in Brooklyn, New York, owned several examples of the dockyard engines' design, all of which were retired after the railroad started using diesel locomotives in 1963. One of these, B.E.D.T. 15, was rebuilt into an operating replica of Thomas by the Strasburg Railroad in 1998 for use during Days Out with Thomas events throughout the USA. Another engine, 14, is preserved at the Ulster & Delaware Railroad Historical Society in Arkville, New York.

Porter is also based on this type of locomotive.

Livery
The dockyard engines' livery is viridian with yellow stripes, lining and brass fittings. They have a gold star on each side of their lamp and red window frames. Although these tank engines are of American design, all American locomotives have cowcatchers instead of buffers.

Appearances
Television Series=

Videos

 * Great Race Friends Near and Far - Vinnie is Back in America

The Swiss Tank Engines
The Swiss Tank Engines are two tank engines who Yong Bao met while in Switzerland.

Great Race Friends Near and Far
The Swiss Tank Engines were afraid to go into a tunnel because they believed a monster was inside and they also heard strange noises coming from the tunnel. Yong Bao journeyed into the tunnel to reveal that it was only a goat.

Basis
The Swiss Tank Engines are based upon the Polish PKP 0-8-0T TKp No. 5485, but with minor modifications. This locomotive was built in 1959 and was used at a coal mine railway in Bytlom, Poland until the mine was shut down in 1995. It was sold to the Nene Valley Railway in Peterborough where it has operated in excursion service, undergoing an overhaul at the Flour Millworks in Gloucestershire between 2012 and 2019.

Livery
The Swiss Tank Engines are painted dark green with red running boards and buffer beams and black wheels.

Appearances
Television Series=

Videos

 * Great Race Friends Near and Far - Yong Bao and the Monster in the Tunnel

Trivia

 * At one point during the video, one of the engines gains eyelashes.

The Russian Engines
The Russian Engines are two steam engines that Ivan met while travelling home to Russia.

Great Race Friends Near and Far
Ivan found the tank engine stuck on the line while returning home from the Great Railway Show. The tank engine revealed that the coal delivery had been late, so he had run out of coal. Ivan, fortunately, had a full tank of diesel fuel and offered to pull him to the next station. On the way to the station, Ivan came across the tender engine, who had also run out of fuel, with a train full of freezing passengers. By now, Ivan's tank was half full, but he offered to push the tender engine and his train. Despite the tender engine's reservations, with great effort, Ivan was able to take the engines to the station.

Upon reaching the station, Ivan left the engines at the platform and went to the nearby depot to fetch some coal for them. The engines were very thankful, however, when Ivan tried to move he found out he had used up all his fuel. The tank engine then offered to take Ivan to the nearest diesel depot to refuel. There, Ivan said that steam and diesel engines could always help each other.

Basis
The tender engine is based on the C Series 2-6-2, while the tank engine is based on the 9P Series 0-6-0T. A single C Series, C68, is preserved by the Russian Railway Museum in Saint Petersburg, while numerous 9Ps are preserved across the former Soviet Union.

Livery
The tank engine is painted black with red wheels and lining. The tender engine is painted green with gold lining, red wheels and white rims.

Appearances
Television Series=

Videos

 * Great Race Friends Near and Far - Ivan's Chilly Way Home

The Crowd Engines
The Crowd Engines are a pair of engines which feature in the background when Diesel is imagining a statue of himself as a super hero being unveiled.

Basis
As the duo are recolours of Ryan and Paxton, they are based on a Great Northern Railway (GNR) Class N2 and a British Rail (BR) Class 08 diesel-electric shunter respectively. Due to the video they feature in being stylised with graphics based on the Minis range of merchandise, both have significantly squashed proportions and run on four-wheeled chassis.

Liveries
The tank engine is painted brown, while the diesel shunter is painted blue.

Appearances
Other Media=

Videos

 * 2016 - DC Super Friends™ San Diego Comic Con

The Grey Tank Engine
This tank engine appeared in a picture frame alongside Thomas in Thomas' driver's home.

Basis
The engine resembles Thomas and therefore it can be assumed that it is an LB&SCR E2 class. It is also worth noting that the engine has a levelled running board very much like Thomas.

Livery
The engine is painted light grey.

Appearances
Other Media=

Books

 * 1998 - Thomas Goes to School

マイナーな機関車のキャラクター