page_title: Toby the Tram Engine
section_title: Prototype and back-story
hierarchical_section_title: Toby the Tram Engine / Prototype and back-story
caption_attribution_description: Wisbech and Upwell Tramway Class J70 locomotive number 68225 running without sideplates.
context_page_description: Toby the Tram Engine is a fictional anthropomorphic tram engine in The Railway Series by the Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry and his son, Christopher; he also appears in the spin-off television series Thomas & Friends. Toby, a tram engine with cowcatchers and sideplates, carries the North Western Railway running number seven and works on the same Ffarquhar Branch Line as Thomas the Tank Engine.
  Toby first appeared in the seventh book in The Railway Series, Toby the Tram Engine in 1952, and appeared in several subsequent books. The second book focused on Toby was the sixth of Christopher Awdry's books, Toby, Trucks and Trouble.
context_section_description: Toby is based on a J70 tram engine from the Great Eastern Railway (GER Class C53). His cowcatchers and sideplates allow him to run on roadside tramways, which other engines are not allowed to do for safety reasons. J70s were used for light duties, such as branch line work and dock shunting.
  Many J70s could be found working on the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway in East Anglia only 28 miles (46 km) from Rev. W. Awdry's parish at Elsworth in Cambridgeshire in the same diocese.  Rev. W. Awdry wrote about Toby the Tram Engine in 1952, shortly before he was transferred to Emneth parish. The Tramway ran from Wisbech, through Emneth – the next station on the line – then through Outwell and Upwell. This area and its line was well known to Rev. W. Awdry who often visited Ely nearby. The Tramway was primarily used for the transportation of fruit and other farm produce to the main line at Wisbech. The line closed to passengers in 1927, but freight services continued until lorries and road transport boomed in the 1950s. In 1952, the steam tram engines were replaced by diesel Drewry Shunters (the BR Class 04). Inspiration for Toby came from the Awdrys watching a J70 – probably 68221, one of three J70s built in 1914 (as GER 127) – at Great Yarmouth in 1951. Further inspiration was drawn soon after when the Rev. 'Teddy' Boston, then curate at Wisbech, arranged for Awdry to ride on the footplate of one of the last surviving steam tram engines on the Tramway. Fascinated by the unusual engines, Awdry sought a way to incorporate them in the stories. Research by Awdry's brother, George, revealed that tramway regulations required the fitting of cowcatchers and sideplates for railway locomotives running on tracks alongside roads, and the story "Thomas in Trouble" (published in 1952, the year steam trams were replaced) evolved to provide a reason for Toby being summoned to Sodor. The story includes a description of Toby's final journeys on the line:
  People come to see Toby, but they come by bus...The months passed. Toby had few trucks, and fewer passengers...That day [Toby's last] Henrietta had more passengers than she could manage. They rode in the trucks and crowded in the brake van.
  — Rev. W. Awdry, "Toby and the Stout Gentleman", in Toby the Tram Engine.
  This was a common occurrence during the closing of real railway lines; demand decreased to an unprofitable amount, but services were often full for the last workings of steam.
  On Awdry's model railway, Toby was represented by a Y6, an 0-4-0 locomotive similar to but smaller than the J70 and better suited to the 4-wheel motor bogie available to power the model. In 1961, Awdry wrote an article for Railway Modeller magazine on the construction of this locomotive.
  Christopher Awdry has said that Toby is his favourite character, partly because he was there when his father received the inspiration to create him, but also because as a child he had travelled in the cab of two J70s.
  Rev. W, Awdry served as parish priest in two parishes in Cambridgeshire, the county associated with Toby the Tram Engine. First, he was Rector of Elsworth with Knapwell from 1946 to 1953, then he was Vicar of Emneth from 1953 until 1965 when he retired from full-time ministry and moved to Stroud, Gloucestershire.
caption: A Class J70 steam tram on the Wisbech and Upwell Tramway, early 1950s.
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