Brake Vans (narrow gauge)

Several narrow gauge brake vans have been seen on the Mid Sodor and Skarloey Railways in Thomas & Friends. They are commonly referred to as guard's vans.

These brake vans have ticket windows on both sides. They are mainly used to carry the guard or workmen, but on rare occasions when the coaches are full, the guard will allow the passengers to travel in the brake van.

Talyllyn Railway's No. 6 guard's van
These brake vans are commonly seen on the back of passenger, goods and maintenance trains. They have been seen on the Mid Sodor and Skarloey Railways.

In the television series, they serve as Sodor's main type of narrow gauge brake van.

The Railway Series
Cora, a tool van, served as Stuart's guard van on the Mid Sodor Railway. Following the railway's closure, she was purchased by the Thin Controller. She was used as a guard's van whenever Beatrice was unavailable, though she eventually returned to her original use after Millicent's arrival in 1955.

Thomas & Friends
Skarloey used one of these brake vans to transport a group of rescuers intending to find Duke, who had been trapped in his shed for many years.

When Rheneas was travelling home with a full train in bad weather, the train was so full that the guard allowed passengers in his van.

When Duncan was asked to take an elephant statue to a Elephant Park, he and his driver carelessly left behind the brake van. Duncan soon found himself running out of control and derailing at the park.

Sir Topham and Lady Hatt once boarded Skarloey's brake van to the grand opening of Rumblin Bridge, after their hot air balloon ran out of fuel and crashed into a tree.

Personality
Cora is the only known sentient brake van of this design in the Railway Series.

Cora the Tool Van:

Basis
These brake vans are based on the Talyllyn Railway's No. 6 tool van. In the television series, they have added ticket windows similar to the No. 5 guard's van, however these ticket windows are added on both sides.

Livery
In the Railway Series, Cora is painted blue with the letters "SR" painted on her sides in white. In the television series, the brake vans have been painted in various colours, such as sky blue, red, brown and grey. Since the sixteenth series, only brown brake vans have appeared.

Appearances
Television Series= {{Scroll box|

Thomas & Friends

 * Series 4 - Granpuff, Sleeping Beauty, Bulldog, You Can't Win, Four Little Engines, A Bad Day for Sir Handel, Peter Sam and the Refreshment Lady, Trucks, Home at Last, Rock 'n' Roll, Special Funnel, Steam Roller, Passengers and Polish, Gallant Old Engine, Rusty to the Rescue, Thomas and Stepney and Fish
 * Series 6 - Rusty Saves the Day and Faulty Whistles
 * Series 7 - The Old Bridge, The Refreshment Lady's Tea Shop, Rheneas and the Roller Coaster, The Runaway Elephant, The Grand Opening and Trusty Rusty
 * Series 9 - Mighty Mac and Rheneas and the Dinosaur
 * Series 10 - Which Way Now? and Missing Trucks
 * Series 11 - Thomas and the Big Bang and Cool Truckings
 * Series 16 - Don't Bother Victor! and The Christmas Tree Express
 * Series 17 - Luke's New Friend and The Switch
 * Series 18 - Duncan and the Grumpy Passenger, Duncan the Humbug, Emily Saves the World and Millie and the Volcano
 * Series 19 - Snow Place Like Home
 * Series 20 - Henry Gets the Express, Bradford the Brake Van, Saving Time, Tit for Tat, Engine of the Future and The Missing Breakdown Train
 * Series 21 - Runaway Engine
 * Series 22 - The Case of the Puzzling Parts and Counting on Nia
 * Series 23 - Steam Team to the Rescue and Diesel Glows Away
 * Series 24 - The Great Little Railway Show and Nia and the Unfriendly Elephant

Specials
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 * 2008 - The Great Discovery
 * 2012 - Blue Mountain Mystery
 * 2013 - King of the Railway
 * 2018 - Big World! Big Adventures!

Trivia

 * In the Railway Series, Cora is the only van of this design.
 * Since the sixteenth series, the brake vans became slightly smaller.
 * In the model series, all brake vans were run facing backwards with the ticket windows facing away from the train/coaches, but in the CGI series, they were running the correct way.
 * A blue small scale model, a red small scale model and a grey large scale model of the narrow gauge brake van is in the possession of Twitter user ThomasTankMerch.
 * The 2022 Bachmann catalog features a photoshpped edit of the red and blue brake vans as CGI models.

Merchandise

 * TrackMaster
 * Bachmann Coming soon

Talyllyn Railway's No.5 guard's van
These brake vans are narrow gauge brake vans. They have been seen on the Mid Sodor, Skarloey and Talyllyn Railways.

The Railway Series
Beatrice is the original guard's van serving the Skarloey Railway. She is looked down by the coaches and is often described as smelling of "fish and cheese". Beatrice is, however, very useful. She has a ticket booth and an emergency buzzer and sometimes even carries passengers when the coaches are full.

Thomas & Friends
These brake vans have been seen at the Blue Mountain Quarry behind trucks carrying stone and slate. Skarloey would be once seen pulling this brake van with two passenger coaches.

Personality
Beatrice is the only known sentient brake van of this design in the Railway Series.

Beatrice the Guard's Van:

Basis
These brake vans are based on the Talyllyn Railway's No.5 guard's van. Due to legal restriction, the van only has a ticket window and a door on one side.

Livery
In the Railway Series, Beatrice is painted entirely blue. In the television series, these brake vans are painted red and brown in the same livery as their real Talyllyn Railway counterpart.

A Mid Sodor Railway brake van of this design was painted light blue.

Appearances
Television Series=

Thomas & Friends

 * Series 16 - Don't Bother Victor!

Specials

 * 2012 - Blue Mountain Mystery

Trivia

 * In the Railway Series illustrations, Beatrice is the only van of this design.
 * An OO9 scale model of this brake van was featured on Wilbert Awdry's layout of the Mid Sodor Railway. The model was donated by Awdry and put on display at the Reverend Teddy Boston's Cadeby Light Railway in Cadeby, Leicestershire, before the railway finally closed in 2005.

Padarn Railway Brake Vans
These brake vans are seen at the Blue Mountain Quarry.

Thomas & Friends
One of these brake vans was seen on a standard gauge host truck, a special type of wagon used to carry narrow gauge rolling stock over standard gauge track. When the host truck is carrying a guard's van, it has often been used as the first or last wagon of a train.

Basis
These brake vans are based on the ones used on the Padarn Railway, a slate carrying line. A real life example can be found at the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum at the Talyllyn Railway.

Livery
The Padarn Railway brake van is painted dark red with light red frames.

Appearances
Television Series=

Specials

 * 2012 - Blue Mountain Mystery

Mid Sodor Railway Brake Vans
Some brake vans were used on the Mid Sodor Railway in the Railway Series.

The brake van was a part of the goods train nicknamed as "The Horse and Cart".

A passenger guards van was seen in the story You Can't Win.￼

Basis
The OO9 scale models was kit-built by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry for his the Mid Sodor Railway layout. One of these was based on the Talyllyn Railway's No.5 guard's van..

Livery
These guards vans were painted light blue.

Appearances
The Railway Series=

The Railway Series

 * Duke the Lost Engine - You Can't Win

Trivia

 * The model was put on display at the Reverend Teddy Boston's Cadeby Light Railway in Cadeby, Leicestershire, before the railway finally closed in 2005.